Yide eLingXian Newsletter: Chairman Wang Guangyi's "Growth Lessons" | "Career Passage Guide" Accumulated from 27 Years of Struggle

On July 7th, Wang Guangyi, Chairman of EDC Technology, tailored a special "growth course" for the interns who arrived from Guilin University of Electronic Technology. Since embarking on his entrepreneurial journey in 1998 and establishing Guangxi EDC Technology Co., Ltd. in 2005, Chairman Wang Guangyi has not only been the "helmsman" of this national high-tech enterprise and national "little giant" enterprise specializing in precision, specialty, uniqueness, and novelty, which has undergone three major transformations from automotive parts trading to the research, development, and production of mobile intelligent liquid cooling and thermal management systems for environmental applications, but he also holds multiple important positions such as Executive President of the Guangxi Hubei Chamber of Commerce and Director of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League's Youth Enterprise Council. He also serves as a visiting professor at Zaozhuang University and an entrepreneurial mentor at Jiangxi University of Science and Technology and Guangxi University of Science and Technology. Furthermore, he is an outstanding entrepreneur who has been awarded numerous honors such as "Outstanding Young Entrepreneur of Guangxi" and "Model Worker of Liuzhou City".  

In the classroom, he shared his insights gained from 27 years of struggle, combining them with his personal experiences. Those heartfelt sharing contained the growth secrets from campus to the workplace, and also demonstrated his emphasis and expectations on talent cultivation.

Persistence: Persistence is the key to breaking the deadlock

  "The key to our success today lies in the word 'perseverance'," Chairman Wang Guangyi firmly stated. Since embarking on his entrepreneurial journey with dreams after graduating from university, he has been dedicated to one thing for 27 years - staying committed to one enterprise and deeply cultivating one industry. "Perseverance is the foundation of all success," he admitted. He repeats similar words and practices the same tasks every day, and his eloquence is gradually honed through such accumulation. Even if he could achieve economic freedom, he still remains focused on handling various complex matters. The reason why EDC Technology has been able to smoothly undergo three rounds of transformation and upgrading, gradually expanding from the initial auto parts trade to its current diversified business structure, is precisely because of the tenacious character honed through fierce industry competition.

 Looking at the interns in front of him, he firmly stated, "To stand out from so many interns in the school, you are already excellent. To resist various temptations from the outside world and still persist in your internship is in itself a kind of success. If you can persist and complete the six-month internship, it will be an important reshaping of yourself and the most valuable asset for you as you step into society." He told the young people: "Difficulty" is the norm on the internship journey. It may be that you get rejected five times for writing your first report independently, or that you work overtime continuously but fail to meet expectations, or even that you fall into self-doubt because of a small mistake. But please remember, all experts start from "clumsiness": the first version of a designer's plan/product may be criticized as "having no highlights," the test results of an experimenter may repeatedly report errors, and the industry predecessors we see today also stayed up red-eyed for countless nights over a single detail. Persistence is not only a solid foundation for personal growth but also the core driving force for enterprise development. Only by sticking to your position and continuously deepening your knowledge can you gain a firm foothold in the industry. This is also a quality he highly values in the process of talent cultivation.

Learning: Lead the development of the era through knowledge iteration

  Textbooks teach us theoretical frameworks, but in the real workplace, countless "answers beyond the textbooks" are hidden. For example, marketing models taught in class need to be implemented in conjunction with the real needs of customers; financial formulas in books only become clear when checking reimbursement forms, where the significance of "not a penny can be wrong" becomes apparent.

 The core of internship lies in transforming "passive listening" into "active learning": observing how the supervising teacher communicates efficiently, paying attention to how colleagues resolve unexpected problems, and even pondering "why this document should be filed in this way" while organizing files. Don't be afraid to ask questions, as no one will laugh at those who want to improve; and don't be satisfied with merely "completing tasks". Asking "can it be done better?" will reveal that growth lies in these proactive moments.

 When it comes to "learning", Chairman Wang Guangyi also revealed that he maintains a daily reading volume of 5,000 words. "For a company to keep up with the pace of the times, the speed of knowledge iteration must be faster than that of product iteration." This is his heartfelt insight. From his study experiences at Peking University and Tsinghua University, to his visiting scholarships at Stanford and the University of Washington, and then to his three years of further studies at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, he has come to understand that "learning is like refueling a car or charging an electric car; if you stop, you will fall behind." He particularly advises interns to find the intersection of interest, major, and career, saying that "when the three points converge, it is a blessing in life" - majoring in what you are interested in will make learning more efficient; aligning your career with your major will make your work more satisfactory.

Theory and Practice: The Transition from Textbook to Practical Operation

 When discussing the integration of theory and practice, Chairman Wang Guangyi emphasized: "It's not that knowledge is useless, it's just that you haven't figured out how to use it yet." He gave an example: the principle of "cooking bones to be soft in a pressure cooker" is similar to the logic behind the cooling mechanism of the company's air conditioning products; "the operating principle of workshop equipment may be the knowledge of boiling point and melting point taught in junior high school textbooks." He pointed out that the real ability of talents needed by enterprises is to "connect the 'knowledge points' from textbooks into 'process flows' in the workshop."

 Although he has not systematically studied accounting expertise, he can understand financial statements. The reason is that when he was engaged in sales work in his early years, the company did not have a warehouse manager to save costs, so he personally recorded the warehouse accounts for three years, thereby thoroughly "grasping" the debit and credit logic. He also quoted the "curiosity" theory of world business leader Musk to encourage interns to ask "why is it designed this way", so as to transform the text in books into practical skills. He said that EDC's ability to become a national high-tech enterprise is inseparable from its emphasis on practice and research into technology. He also hopes that interns can improve themselves through practice, transforming theoretical knowledge into practical abilities. This is his core concept of cultivating practical talents.

      Future: Accumulate strength with perseverance, embrace infinite possibilities

  Finally, Chairman Wang Guangyi outlined the possibilities for the future for the interns. He candidly admitted, "At the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey, I never imagined that the company could reach its current scale." Therefore, one should "always have boundless expectations for the future, even when your life is in its darkest moments. Only in this way can you have the motivation to strive." Over the past 27 years, he has been handling daily work trivia, yet he can always "adjust his mindset within two days," because "opportunities are reserved for those who are prepared.".

He instructed the team to decorate the staff dormitory, open an audio-visual room, repair the basketball court, upgrade the dining standards, and establish a "daily question" mentoring system, aiming to help interns integrate better into the new environment and grow faster. These measures all reflect his dedication to talent cultivation. He firmly believes that "this six-month internship will be the most valuable and profound experience in your growth process, enabling you to transform from students to professionals through practice and challenges, and giving you a winning start in your future life." For EDC Technology, the growth of these young talents will also inject new vitality into the company, driving it to achieve greater breakthroughs in technology research and development and market expansion.

 In this "growth lesson", Chairman Wang Guangyi repeatedly emphasized that there is no standard answer in the workplace, but every minute of investment in the present will become the foundation for the future. Persist in moving forward, maintain a curious mindset to learn, let theory take root in practice, and believe in infinite possibilities. In the future, there will be gains. He himself will also continue to steadily move forward on the path of talent cultivation, helping more young people like these interns grow and contributing to the development of enterprises and industries.