In the midst of a year of rebuilding, Sweet Briar College has entered a new partnership to recruit Chinese women to the school. It’s teaming up with the National Center for Sustainable Development, a nonprofit based in Washington D.C. and in Beijing. The agreement launching the new program came this month after Sweet Briar President Phillip Stone and other leaders from the college visited Beijing in late February. “I was not just looking for an opportunity to go run to China for a week, but this was developing very quickly and in an interesting way,” Stone said. The National Center for Sustainable Development (NCSD) will recruit high school students for a women’s leadership program, with hopes of attracting at least some students for the next school year. Sweet Briar will help compensate NCSD for its efforts and the college vet the students through its own application process and conduct Skype interviews to get to know the women and check their English proficiency. Students in the program would attend Sweet Briar College for four years to obtain a bachelor’s degree in whichever major they chose, just like other Sweet Briar students. During the summers, though, NCSD is working to arrange special classes, programming and internships in Washington D.C. aimed at familiarizing Chinese students with how U.S. government works. Notably, this is NCSD’s first foray into recruiting Chinese students for a U.S. school. The organization is focused on building bilateral relations between American and Chinese people via demonstration projects related to the environment, energy and education. NCSD president Mitchell F. Stanley, who founded the organization in 2001, has an interesting and varied background. Among many other government positions, he said he worked as a staffer in the Reagan White House for a couple years, and then led and organized the first presidential […]
Sweet Briar College, in partnership with the Beijing- and Washington, D.C.-based National Center for Sustainable Development, is adding a new international program for Chinese women students. Driven in part by the Chinese government’s goal of preparing Chinese women for leadership roles in government, business, industry and education, the College’s new Women’s Leadership Program will bring highly qualified young Chinese women to Sweet Briar to study liberal arts as well as STEM. Sweet Briar President Phillip C. Stone announced the program after a recent trip to China, where Sweet Briar and NCSD prepared to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese Ministry of Education’s Dongfang International Center for Education Exchange. “While in China, I was thrilled to learn of the enormous interest in women’s college education, even though higher education dedicated solely to women is rare,” Stone said. “And there is recognition that while engineering, technology and science education is important, immersion in the humanities prepares young women for deeper, broader leadership. This will be especially important as tomorrow’s leaders navigate China’s relationship with the United States.” Through the program, Chinese students will live and study at Sweet Briar’s historic 3,250-acre campus in the foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Home to one of only two programs at a women’s college granting an ABET-accredited engineering degree, Sweet Briar offers STEM studies as well as pre-professional programs in pre-law, pre-medicine and pre-veterinary medicine. Like all Sweet Briar students, Chinese women can major or minor in these programs and at the same time benefit from coursework in traditional liberal arts areas such as classics, creative writing, art history and dance. In total, Sweet Briar offers more than 40 programs for academic credit. In June 2015, at the seventh U.S.-China Women’s Leadership Exchange and Dialogue, Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong called on China […]
The delegation of Sweet Briar College (SBC) and the National Center for Sustainable Development (NCSD) met with Jing Dunquan, Vice Chairman of China Soong Ching Ling Foundation (CSCLF) on February 25th, 2016. Jing Dunquan extended his welcome and introduced CSCLF’s all kinds of works to the delegation. Jing Sunquan hoped, through mutual deeply understanding, both sides would set up a closely cooperative relations in the fields of civil exchange and education for woman, in order to promote the relations of both countries. Mr. Stone, president of SBC and Mr. Stanley, Chairman of NCSD also shared their opinions, saying that through visiting Soong Ching-Ling’s lifetime exhibition, they have a comprehensive idea about the great lady, and her success is a model to the education of woman. They hoped both China and US should learn from each other on woman’s education and female leadership. They also hoped to have more opportunities to communicate face to face with Chinese students through the cooperation with CSCLF, and discover potential students to study in SBC, in order to develop SBC to an internationalized college. Both sides had a deep discussion on the Sino-US exchanges and female leadership and promised to further develop their cooperation and exchanges in future. Background: Sweet Briar College (SBC) is a traditional female college, which dedicates to help girls to explore their potential. Education is one of the outstanding subjects in SBC, and arts and social science are also welcomed by the students. The National Center for Sustainable Development (NCSD) is an NGO in US. It dedicates to promote Sino-US exchanges and developments to deepen mutual understanding and better active and harmonious ties of both countries. Original: http://sclf.cri.cn/261/2016/03/03/2s8981.htm?from=groupmessage&isappinstalled=0
