Dr Liu Qingfeng's Profile
Dr Liu Qingfeng is the founder and CEO of his company, iFLYTEK, which is a forerunner in the national languages industry and an industry leader for intelligent speech engines and the artificial intelligence industry in China. He is also engaged in many other roles, including part-time professor at his alma mater, supervisor of doctoral students, the Co-Director General of the Artificial Intelligence Industry-University-Research-Innovation Alliance of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Director of the National Engineering Laboratory for Speech and Language Information Processing, a member of the Standing Committee of All-China Youth Federation, and member of the 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th National People’s Congress. His outstanding achievements in technological innovation and production have won him numerous awards, such as a China Youth Five Four Medal, CCTV Chinese Annual Economic Figures 2013, and Top Ten Economic Personages of China 2017.
A Citation for Honorary Fellow Dr Liu Qingfeng
Dr Liu Qingfeng, a graduate of the University of Science and Technology of China majoring in Signal and Information Processing, was a very enterprising person even when he was young. In 1999, while he was pursuing his doctoral degree, he founded a company called iFLYTEK Co. Ltd with a group of more than 10 of his fellow students. Serving as the Chief Executive Officer of the company, Dr Liu took the lead of the company.
In 2008, iFLYTEK was successfully listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and became the first public company of the nation founded by university students. In the following year, Dr Liu took up the position of Board Chairman of iFLYTEK. At the same time, he was engaged in many other different roles, including part-time professor at his alma mater the University of Science and Technology of China, supervisor of doctoral students, the Co-Director General of the Artificial Intelligence Industry-University-Research-Innovation Alliance of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Director of the National Engineering Laboratory for Speech and Language Information Processing, member of the Standing Committee of All-China Youth Federation, and member of the 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th National People’s Congress. His outstanding achievements in technological innovation and production have won him numerous awards, such as a China Youth Five Four Medal, CCTV Chinese Annual Economic Figures 2013, and Top Ten Economic Personages of China 2017, just to name a few.
iFLYTEK is a forerunner in the national languages industry and an industry leader for intelligent speech engines and the artificial intelligence industry in China. By owning the intellectual property rights in world-leading technology in intelligent speech engines, iFLYTEK turned around the world market situation in Chinese speech engines, which was previously almost completely monopolized by foreign IT firms, to become the world’s second largest intelligent speech engine company. In 2017, the company won seven international top awards in the area of artificial intelligence core technologies, among them, the Best of the World for 12 years in a row in the international highest standard speeches synthesis competition. It was also ranked by ‘MIT Technology Review’ as number 6 in the world’s Top 50 Smartest Companies and number 1 in China. Under the leadership of Dr Liu, iFLYTEK by means of its “iFLYTEK Super Brain” technology, actively participates in and supports the development of various trades and industries including education, medicine, law, smart cities and more through their approach of combining artificial intelligence core technologies, applied data, and field support.
In possession of a comprehensive industry-university-research system and in collaboration with famous universities, local and overseas, in establishing joint laboratories, iFLYTEK leads and takes part in various standard-setting projects, from industry, national and international levels, achieving a total of 260 intellectual rights from around the world. It also took part in the construction of China’s new generation of Intelligent Speech High-Tech Industrialisation Base, cooperating with 520 thousand partners and serving 176 million user accounts. The service volume amounts to 400 million interactions per day.
With such huge success in the industry, iFLYTEK began to roll out a wide range of “AI Charity” activities. With the “AI Charity Plan for Education”, close to 7 million dollars had been donated to children in Tibet, Sichuan, Anhui, He’nan, Yunnan, Shanxi, and other areas. Through the “AI Dialect Protection Plan”, a “Chinese Dialects Bank” was constructed through the iFLYTEK Input system, which helps raise national awareness of protecting the country’s dialects and strengthen public recognition of traditional culture. The “AI Medical Charity Plan” provides medical service to people in poor areas through the artificial intelligence medical online support platform, and works with hospitals to build research centres and laboratories which facilitate machine-assisted learning. In addition, iFLYTEK has established a fund of 102.4 million dollars to protect and support ecosystems, and has another charity project called “Hear Me, See the World” which helps people with disabilities and rare diseases. With its key charity concept of “Empower Technology with Humanity” and its dedication to contribute to society, iFLYTEK has won the “2017 Outstanding Enterprises for Education Charity”, the “2017 Charity Innovation Award” and many other awards.
Mr Chairman, in recognition of Dr Liu Qingfeng’s excellent achievements in the field of intelligent speech engines, the innovative spirit of his staff team to forge ahead despite difficulties, and his own outstanding contributions to the artificial intelligence industries and public charities in China, it is my privilege to present Dr Liu to you for the award of an Honorary Fellowship.
