​Italian postgrad benefits from enterprise development in Qingdao

Francesco Serdoz at Cosmartor Intelligent Suspension Tech. (Qingdao) Co., Ltd [Photo provided to China.org.cn]

This spring is an exciting period for Francesco Serdoz, an Italian postgraduate majoring in automation and control engineering at Politecnico di Milano, a public scientific-technological university located in Italy. For the last three months, he has been an international academic visitor at an intelligent suspension company in Qingdao, a seaside city located in east China's Shandong province.  

"For me, it is a unique opportunity to make an important first practice in a company and collaborate with a Chinese team," Serdoz told China.org.cn during a recent interview.

After applying for a research group based at Politecnico di Milano, which collaborates with the School of Vehicles and Mobility of Tsinghua University in Beijing, Serdoz received the chance to spend three months as an intern at Cosmartor Intelligent Suspension Tech. Co., Ltd. His daily work mainly included checking cars' setup and calibrating parameters. "It is really a rewarding position since I need to collaborate with the team both from Italy and China, and in an international environment that is the fundamental key of the success of the company," he said, referring to his internship experience.

Cosmartor Intelligent Suspension Technology (Qingdao) Co., Ltd. manufactures intelligent suspension systems for the automotive industry by utilizing magnetorheological suspension technology created by the School of Vehicles at Tsinghua University and the Automation Department of Politecnico di Milano, according to the company's official website. Cosmartor Intelligent Suspension Technology (Qingdao) Co., Ltd. was co-founded in 2019 by Professor Wei Yintao from the School of Vehicle and Mobility, Tsinghua University, and Professor Sergio Savaresi at Politecnico di Milano. It is located in the China-SCO Local Economic and Trade Cooperation Demonstration Area (SCODA) in Jiaozhou, a county-level city of Qingdao.

In the past few years, Qingdao has aimed to attract more international companies to encourage high-quality development and enhance its efforts in becoming an innovative scientific hub. To this end, Jiaozhou has created and disseminated a series of support policies for innovative small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that use special and sophisticated technologies to produce novel and unique products. The area has also built a high-quality enterprise echelon cultivation system and established a three-level enterprise cultivation system ranging from the municipal to the national level.