MTU student Ena O’Driscoll discusses her trip to China as part of the 2025 cohort of Huawei’s Seeds for the Future programme.
Last month, a group of students based at a variety of Irish universities visited China as part of the 2025 edition of the Huawei Seeds for the Future programme.
As part of the trip, the 10 students spent three days in Dongguan visiting the Huawei Dongguan Training Centre as well as attending ICT courses, before travelling to Shenzhen for a further four days where they visited Huawei HQ, toured a local Chinese tech company and took time to explore and experience the local culture.
The group also got a chance to engage with Seeds participants from other countries, including Laos, Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Guinea, South Korea, Cameroon, Cambodia, Rwanda and Nigeria.
Among the students in the Irish cohort was Ena O’Driscoll, a mechanical engineering student at Munster Technological University.
O’Driscoll tells SiliconRepublic.com that she was encouraged to join Seeds by one of her lecturers, who believed that she would benefit from the educational insights that previous students got from the programme.
As a mechanical engineering student, she explains, she wouldn’t normally be exposed to some of the topics featured in the programme, such as 5G, AI, digital power and cloud computing.
“I thought this was a fantastic opportunity to experience something completely new in a learning environment and to be able to engage with other people who have a profound knowledge of these areas was something that I did not want to miss,” she says.
Taking in local tech
AI was a topic that particularly hooked O’Driscoll, especially its applications in smart city development and smart products. She tells us she was most fascinated by the tech’s capabilities in optimising security and how it can improve emergency responses, as well as experiences – as seen in the work of Chinese AI company AI Mall.
“The idea of technology being used not just for efficiency, but for improving everyday experiences, really resonated with me,” she says. “What I found fascinating was how AI Mall wanted to improve the shopping experience of customers. It aligned with my interest in both tech innovation and environmental impact, and it’s an area I hope to contribute to in the future.”
The Seeds programme, as well as giving students a taste of China’s tech scene and culture, also supports collaboration between the students. As O’Driscoll explains, each participant was given a journey booklet that listed daily collaborative activities to help the students go from a “seed to a flower”.
“Some of these collaborations included finding a person with similar interests or something in common, another one would be discussing your favourite scientist with another student who shared the same one,” says O’Driscoll.
The students also had frequent opportunities to discuss new technologies and the various lectures they attended.
Talks and drones
O’Driscoll says there were two standout moments of the programme for her.
The first of which was a roundtable discussion that featured three speakers – Biman Liyanage, Nil Larom and Bangaly Toure – who explored topics such as AI and mental health, generative AI and AI in telecommunications.
“At the end of the roundtable, we (the students) were given the opportunity to ask any follow-up questions,” says O’Driscoll. “These topics lead to great discussion among the Irish team at the break.”
Her second standout moment was the group’s site visit to Chinese drone manufacturer DJI, which she described as a “very eye-opening experience”.
“They displayed the history of their models and discussed each new development and the reason behind the new upgrade,” she says. “Following on from this, we watched a live demo of ‘Neo’ which has a feature of launching from one’s hand and following the individual automatically.”
The overall experience
With a chance to reflect on the trip, O’Driscoll says she came way from the programme with a number of positive experiences.
“Firstly, being part of a group of 10 people who got on so well was imperative,” she says. “Being able to discuss a variety of topics, both educational and social, made the overall trip so great.
“In addition to this, being able to meet new people from foreign countries was an amazing way to network and add to the experience. I learnt so much about diverse cultures and traditions.”
She also tells us that the Seeds programme has influenced her career ambitions in a number of ways.
Having been thoroughly impressed by China’s tech advancements, she intends to explore how to develop a further understanding of how she can integrate tech effectively in her everyday life and in her future mechanical engineering pursuits.
“As an aspiring mechanical engineering student who enjoys innovation, the use of AI could be very beneficial in progressing new designs and concepts which could make a difference to people’s lives,” says O’Driscoll. “For instance, one of the projects my team and I were working on last year focused on the biometric monitoring of glaucoma.
“After attending Seeds for the Future, I am now motivated to learn more about how to implement AI into our project and make a positive difference to the lives of those who would use the product.”
Earlier this year, students from Ireland’s 2024 Seeds cohort saw significant success at the Seeds for the Future Tech4Good global final in China.
After previously being crowned European champions for their project, which focused on developing a wearable device that detects anaphylaxis in children and instantly alerts parents and on-site caregivers, Ireland’s Team Anaphero claimed a top-three position at the global final.
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