The final results of the “Peking University Students of the Year 2025” have been announced, and Zhang Qiqi, a member of the Class of 2022 from our school, has been proudly selected! She is a storyteller of Yanyuan, using her pen to document Peking University students’ devotion to the nation and society; she is also a practitioner of technological innovation, infusing humanistic values into cutting-edge industries.

Note. Peking University Student of the Year 2025 (Zhang Qiqi, third from the right)

Connecting Yanyuan and the Wider World Through the Pen

For Zhang Qiqi, the most defining label is not only “journalist,” but also brand builder.

By fostering dialogue between the humanities and technology, Zhang Qiqi has been writing new chapters of Peking University–style innovation and entrepreneurship across fields such as AI, rural revitalization, and cultural confidence. She has received more than 20 honors and awards, including the National Scholarship and the title of Outstanding Student Leader of Beijing. She has participated in five national- and provincial-level research projects focused on communication, producing seven major outputs, including first-author academic papers, commentaries for CCTV documentaries, and book manuscripts. Her personal stories and work have been featured by eight media outlets, including Xinhua News Agency, Ezhou Media Group, and the Dehong Youth League.

Currently, Zhang Qiqi serves as Head of the Peking University Alumni Office Press Corps and Editor-in-Chief of the university’s official social media accounts. She has previously held 17 key student leadership positions, including President of the School Student Union. She has published more than 20 viral articles with over 100,000 reads each, reprinted by 17 major media organizations such as People’s Daily, China National Radio, and China News Service. She has also conducted frontline coverage of visits to Peking University by the Thai princess, the President of Italy, the Prime Minister of Nepal, and Mr. Ma Ying-jeou. In addition, she was selected as one of the first ten cultural and tourism ambassadors of Dehong Prefecture, contributing to communication efforts in border regions and presenting a real, multidimensional, and comprehensive image of China.

In 2024, Zhang Qiqi took over the leadership of the Alumni Office Press Corps. She did not view this young team merely as a student organization, but as a “bridge”—one end connected to the alma mater, the other to Peking University alumni scattered around the world. The belief that “news comes from walking the ground” is reflected in every interview she conducts. The hardest part of alumni reporting, she believes, is not highlighting glamorous achievements, but understanding the original aspirations behind them.

As a key communication window for Peking University alumni, the platform “Peking University People” focuses on grassroots dedication, major national projects, academic research, industrial development, international exchange, and social service. Through themed series such as Journey to the Wider World with Original Aspiration, Tracks of Innovation, and Voices of Home, it presents Peking University from diverse perspectives and builds an emotional bridge that forms a shared spiritual home for alumni.

Note. Alumni Office Press Corps, Spring Semester 2025 Group Photo

Her gaze consistently follows those who are “rooted in the soil.” In the Journey to the Wider World with Original Aspiration series, she and her team patiently listened to stories of alumni working at the grassroots level—from tea mountains in Fuding, Fujian, to the Gobi Desert in Shawan, Xinjiang. With no ornate rhetoric, the writing carries the earthy texture of real life. She interviewed Renzen Zhuoma, a Peking University PhD graduate who returned to Tibet and was awarded First-Class Merit as a civil servant of the Tibet Autonomous Region, conveying the power of role models.

During the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region, she participated in producing Across 60 Years: A New Scroll of the Snowland with China Media Group and followed up closely on the alumni documentary Galsang Flowers in Bloom. Through her writing, the “Old Tibet Spirit” and the sense of responsibility embodied by Peking University alumni were transformed into moving narratives that pay tribute to every struggler walking at the summit.

Responding to major national strategic needs, she has led teams deep into frontline settings. At the National Disaster Reduction Center of the Ministry of Emergency Management, she interviewed Wu Wei, a recipient of the title “National Model Worker,” revealing the scientific strength behind China’s emergency management system. By Weiming Lake, she discussed the future of AGI with alumni, recording the innovative momentum of the AI era. Her reporting on Peking University’s explorations and breakthroughs in AI, biomedicine, and other frontier fields has made the Tracks of Innovation series an important bridge between academia and industry.

Zhang Qiqi interviewing Wu Wei, National Model Worker

Building Bridges with Technology: Integrating Culture and Transformation

She is not only a storyteller, but also a creator of stories. As a journalism student, Zhang Qiqi refused to confine herself to the traditional humanities. Through her own experiences, she has challenged stereotypes about liberal arts students and forged a hard-core entrepreneurial path that integrates humanities and technology.

Driven by a commitment to rural revitalization, she moved beyond slogans and keenly identified the intersection between culture and consumption. She transformed traditional staple foods into a new cultural consumption brand, collaborating with positive-energy influencers and official cultural and tourism channels to conduct international communication in five languages. She also brought these achievements back to campus as gifts for the joint freshman ball of twelve Peking University schools, sharing the warmth of rural roots with younger students.

In the course Creative Communication Management, taught by Professor Chen Gang, Dean of the School of Journalism and Communication, she led her team to raise RMB 488,000 in donations for the China Foundation for Rural Development’s Go, Village Football! program through digital advertising, achieving 4.86 million impressions.

As large-scale AI models swept the world, Zhang Qiqi chose to engage directly. She firmly believes that in an era of technological explosion, humanistic values need the wings of technology, and hard-core technology needs the soul of culture. As a representative of a Peking University-recommended project, she presented a jointly founded AI Native Infrastructure project at the 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference. The product secured tens of millions of yuan in financing and topped Product Hunt’s daily and monthly rankings overseas.

Today, she has launched her third entrepreneurial venture, serving as Founding Director of the Human-Technology Innovation Laboratory at the Huizhou Institute of Artificial Intelligence. With support from the Peking University Center for Public Communication and Social Development and the Institute of Cultural Industries, she is undertaking a bold initiative: integrating intangible cultural heritage with intelligent agent technologies and embedding them into hardware.

Note. Zhang Qiqi presenting her project at the 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference

“Let AI-empowered Chinese culture become a way of life.” In her vision, AI should not be merely cold code—it can also be a carrier of culture. Through the Xlink project, she hopes to bring Chinese traditional culture into everyday life in a more modern and effortless way.

Note. Zhang Qiqi as Founding Director of the Human-Technology Innovation Laboratory at the Huizhou Institute of Artificial Intelligence

Zhang Qiqi’s time in journalism and communication has been a journey of constantly breaking boundaries while continually returning to her original aspirations. She remains the student journalist editing manuscripts late into the night and the young entrepreneur rushing along the startup path. From writing others’ stories to becoming the protagonist of her own, she has shown that students of journalism and communication can both gaze at the stars to record the times—and stand firmly on the ground to create real value.

Congratulations to Zhang Qiqi!