Ke Hu

Member profile:

As a former tech journalist and current PhD student investigating incubator culture and innovation history in China, I am extremely interested in cultural values embedded in engineering cultures and developments of current engineering education. I want to contribute my expertise in innovation studies and China studies to help diversify the academy’s knowledge base and bring new ideas to the discussions about changes in different engineering cultures and the future of international collaboration and competition.
As a tech journalist, I interviewed many startup founders and managers of emerging innovation institutions like incubators and co-working spaces. From these interviews, I developed my current research, which investigates the position and function of these emerging institutions in the international market. Some major questions of the project are: How do these new institutions become another classroom for engineers to learn how to innovate for consumers? What are these organizations’ relationships with universities? How are university incubator programs shaping engineering programs? Will the fact that most of these institutions are closely connected to the international innovation system accelerate the globalization of engineering training?
I come to the program with these questions in mind. I am very thrilled by the potential of collaborative explorations in such an inter-disciplinary initiative. And I do hope to fully utilize my ethnographic and analytical skills to help build a more dynamic community.