HKU, NTU Singapore and Tencent Join Forces to Train the Next Generation of AI Talent

A new model for preparing teenagers for an economy being reshaped by artificial intelligence has just completed its first run in Singapore. The HKU Academy for the Talented, a global platform for exceptional secondary school students managed by the Admissions Office of The University of Hong Kong, has announced the successful completion of its inaugural Business and Innovation with Digitalisation summer programme. The five-day intensive, held in collaboration with Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and Tencent WeTech Academy, marked the first time these three institutions have worked together, and it offered a glimpse of how universities and technology companies are rethinking talent development at a moment when AI skills are becoming as fundamental as literacy and numeracy.

The programme was aimed squarely at high-performing students in Years 10 through 13, the final stretch of secondary education when many young people are still deciding what to study and where their careers might lead. Forty participants were selected from ten countries and regions, spanning Mainland China, Southeast and South Asia, Europe, the Americas and Oceania. That geographic spread is notable in itself: rather than drawing only from Hong Kong or Singapore, the organisers assembled a genuinely international cohort, reflecting a growing recognition that the challenges posed by AI-driven digital transformation are global and that the students who will address them need to learn how to collaborate across borders from an early age.

What distinguished the programme from a conventional summer school was its insistence on hands-on, project-based work rather than lectures alone. Over five days, students explored business strategy, design thinking and AI-powered digital transformation through a combination of workshops and a real-world business case project. By the end of the week, participants had used AI coding tools to build comprehensive business models, an achievement the organisers described as a highlight of the immersive learning approach. In an era when agentic AI systems can draft code, analyse markets and generate presentations in seconds, the ability to direct such tools toward a coherent business goal is rapidly becoming a core competency, and the programme treated it as such rather than as an optional add-on.

The collaboration gave students direct exposure to industry-grade technology. Through the partnership with Tencent WeTech Academy, participants gained hands-on experience with WorkBuddy, Tencent’s agentic AI workspace, and applied AI tools to tackle real-world business challenges. Representatives from Tencent also delivered interactive career sharing sessions, offering insights into what working at the frontier of consumer technology actually looks like. This kind of access matters. For most secondary school students, enterprise AI platforms are abstractions encountered only in headlines; using one to structure a business case, under the guidance of the people who build and deploy such systems, converts abstract hype into concrete, testable skill.

Professor Bennett Yim, Director of Undergraduate Admissions and International Student Exchange at HKU and Chairman of the HKU Academy, framed the partnership as proof of concept for a particular style of education. As the first collaboration among the HKU Academy, NTU Singapore and Tencent Singapore, he said, the partnership demonstrates how immersive, collaborative learning can equip students with practical AI skills and the confidence to tackle real business challenges. By combining university expertise with Tencent’s applied digital tools and industry insights, he added, the programme delivered an experience that was both intellectually rigorous and inspiring for a diverse group of talented students, and he expressed gratitude to the partners alongside a commitment to expanding opportunities for emerging talent across the region.

Tencent’s perspective echoed that emphasis on applied learning. Murphy Zhao, Country Manager of Tencent Singapore, described it as a privilege to take part, noting that giving students hands-on experience with applied AI tools against real business challenges is exactly the kind of learning that will prepare them for the future. He signalled that Tencent hopes to continue working with both universities to support emerging talent across the region, drawing on platforms and resources such as WeTech Academy to foster curiosity, creativity and an innovative mindset among young people. For a company whose products reach hundreds of millions of users, investing in the earliest stages of the talent pipeline is both a social contribution and a strategic bet on the workforce of the 2030s.

The academic content drew on the complementary strengths of two of Asia’s leading universities. Professor Joseph Chan of HKU, Associate Director of the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, led sessions on innovation, entrepreneurship, design thinking and career planning, grounding students in the frameworks entrepreneurs use to identify problems and iterate toward solutions. Mr. Francis Tay Kwang Yong of NTU Singapore, an expert in digital transformation and business intelligence, delivered sessions on enterprise challenges, future-readiness, business strategy under uncertainty and sustainable transformation. Together, the two strands addressed a persistent gap in technology education: students often learn to build things without learning to decide what is worth building, or to strategise without the technical fluency to execute. Pairing the two disciplines in a single intensive week is an attempt to close that gap early.

Learning extended well beyond the seminar room. Participants toured the NTU Singapore campus, immersing themselves in the environment of one of Asia’s top universities, and attended an HKU admissions talk outlining higher education pathways at the University of Hong Kong. The programme also featured an alumni conversation with Tiffany Ng, a graduate of HKU Business School now based in Singapore, who traced her journey from consumer hardware to software and on to AI products, offering insights into how AI is expected to reshape the future of media. Her advice to the students was blunt and memorable: do not just say it, build it, because the best time to build was yesterday and the next best time is now. For teenagers weighing whether to wait for permission or credentials before starting, the message landed as a call to action.

The participants themselves reported tangible gains. In feedback shared by the organisers, students said the programme gave them greater clarity about their academic and career pathways, strengthened their confidence in presenting, and sparked a deeper interest in entrepreneurship. They particularly valued the hands-on use of AI tools to analyse business challenges, synthesise information and apply AI effectively, and they appreciated the diverse, supportive community formed through dormitory life and shared activities, which helped them build meaningful connections and translate their ideas into concrete next steps. Those outcomes, though self-reported, align with a substantial body of education research suggesting that project-based, residential programmes can have outsized effects on adolescent motivation and identity formation.

Equity was built into the design rather than treated as an afterthought. A key highlight of the programme was a scholarship opportunity offered jointly by the HKU Academy and Tencent WeTech Academy: selected students with financial need received full scholarships covering all programme expenses. The organisers presented this as a demonstration of both institutions’ commitment to giving young talents equitable access to AI education, an acknowledgment that the benefits of the AI economy risk accruing disproportionately to those who can already afford elite enrichment programmes. Looking ahead, HKU, NTU Singapore and Tencent have said they intend to deepen their collaboration and explore future opportunities to offer more transformative learning experiences for talented students across the region. The HKU Academy for the Talented, established in 2011 and directly managed by the HKU Admissions Office, has long offered exclusive academic programmes for exceptional secondary students worldwide, while Tencent WeTech Academy operates as a talent development platform integrating education, research and competition. If the inaugural edition is any indication, the intersection of those two missions, university selection expertise and industrial-scale AI resources, may become an increasingly common template for how the next generation learns to work with intelligent machines.

Subject of Research: AI and digital transformation education for gifted secondary school students through a HKU, NTU Singapore and Tencent partnership

Article Title: HKU and Tencent partner to develop global youth talent in AI through the “Business and Innovation with Digitalisation” summer program

Article References: HKU and Tencent partner to develop global youth talent in AI through the “Business and Innovation with Digitalisation” summer program. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: artificial intelligence, HKU Academy for the Talented, Nanyang Technological University, Tencent WeTech Academy, digital transformation, youth talent development, design thinking, entrepreneurship education, agentic AI, summer programme, STEM education, Singapore