The Trip Begins

Xi'an is the home to 48 universities, as well as being the ancient capital of China.  It is now a city of 7 million with an interesting mix of the old (such as the Bell Tower below) and the new.  That is actually a big, modern department store with a McDonalds in the background behind the tower.

Since we had already well promoted Westchester at Xian's huge technology development zone, this trip was devoted mostly to establishing connections with the oldest university in the city, Northwest.  So the day started with a meeting between the distinguished, but witty and gregarious, president of Northwest University, Professor Sun Young, and other university staff.

This was a follow up to a previous teleconference between the presidents.  Both desire a full range of interaction from joint research and faculty collaboration to faculty exchanges to students taking courses in each other's institution.  On the latter point, there was some frustration expressed by the Chinese about the very restricted issuance of student visas these days.  In any case, by the end of the meeting, the university presidents formally signed an agreement.

We learned from Northwest Computer Science Dean Zhou Ming Quan that the college has a particular strength in computer graphics and pattern recognition software. They apply this technology to fingerprint recognition, face recognition and the like. They also use it in medical endoscopy.  We also visited some laboratories, mostly specializing in isotopes and nuclear magnetic imaging.

By now, it was mid-afternoon and we went to visit Mayor Li Xue Mei whom we had met previously.  She and County Executive Spano had a discussion about economic opportunities similar to the one he had with the mayor of Jingzhou.  Sal Carrera and her assistant are set to follow up when he returns to Westchester.

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March 2005 Report by Norm Jacknis, County C.I.O.
Westchester County - China Trade Delegation
westchestergov.com