2016年2月25日，美国斯威特布莱尔女子学院（Sweet Briar College）和美国国家可持续发展中心代表团一行10人来到宋庆龄故居参观。虽然故居正处于闭馆修整时期，但还是为这批特殊的客人专门打开了展厅。代表团成员仔细地参观了宋庆龄生平展和原状陈列展，时不时提出自己的看法和见解与故居工作人员进行交流。大家很喜欢这座典雅、庄重的大花园，对宋庆龄一生所做的贡献表示非常敬佩。参观结束后，中国宋庆龄基金会党组成员、副主席井顿泉亲切会见了代表团一行。 美国斯威特布莱尔女子学院（Sweet Briar College）和美国国家可持续发展中心代表团参观故居 领导与代表团集体合影留念 Original: http://www.sql.org.cn/NewsDetail.aspx?id=5939db8d-1129-4d26-a3bc-fbc1f8873801
WASHINGTON – Sept. 14, 2015 – PRLog — Washington, DC (September 13, 2015) – Muuzii®, Inc., the world’s most universal and flexible mobile language translation and language learning service, announced today it will host “China Night at DuPont Circle” on Friday evening, September 18, 2015 and share with attendees the beauty of Chinese music and teach attendees how to write Chinese calligraphy. The event is being co-hosted with the National Center for Sustainable Development (NCSD), a national 501(C)(3) not-for-profit whose mission is to harness the resources and efforts of Chinese and U.S. government-based agencies, business, industry, academia and not-for-profit communities of both countries and channel them into public-private initiatives promoting capacity building, sustainable economic development and investment projects, and practical applications in low carbon, climate resilience and clean-energy technologies and environmental remediation and redevelopment technologies. “We are truly excited to host this event at the nation’s capitol,” said Eric Fang, Founder and Chairman of Muuzii®. Our company originally launched service in China with the goal of providing an easy-to-use educational tool for teachers and students to easily translate between Chinese and English and we quickly grew to more than 6 million subscribers. We are proud of our Chinese heritage and wanted to use this event to highlight Muuzii®’s English-Chinese language translation capabilities and allow attendees to use Muuzii® to write Chinese Calligraphy on canvases we are providing. Mr. Fang further added, “We have been amazed at the warm acceptance of Washington, DC’s business community to sponsor this event with us. We have created a tremendous event with the help of our sponsors that includes the DuPont Festival, the Embassy Row Hotel, the Washington Dunhuang Guzheng Academy, ArtJamz, The Free Canvas and the China-US Chamber of Commerce. We invite all of Washington, DC to join us on that evening, between 6:00 […]
October 15, 2014 | Itawamba County – Mitchell Stanley, president of Washington-based non-profit group the National Center for Sustainable Development, called BlueFire Renewables a small company with big ambitions. “They’re like babes in the woods, here in Washington: They’re stumbling around, they don’t know what to do,” Stanley said of the California-based company, which has been struggling to finance a $350-$400 million ethanol plant in Fulton since 2009. Up until December of last year, the U.S. Department of Energy was funding more than $80-million of the project’s construction costs. But a series of missed deadlines for various paperwork filings on BlueFire’s part resulted in the DOE’s decision to withdraw support, throwing the project in jeopardy. During this time, Stanley’s group, which supports alternative-energy based companies, was working with various agencies in China to help the country replace their non-sustainable energy models with sustainable ones. “They’re dying at a record pace because their air is so bad they cannot breathe it,” Stanley said. The Chinese, he said, are looking for different ways to create fuel that doesn’t pollute as heavily. But as a culture, they’re more risk-adverse than the U.S. “They’re very reluctant to try new things that could help their problems with pollution. They’re so afraid of failure,” he said. But they’re not afraid of investing in companies willing to take risks. Working through the NCSD, China was searching for technology they could eventually utilize on their shores. That’s where BlueFire comes in. “I was intrigued with what [BlueFire CEO Arnold Klann] was trying to do in Mississippi,” said Stanley, who served as Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration under President George Bush. In that capacity, he handled the agency’s finance, investment and procurement assistance programs. During a phone conversation with The Itawamba County Times, Stanley said the […]
