SUSS Partners With Tencent In New Strategic Marketing And Internship Programme

Date: 27 Mar 2018

Six SUSS students selected to launch campaigns to drive greater awareness in Singapore and key South East Asia markets

The Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) and WeChat/Tencent jointly announced a new collaboration that brings together SUSS students and faculty members to develop new business growth initiatives for WeChat in the South East Asian markets.

This collaboration allows SUSS undergraduates to undertake unique and transformative projects to gain valuable hands-on global exposure.

Under the framework of the Tencent – SUSS Internship Programme, the team from SUSS comprising students and faculty members will provide strategic communication advice and expertise to Tencent to maintain good relationship with its South East Asia market. This includes increasing the visibility and awareness of WeChat for new target markets in South East Asia.

This will be the first time that Tencent is collaborating with a Singapore university to offer an overseas internship programme.

Tencent, China’s largest internet services provider, has been working with various partners to grow awareness of their WeChat platform so as to further enable businesses to benefit from their innovative technologies. SUSS and its strong focus on innovative and industry-relevant applied learning, coupled with its experienced faculty of industry practitioners can help Tencent grow its footprint and industry engagements in South East Asia.

Six SUSS students selected for WeChat overseas internship

Six full-time SUSS undergraduate degree students from cross-disciplinary areas of accountancy, business analytics, and marketing were hand-picked by WeChat to join the pilot programme. They are: Chew Jun Sheng, 23 (Accountancy); Chong Ren Wei, 23, Chu Gee Choon, 24, Ou Yang Kuang Xun, 24, Jolynn Tan, 23 (all from Marketing); and Cindy Yeo, 21 (Business Analytics). The six students were selected based on their breakthrough marketing proposals, which they presented to WeChat.

The six undergraduates will work closely with Tencent’s team, including WeChat, to launch several campaigns to drive greater awareness in Singapore and key South East Asia markets.  They will also undertake further research and market studies to promote WeChat’s services in the region in phases.

"This new strategic collaboration reinforces SUSS strong focus on preparing our students to be real-world ready. Such international assignments will not only improve our students’ technical and professional skills, but also provide them with a valuable contextual learning experience. This initiative also aligns well with Singapore’s plan of becoming a smart nation. With the rapid pace of technological changes, our students must acquire skills that prepare them well for the digital workplace of the future,” said SUSS Provost, Professor Tsui Kai Chong.

“It is Tencent’s mission to enhance the quality of life through internet services. As a company that serves as the innovation powerhouse in the global mobile internet sphere, Tencent is honoured to collaborate with Singapore University of Social Sciences to create a systematic and leading talent development programme. We hope to train outstanding talents through this collaboration,” said WeChat Tencent Public Relations Centre Director, Zoe Zhou.

 

For more information, please contact: 

WeChat, Tencent
Amber Yang (Ms)
Senior PR Manager
Email: [email protected]

Singapore University of Social Sciences 
Valerie Ng (Ms)
Senior PR Manager
Communications & Marketing
Telephone: 6248 0364                                                                                                                                          
Email: [email protected]

About Tencent

Founded in November, 1998, Tencent is a leading provider of Internet value-added services in China. Since its establishment, Tencent has maintained steady growth under its user-oriented operating strategies. On June 16, 2004, Tencent Holdings Limited (SEHK 700) went public on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

It is Tencent's mission to enhance the quality of human life through Internet services. Presently, Tencent provides social platforms and digital content services under the “Connection” Strategy. Tencent’s leading Internet platforms in China – QQ (QQ Instant Messenger), Weixin/WeChat, QQ.com, QQ Games, Qzone, and Tenpay – have brought together China's largest Internet community, to meet the various needs of Internet users including communication, information, entertainment, financial services and others.

Looking forward, Tencent remains committed to enhancing its development and innovation capabilities while strengthening its nationwide branding for its long-term development. Tencent has obtained patents relating to the technologies in various areas: instant messaging, e-commerce, online payment services, search engine, information security, gaming, and many more.

Tencent's long term vision is to become the most respected Internet enterprise. In order to fulfil corporate social responsibilities and to promote civil Internet communities, Tencent has been actively participating in public charity programs. It strives to help build a harmonious society and to become a good corporate citizen.

About WeChat

WeChat is a mobile social communication app designed for smart phone users. WeChat’s monthly active users passed one billion for the first time during 2018 Spring Festival. WeChat empowers users in fun and dynamic ways, by bringing together messaging, social communication and games in one seamless, interactive experience, with comprehensive privacy and security settings that can be tailored as needed. WeChat provides a central point of control for users to share voice, photos, videos, and text messages across their entire social ecosystem. Through Official Accounts, WeChat allows brands to deliver rich and high-touch appealing content experiences to engage with and grow their communities. With WeChat Pay enabled on mobile phone, users can make transaction payments at anytime and anywhere, such as in ordering taxi, supermarkets and hospitals. WeChat Pay also plans to constantly invest in its cross-border business, with the aim of duplicating the domestic WeChat lifestyle overseas.

About WeChat Open Class Pro

Launched in 2014, like Apple WWDC and Google I/O in US, WeChat Open Class Pro is one of the most influential conferences in China's tech industry, aiming to set tone for WeChat ecosystem. This event brings together every link of the WeChat, provide insights into how we can expect WeChat to evolve in the future and other development trends as well as into the dynamic features of WeChat.

About the Singapore University of Social Sciences

Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) is one of Singapore's six autonomous universities and its mission is to provide lifelong education that equips learners to serve society. Home to more than 15,000 students, SUSS provides an applied education that targets both fresh school leavers and adult learners, with a focus on the social sciences. It adopts a flexible and practice-focused learning approach and offers more than 70 degree programmes in various disciplines. Eligible students taking SUSS undergraduate programmes enjoy government subsidies and access to government bursaries, tuition fee loans and study loans. For more information on Singapore University of Social Sciences, please visit www.suss.edu.sg.