2025-03-10
From February 27 to March 7, 2025, the Global Leadership Development Base of the UNESCO International Centre for Engineering Education (ICEE) carried out an overseas management-focused global leadership development program in the Middle East. The program was coordinated by Dr. Shen Ye, assistant secretary-general of ICEE and secretary-general of the ICEE Global Leadership Development Base. The expert team included Professor Wei Jie, Professor Xue Lei, and Mr. Chen Shengmin from the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University. A total of 46 managers took part in the program, including Lu Yunpeng, deputy general manager of China Harbor Engineering Company Ltd. (CHEC), Shi Zhongqiang from CHEC’s Human Resources Department, staff from CHEC’s Middle East Regional Management Center and its Saudi joint-stock company, as well as project management teams from CHEC projects in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Egypt.
Shen Ye giving an overview of the global leadership development program
Seminar and exchange activities under the global leadership development program
The program began with a three-day global leadership seminar and exchange activities in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. The project team also conducted field visits to flagship projects aligned with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, including CHEC’s Riyadh Sedra Project and the Jeddah Central District Comprehensive Infrastructure Development Project, which are key ongoing projects of China Harbor in the Middle East. The team then visited the Reem Island No.7&8 Sea-crossing Bridge Project in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, a showcase project under the UAE’s “Towards the Next 50 Years” national development strategy.
Bai Yinzhan, head of the ICEE Global Leadership Development Base and chairman of China Harbor Engineering Company Ltd., stated that, through the implementation of the global leadership program, he hopes to build a “China Harbor Global Leadership Development Model” grounded in an international vision that seeks shared prosperity for all humanity, and to design and put into practice a CHEC-specific, customized “China Harbor Global Leadership Talent Development Program,” to advance the cultivation and growth of international engineering talent in China.
Yuan Si, executive director of ICEE and former vice president of Tsinghua University, noted that the work of the ICEE Global Leadership Development Base integrates “engineering education into engineering practice, capacity-building into project implementation, and regional development into human resource development.” This approach gradually fosters local capabilities for sustainable engineering development, aligning closely with the United Nations' 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. It also serves as a vivid implementation of President XI Jinping’s vision for building a “community with a shared future for mankind.”
The project team visiting the Jeddah Central District Comprehensive Infrastructure Development Project in Saudi Arabia
The project team visiting the construction site of the Reem Island No.7&8 Sea-crossing Bridge Project in Abu Dhabi
The ICEE Global Leadership Development Base was jointly initiated by ICEE and China Harbor Engineering Company Ltd. and was officially inaugurated in December 2021. It is an important outcome of CHEC’s implementation of the strategic cooperation agreement between China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) and Tsinghua University. The base aims to advance engineering education and capacity-building under the framework of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Leveraging CHEC’s major global engineering projects, it seeks to promote cross-regional engineering capacity development and foster a “community with a shared future for mankind” characterized by international engineering collaboration and global leadership.
(Source: International Forum on Engineering Education)
