Build it, then rebuild it
Components, board fabrication and assembly all sit within an hour. You can put a prototype in front of someone, find out it is wrong, and have the next one by the end of the week.
Locations / Asia
Shenzhen
Spend six months inside a Shenzhen startup while taking a course at SUSTech. Ideas in Shenzhen become a physical object in a week, and you learn by working at that pace.
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Partner uni
Southern University of Science and Technology
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Format
Short 6mo -
Intake
August January -
Audience
Undergraduates only
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Ecosystem
Hardware -
Cohort size
~25 students per intake
About Shenzhen
Rearrange your view of normal.
Shenzhen was a market town of thirty thousand people in 1979. It is now home to seventeen million and to Huawei, Tencent, DJI and BYD. Everything needed to make a physical product sits inside an hour of the city: the component markets, the board fabricators, the injection moulders, the assembly lines in Dongguan and Foshan. A prototype that would take a month anywhere else takes days here, which changes what a startup can do.
Speed is the key lesson to be learned here. Good hardware gets treated as a commodity within weeks of launch. Winning a customer is brutal. An NOC student who spent his six months at Seeed Studio, a company that runs everything from circuit board manufacture through to e-commerce, arrived thinking he understood what building a company meant and found out how much he had to learn. That is the value the pace of Shenzhen bestows on NOC students.
The city fills up with people doing the same thing. Maker Faire brings hobbyists and engineers from nearly fifty countries to Shenzhen, because it is the one place their ideas can actually get made. NOC students have run workshops there. Hong Kong is an hour away by train, and its not uncommon to cross multiple times in a week to attend demonstrations and client meetings.
Why Shenzhen?
Anything you can imagine Shenzhen can produce.
A course at SUSTech
You take an entrepreneurship course at the Southern University of Science and Technology while the internship runs. Four of your twenty NOC units come from it,
An intense six months
The programme runs half a year, so you can do it and still graduate on time. Year two and year three undergraduates only.
Partner university
SUSTech
You take a course on entrepreneurship at SUSTech part-time while the internship runs. Four of your twenty NOC units come from it. The other sixteen come from the job.
SUSTech opened in 2011. It was built from nothing, in a city that was built from nothing, and it now teaches engineering in English to students who come from across China and around the world to get in.
6 Months in Shenzhen
What our students say
"I arrived in Shenzhen thinking I knew what entrepreneurship looked like, but I was quite wrong. Consumers rarely pay for software, good hardware gets dismissed as commodity and acquiring customers is also ruthlessly competitive. My internship inspired me to get more into individual hardware creation, proving that this city doesn't only inspire makers, it turns you into one!"
"From shuttling between Shenzhen and Hong Kong to forming lasting friendships and gaining invaluable business insights, every moment was impactful. This experience honed my communication, networking, and event management skills, preparing me to excel in my future career. The Greater Bay Area is where you discover your strengths and unlock your potential."
"GBA, often dubbed the Silicon Valley of hardware, has always been a dream destination for engineers eager to delve into cutting-edge innovation. The program introduced me to inspiring and driven entrepreneurs, fostering connections and collaboration among peers from diverse fields. Despite its brief duration, this six-month adventure will undoubtedly be the highlight of my NUS journey!"
"I had the opportunity to work at August Robotics, a dynamic floor-marking robotics startup. My role as a Commercial Strategy Intern allowed me to delve into market research, spearhead a marketing analytics project, and even travel to Hong Kong for a robotics demonstration. The experience was invaluable. I not only gained a deep understanding of the robotics industry but also developed essential skills in marketing automation and business strategy."
Ho Xu Wen
NOC Shenzhen Alumnus | 2025 | School of Computing
Ting Chong Yong
NOC Shenzhen Alumnus | 2024 | Faculty of Science
Zhang Jing Wen
NOC Shenzhen Alumna | 2024 | College of Design and Engineering
Valerie Wong
NOC Shenzhen Alumna | 2024 | NUS Business School
Practical info
The things you'll need to know before committing to Shenzhen.
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Cost of living [ $$$ ]
SGD 1,300 a month
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Accommodation
NOC supports housing search. Students often take over the previous cohort's flat
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Stipend & awards
Most students receive an internship stipend from their host company. NOC awards available via Awards & Scholarships
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Visa
Chinese student visa. NOC covers the full application cost
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Language
English Mandarin -
Climate
Subtropical Humid -
Time zone
UTC+8 -
Getting around
Metro on one card. Hong Kong is an hour by train
Curriculum at Shenzhen
Faculty-mapped courses for NOC Shenzhen: units, intakes, and academic structure.
Apply for NOC Shenzhen
Rank Shenzhen in your application. Note that NOC reserves the right to assign you to any available location regardless of stated preference.
Start your application