Following the signing of the "Tonglu pilot project of the rural development strategy" in October 2014, Alibaba, once again working with Tonglu County, recently joined forces to build a training centre for rural e-business. The centre is located at the School of Tonglu, Zhejiang Radio & TV University (Zhejiang RTVU).

According to the "Tonglu pilot project of the rural development strategy", Alibaba will invest RMB 10 billion over three to five years for the building of 1,000 operation centres at the county level and 100,000 service stations at the village level. The establishment of the training centre is designed to train the large numbers of talented individuals urgently needed for the rural e-business project.

Relying on the training centre, Alibaba will offer many non-academic training classes, including training in e-business for county mayors, e-business for county cadres, as well as training in agriculture-related enterprises, rural Taobao, and network operators. Additionally, the training will also include sharing experience from the urban and rural construction of Tonglu as well as field teaching. The participants in the training include those involved in e-business, pillars in rural Taobao operation centres, Taobao purchasing staff from village-level rural service stations, and other talented agriculture-based e-business operators. As the project progresses, Alibaba will develop mid and high-end non-degree training programmes in rural e-business and continue to conduct research into further rural e-business opportunities.

The training centre will address the need for the training of talented individuals in the rural e-business industry, which is a core issue in Alibaba’s rural development strategy of "introducing online shopping to the countryside, bringing agricultural products into cities". Through the training, they can share knowledge and further close the digital gap between rural and urban areas. In this way, more farmers will be introduced to the concept of e-commerce, bringing them riches, both real and intellectual, and helping their dreams come to life.


                                                                                       By School of Tonglu, Zhejiang RTVU