December 5, 2022

UOW graduates lauded at Australia China Alumni Association Awards

Susan Zhang and Lee Rong receive Judges’ Commendations

University of Wollongong (UOW) alumni Ms Susan Zhang and Dr Lee Rong have been recognised for their career achievements at the recent Australia China Alumni Association (ACAA) Awards.

Ms Zhang received a Judges’ Commendation in the Australian Ambassador's Award for Women in Leadership category, which is designed to celebrate and honour a woman who not only inspires others but has also proven herself a leader in her field. 

Dr Rong received a Judges’ Commendation in the Austrade – Australia China Alumni Award for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, which recognises alumni who have demonstrated their entrepreneurial and innovative abilities.

Two other UOW alumni, Mr Benson Liu and Dr Junnan Hao, were finalists in the 2022 ACAA Awards.

Judges’ Commendation: Susan Zhang

Susan Zhang graduated from UOW with a Bachelor of Computer Science (Software Engineering) in 2010, and with a Master of Communication and Information Technology (Enterprise Networking) in 2011.

From software engineer to senior director, constant change has been a theme of her career. 

After graduating, Zhang worked at a Wollongong-based IT company as a programmer for three years. She also started her own company, Dragon Translating and Interpreting Services, a cultural consultancy helping Australian organisations to set up in China with clients including Australian government departments, city councils and universities.

In 2014, she joined Google’s Sydney office, where she managed the ‘G Suite’ product in the Asia-Pacific region and quickly advanced to the role of Business Development Manager for Google Arts & Culture. Promoted to Google UK as a lead creative technologist, she made an international name for herself delivering innovative data-driven solutions and global award-winning campaigns utilising advanced AI technologies.

In 2018, Zhang returned to China to join startup ByteDance, where she led the internationalisation and corporate development team, guiding the company’s meteoric rise to become the world’s most valuable startup.

In 2020, she moved to London as a partner of Chenguang Capital and participated in leading investments in education, smart logistics and healthcare startups across three continents. 

She recently returned to Sydney, joining Canva, the world's largest female-founded and female-led start-up company, as the product internationalisation director, leading multiple overseas teams to promote the company's creative design platform to every corner of the world.

In 2019, Zhang won the Young Australia China Alumni of the Year Award, and in 2021 she was presented with the UOW Young Alumni Award.

“Always push yourself, nothing is impossible,” she told UOW’s Outlook magazine in 2017.

“Definitely know what you want to do, make a plan, even if it doesn’t work out, you know the options to scratch out of the list but then you can go try different things that I think will ultimately lead you to the goal, so never start small.”
 
Zhang is also a published author, her book Out of the Comfort Zone, is available online in 14 countries.

Judges’ Commendation: Lee Rong

^{Dr Rong received a Judges’ Commendation in the Austrade – Australia China Alumni Award for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, which recognises alumni who have demonstrated their entrepreneurial and innovative abilities.}

Dr Lee Rong, who completed his PhD on distributed multimedia systems at the University of Wollongong, is a global pioneer of information and communication technologies shaping the future of Industry 4.0.

With over 20 years of international experience in ICT and Operational Technology, Dr Rong is one of the world’s leading technical and commercial experts on 5G, cloud computing and Industry 4.0.

He is passionate about the role of advanced technologies in the future of work. In his current role, he is pursuing the potential of robotics, cloud computing, Industrial loT and 5G connectivity to work together to improve manufacturing capabilities and sustainability in the face of an ageing workforce and the impacts of climate change.

Having studied and worked in the field in Australia, France, Japan, and China as well as speaking four languages, Dr Rong has had a global career, which has taken him from academic researcher, to industry expert, and most recently, tech entrepreneur.

Most recently, he joined a new subsidiary of manufacturing giant, Foxconn Industrial Internet (FII), in 2017 as the Co-founder and CMO. This subsidiary, backed with US$90M of investment from the Foxconn group, drove market development of 5G+Industry 4.0 applications within Foxconn.

In 2020 he leapt further to the frontier of Industry 4.0 applications, as Co-founder and CMO of AI-Link Network, to focus on the application of 5G and Edge Computing to support and underpin smart manufacturing. 

In 2020, he was awarded the title of “Industrial Internet Expert” by the Guangdong provincial government, and the prestigious “5G expert” award by the Shenzhen municipal government. Further, in 2021 he was awarded the title of “Expert” by the largest industrial mobile robot alliance CMR “China Mobile Robot and AGV Industry Alliance” in China.

ACAA AWARD finalists

Mr Benson Liu was a finalist in the Award for Corporate Achievement. Since graduating from UOW in 2002 with a master’s degree in management, Liu Jianbin has held important positions in international and domestic human resource service organisations and served as the secretary general of the CHO Institute, the chief Human Resource officer of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, and the director of the CPHR Human Resource Management Association Beijing Branch of Canada. Since 2021, he has served as the managing director of Qingdao Talent Group.

Dr Junnan Hao was a finalist in the Award for Research and Science. Dr Hao graduated from University of Wollongong in 2020, Dr. Junnan Hao is now working at The University of Adelaide as a DECRA fellow. He has already demonstrated an exceptional track record, reflected by the publication of 60 refereed papers in peer-reviewed journals.