2015 Fudan Washington Forum

Last Friday, I volunteered and attended the 2015 Fudan Washington Forum, an annual event held by Fudan University Alumni Association in the US addressing significant sino-american issues. This year, collaborated with Greencourt Capital Inc., the forum focuses on "The Driving Forces behind Economic Growth", and features speakers who are corporation executives of many related field, such as Weili Deng, General Manager of Capital Operation Department, Shanghai International Group; and David Mayhood, President of the Mayhood Company. 

Volunteers at the check-in table

This event interests many Chinese professionals as well as local ones who work with the Chinese society in the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area. Most part of the speeches are given in English, while some are in Chinese with a simultaneous interpreter. It is a paid entry with early bird price $35 and GA price $45, and $20/$28 for students. However, in the first day that I worked as volunteer, I found that about half of the attendees are invited instead of bought tickets.The event planners are very thoughtful about giving a detailed instruction with a map for attendees to find their ways to the venue. Due to the road construction, the building is not quite easy to find, and the map helped me a lot to find the venue.

Give out of Forum Agenda and sponsor companies' brochures at check-in.

The 2-day forum starts with discussion about "the visible and invisible hands behind the high-speed growth of Chinese economy" and "Innovation and Entrepreneurship" on the first day. The second day focuses on the Chinese investment in US real estate market. 

German X. Jimenez, CPA from PWC talking about global tax management

Mr. David Mayhood talking about real estate market in the Washington D.C. area

Something I found very interesting at the reception is that besides some tasty Chinese food, there are hot water and apple cider provided - for those who do not know, Chinese people have a habit of drinking warm water rather than cold water. I asked the service coordination from catering company about it, and she told me that she made many changes in the details to accommodate to the Chinese tradition. There was not any food that needed to be grabbed by hand except the tortilla chips, because the Chinese people do not like eating by hand. 

Ms. Stephany Yu gave closing remarks after the reception.

A big surprise at the event for me is that I met many alumni of our MTA program! One of the event planners, Yi Lu, who works as Senior Associate at Greencourt Capital is a 2011 MTA and 2015 MBA alumnus of GW School of Business. The Service Coordinator from the catering services company is a 2014 MTA alumnus. I also met Wei Wang, a 2015 MTA graduate who is taking multiple jobs as event planner. Talking to them and listening to their study and career experience, I learnt a lot about networking and job seeking, and I felt very proud of our program. 

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