The first Sino-US Innovation and Entrepreneurship Summit of Carnegie Mellon Univ

Jointly organized By Sino-US Innovation and Entrepreneurship Summit Organizing Committee of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CMU-CSSA), and Huayuan Science and Technology Association (HYSTA), the first Sino-US Innovation and Entrepreneurship Summit of Carnegie Mellon University was held on April 28-29 in Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania state of the United States. A great number of talents of science and business from both China and the United States attended the summit, exchanged in-depth ideas on SinoUS innovation in such fields as information technology, new energy, health care industry, and financial industry, as well as gave valuable suggestions on how to stimulate entrepreneurial enthusiasm of Chinese students studying in the United States and guide them to make better use of their own advantages in improving the success rate of entrepreneurship.

This summit was sponsored by well-known enterprises such as Sinopec, and Verizon, and got much support from Mr. Kai-fu Lee, a famous alumni and the current CEO of the Innovation Works and Mr. Xu Xiaoping, the founder of Zhen Fund and co-founder of New Oriental. In addition, many leading figures in such fields as IT, finance, medicine, biotechnology, energy & environment, and entrepreneurship & investment participated in this summit, including Mr. Huang Shu, a Managing Partner of Yuandu Investment and Consulting Inc., Mr. Song Anlan, China Managing Partner of Softbank, Mr. Jiang Xiaodong, China Managing Director of NEA, and Charles Kennedy, Chief Investment Officer of Carnegie Mellon University. Six sub-forums was set up in the summit, and more than 30 industry elites will discuss with the audience on the following topics respectively: information and digital entertainment technology, cloud computing and security technologies, energy and environment, financial and capital markets, medical and biotechnology, and innovation and entrepreneurship.

Ma Rui, founder and Chairman of the summit holds that the mission of this summit is to make institutions from both China and United States get together via CMU, the leading global education platform, in a view to enhancing better mutual understanding, creating po- tential business opportunities, boosting pragmatic SinoUS cooperation, promoting the popularity of CMU and Pittsburgh in China as well as improving their regional influences.

Chairman Ma tells reporters that in the past few decades, China has successfully transformed into the focus of global political and economic development. The rapid economic growth has made China the world’s second largest economy only second to the United States, and at the same time established China’s important position in international relations. Rapidly growing middle class, well-educated graduates, as well as the world’s leading innovative companies indicate that China will usher in a better future. Although the U.S. economy has been greatly affected by the financial crisis in recent years, the United States remains a major driving force in the global economy. Therefore, it has become a common understanding that sound Sino-US cooperation will benefit the global economic growth.

At last, he indicates that depending the mutual understanding between China and the United States will further promote bilateral cooperation, which helps to produce a comprehensive solution for problems and challenges facing both countries. Therefore, the high-profile summit becomes an excellent platform for bilateral exchanges, as it brings together famous entrepreneurs, corporate executives, venture capitalists, and researchers from both countries to discuss and resolve major economic and technological issues, and seek for new partnerships. To this end, the Carnegie Mellon Summit and the China-US Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum came into being.

Carnegie Mellon University was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie. Andrew Carnegie also produced CMU’s school motto “My Heart is in the Work” which enjoys popular favor and has become a firm belief of the students and teachers in the pursuit of truth. Meanwhile, innovation and entrepreneurship is an eternal hot topic on CMU campus.

Pittsburgh was praised by U.S. President Barack Obama as the model for economic development in the 21st century. After the successful G20 summit in 2009, Pittsburgh has drawn more and more attention. And now, Pittsburgh is ready to bridge China-US exchanges.