On December 28, Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China, the China Association for Science and Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense released the list of the 10 "The Excellent scientific and technological workers" and their achievements. Among them, Hu Yu, the seventh vice president of CAAI, co-founder and rotating president of iFLYTEK, and CAAI fellow, won this award. (The final list of awards winners: Wang Xinghuan, Li Yu, Chen Houqun, Hu Yu, Li Dong, Chen Liang, Tong Xiaolin, Cidan Yangji, Cheng Xiangwen, Hao Jiming)

Hu is the director of iFLYTEK's Consumer Strategy Development Committee, expert with special allowance from the State Council, member of the New Generation Artificial Intelligence Strategy Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Science and Technology, the chief expert of National High-tech R&D Program (863 Program) of the Ministry of Science and Technology, the executive director of the National Engineering Laboratory for Speech and Language Information Processing, the leader of the application planning group of the Artificial Intelligence Industry University Research Alliance of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the leader of the China Science and Technology Research Institute. He is an adjunct professor and doctoral supervisor in the University of Science and Technology.Hu has been long doing research in the field of intelligence voice and core technology of AI, taking a lead in the commercialization and ecosystem construction of the AI industry.

Achievements

“We should study not only our own language, but also the language of the rest of the world.” Hu Yu, the then chief expert of National High-tech R&D Program (863 Program), expressed his ambition years ago as an entrepreneur.

"In the 1990s, AI language had yet drawn much attention in China. At that time, we had to learn from the Western countries. In the 21st century, however, we have gradually mastered the research methods, making it possible to keep up with and even doing better than most advanced players, " Hu Yu said with emotion." we used to cross the river by feeling stones placed by others, but now we must take our own way. "

Hu Yu at the launch ceremony of "The Excellent Scientific and Technological Workers 2020”

When it comes to the title of "The Excellent Scientific and Technological Workers", Hu believed that he has only fulfilled his duty, and owned honor to the big picture as the whole country respects scientists and encourages innovation.

Finding a new path

On November 11, 1999, six students from University of Science and Technology of China successfully developed the first home-made computer that can listen and speak. This invention transformed into nearly 6.69 million yuan of technology equity, which made them the first university students with millions of capital in China.

There were undergraduates including Hu. Since then, though being a student, Hu was also a researcher at iFLYTEK, Anhui University of Science and Technology, doing in the research on speech synthesis. At that time, Hu had two dreams. The first one was to transform their technology into products. And the second was that all the research and industrialization of products could be developed by themselves.

Hu has been deeply engaged in the research and development of artificial intelligence core technology for more than 20 years. In his view, China's artificial intelligence voice technology has reached world's advanced level at present. He said, "In the future, we must pay more attention to using our own technology in order to find a new development path in the current market.”

As for how to realize this goal, Hu’s answer was innovation in three aspects. First, the innovation of core technology, which requires us to master the most advanced research methods; second, product innovation, we have to take the need of users into account, and offer them products that are driven by artificial intelligence technology; third, new business models, we need to explore new models that are suitable for the industry. All in all, these three innovations should be closely combined.

Making innovation possible is a rather hard course. It was the scientist of older generation that gave Hu strength to move ahead when facing difficulties in his research, especially their sense of mission and devotion to the development of China while regardless of personal gains and losses.

Hu believes that as a scientific researcher, first of all, one should have lofty aspirations and ideals, and often think about what he can do to contribute to the country and even the whole mankind; secondly, one should do research with a scientific attitude and through a scientific method; in addition, one should put the research and academic ethics in the first position.

In recent years, the Chinese Association for Science and Technology, together with the Ministry of Education, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, carried out initiatives to improve academic ethics every year. Honest scientific research conduct and down-to-earth and rigorous work style are the basis of cultivating scientific research talents.

Hu agrees with the view. "Conducting Scientific research must be meticulous, and no fraud is allowed. All rigorous research work needs originality," he said. Pursuing a down-to-earth attitude is as important as carrying out high-level research. It is not only related to a scientist's own success or failure, but also may affect the whole team.

Doing business is to be No.1

Today, iFLYTEK has become an international leader in intelligent voice and artificial intelligence field, leading the artificial intelligence industry to achieve commercialization and ecosystem construction. It is actively promoting the application and transformation of innovative achievements. Hu has won the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award and the National Information Industry Major Technology Invention Award twice for each, won provincial and ministerial science and technology awards for many times, and applied for 210 invention patents. Behind these dazzling titles, Hu, as a scientist and entrepreneur, knows that the transformation from technology to industry is extremely difficult.

Fortunately, after years of exploration, he found the "golden key" to get through the "last mile" from the laboratory to industrialization, that is, the integration of scientists' minds and entrepreneurs' minds. Hu said that scientists are good at discovering laws and creating inventions, while entrepreneurs can seize the market demand. "The commonness of the two is persistence and pursuit of excellence. The difference is that research should be traced back to the source, while entrepreneurs should have insight into business laws.

To connect invention and creation with demand is to combine the spirit of scientists with the spirit of entrepreneurs. In Hu's words, it is to "holding the sky and standing on the ground" "holding the sky refers to world-class technology, and standing on the ground refers to industrial." Hu explained, "in other words, holding the sky means to meet the needs of national strategy, artificial intelligence is a very important part of national strategy, and we can't lose to others; standing on the ground means to meet our daily life." Under the guidance of this spiritual core, iFLYTEK has transformed the latest scientific and technological achievements into real productivity again and again, with a steady stream of innovation vitality. 

Serving the society when our country is in trouble

In early 2020, facing the outbreak of covid-19, Hu told himself that he must do something as a responsible entrepreneur and scientist. On the one hand, Hu urgently raised scarce medical materials from all over the world to support the first-line epidemic prevention and control war; on the other hand, Hu, as the "national team" of artificial intelligence, helped epidemic prevention and control by using enterprise’s independent and controllable artificial intelligence technologies and products in the fields of medical treatment, education, justice, government services, customer service and operators.

Hu (left) interviewed by CCTV

In the medical field, Hu led the team to develop "intelligent medical assistant" products, online analysis of primary outpatient medical records, mining and analyzing medical records from six dimensions of fever, cough, dyspnea, epidemiological history (Wuhan related history), imaging and blood routine, screening patients with fever, fever with cough, dyspnea and patients with epidemiological history.

Hu and his team also developed the covid-19 diagnostic platform, this 4D comparative analysis and multimodal auxiliary diagnosis can complete a case of covid-19 auxiliary diagnosis in 3 seconds. Positive cases were recalled, the recall rate of lesions reached 90%, greatly improving the efficiency of doctors.

In the field of education, Hu and his team actively responded to the call of the Ministry of Education to "classes suspended but learning continues" and formulated the main promotion scheme of "live recording teaching + homework + learning resources + artificial intelligence autonomous learning platform + school credit tool" in combination with iFLYTEK resources and practical application scenarios, focusing on meeting the needs of regional teaching.