From Real Estate to AI: XJTLU Alumnus Wencan Wang Charts Entrepreneurial Path

Wencan Wang sat in a classroom at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in 2008, a student who had made an unconventional choice. His Gaokao score could have opened doors at two of China's elite Project 985 universities, but he had turned them down. He wanted computer science, wanted to study abroad, and wanted something that felt alive to the future. An education official in his family had pointed him toward XJTLU, a university that had existed for only three years. It was a gamble on a place that was still finding its shape.

Wang enrolled in the BSc Information Management and Information Systems programme—a deliberate hybrid that married computing with finance. The internet was accelerating. He could feel it. Pure technology alone felt too narrow. At XJTLU, he found a campus of roughly a thousand students where entrepreneurship was not a buzzword but a lived practice. In his second year, he teamed up with classmates from different programmes and won a regional entrepreneurship competition in East China. The seed was planted then, though he didn't know it yet.

What struck him most was the teaching itself. The lecturers were drawn from top universities abroad. Some had written the textbooks they were using. The academic atmosphere was grounded and focused. There was no performance to it. Through XJTLU's 2+2 model, Wang spent part of his degree at the University of Liverpool, absorbing not just knowledge but a different way of thinking across cultures. His bilingual fluency deepened. His mind learned to move between worlds.

After graduation, he pursued a master's in Real Estate Economics and Investment Analysis at University College London—a deliberate pivot away from pure technology into a booming sector. He wanted to test himself, to step outside what he already knew. At Fosun Group, he moved into the technology division as a fund manager, then became Deputy General Manager of the Industrial Investment Department at Zhenro Group. Within six months of joining Fosun, he was promoted three times. The cross-cultural skills and bilingual confidence he had built at XJTLU translated directly into speed and credibility in international business.

But around 2020, Wang sensed something shifting. The real estate industry was entering a contraction. He was in a senior management role—stable, respected, secure. He walked away from it. He founded Hecbert Information Technology and moved into the AI large-model space, starting with two or three people. The pandemic had just begun. Market confidence was fragile. It was, by any measure, a terrible time to start a company. But Wang had learned something at XJTLU that mattered more than timing: the ability to read where the world was moving, to know your own strengths, and to hold a beginner's mindset even after years of success.

In those early days, Hecbert focused on two things with absolute discipline. First, they validated a minimal viable business model and created real value through technology and products. Second, they targeted niches that large companies ignored and smaller companies couldn't execute—the gaps where precision and depth could matter. The company grew. Wang was invited to deliver AI training sessions for COMAC, the state aircraft manufacturer. He won an Outstanding Enterprise award at the Hai Chuang Pudong Overseas Returnees Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition. He spoke at TEDx XJTLU in 2026.

When XJTLU marked its 20th anniversary, the university launched a series called "Next Together," profiling alumni who had moved into the world and made something of themselves. Wang was among them. He returned to campus, not as a triumphant success story but as someone who wanted to pass forward what he had received. He credited three professors by name: Xin Bi, who introduced him to computing; Qijian Xie, who pushed students toward innovation and entrepreneurship; and Youmin Xi, whose more than two decades of commitment to educational transformation had modeled what it meant to stay curious and restless. Wang's message to the university on its anniversary was clear: XJTLU had embedded transformation into its DNA, and the world needed more institutions willing to show that there were other paths forward for Chinese higher education.