IRVINE, Calif. and Beijing, China, (October 8, 2014) – BlueFire Renewables, Inc. (OTC: BFRE), a company focused on changing the world’s transportation fuel paradigm through the production of renewable fuels announced that it has finalized and signed a new Master Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract for its planned cellulosic ethanol facility in Fulton, MS. The contract is with the China International Water and Electric, subsidiary of China Three Gorges Corporation (CTG), one of the world’s largest companies and China’s largest renewable energy company. “This contract is truly the first of its kind in the United States” stated Arnold Klann, CEO of BlueFire Renewables, Inc. “It not only provides the backing of a large multinational company with the expertise to manage the execution of the construction of the facility but also sets up a cooperation blueprint for BlueFire and China Three Gorges to work together on other projects and financing. The Master EPC structure will utilize a US based EPC Contractor to be the onsite engineering, procurement and construction team using local suppliers and craftsmen generating much needed local revenues for Itawamba County and the surrounding region.” The contract is to provide cost savings by leveraging China Three Gorges’ relationships and experience to complete the Fulton project. CTG was responsible for building the largest hydro electric dam in the world that went into operation in 2008 as well as other energy and infrastructure projects globally. “CTG’s support of this important commercial project is consistent with China’s goals to advance the use of non-food biomass to produce renewable fuels, power and chemicals in cooperation with the U.S. all the while helping the environment” said Lin Chuxue, Executive Vice President of CTG. “We see this relationship with BlueFire and Arkenol as an important step in bringing renewable cellulosic fuels and chemicals to […]
June 25, 2014 – AT&T has launched one of the more innovative services to come through its developer program: Muuzii’s translation service that uses SMS-based text and audio to break down the language barrier. AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) is exclusively offering the service with a monthly subscription, although Muuzii is currently offering a free 14-day trial during the soccer World Cup. The startup’s CMO, Cindy Davis, says it will soon be available across other operators in the US through a third-party aggregator. The service made its way out of AT&T’s Developer Program back in December in a soft launch, but Muuzii CEO Eric Fang says today marks the official launch of the new and improved service. Interestingly, Fang says the carrier’s developer program was great to work with, but that it took two years to work through the traditional channels at AT&T to get up and running. “They were easy to work with but took a long time to get on their network,” Fang said. “AT&T was also looking at other products, and, internally, they had to go through the whole exercise of evaluating businesses and consumer drive. The most important thing is if you are looking at our services, we generate revenues and help carriers generate revenue as well.” AT&T takes a cut of the subscription service Muuzii offers, ranging from $2.99 to $4.99 per month, and takes care of the billing process. A Typical Translation Query… After a quick set up, Muuzii will translate anything, like this completely normal and useful query, instantaneously through texting a short code. There are many translation apps on the market, but what makes Muuzii unique — besides that it has the backing of a major operator — is that it uses the phone’s native texting app for translations. After a few clicks […]
June 25, 2014 | By Mike Dano – AT&T Mobility (NYSE: T) today launched a new language translation service for Spanish and Chinese speakers through a new partnership with startup Muuzii. The service starts at $2.99 per month and allows users to send texts in either Spanish or Chinese and have the messages sent back to them translated into English. The service, powered by Muuzii, is promoted as providing “real-time, free-form, accurate translations in seconds.” Cindy Davis, Muuzii’s CMO, explained to FierceWireless that the company started working with AT&T in 2011 and inked a master licensing agreement with the carrier to launch the service. The company will offer two plans through AT&T: Muuzii Message, which costs $2.99 per month and will be billed to a subscriber’s AT&T bill. The service allows users to send a text message to a short code and have it returned in text in English. Muuzii Speak, which costs $3.99 per month and will be billed to a subscriber’s AT&T bill. The service allows users to send a text message to a short code and have it returned in both text and an audio file in English. “We’re not an app. As you know, the carriers don’t make any money from apps,” Davis explained. Instead, she said, the service runs through AT&T’s network and is available to any phone–including feature phones–that can send text messages. Davis said Muuzii and AT&T will jointly promote the service. She said the company is working to ink agreements with other U.S. wireless carriers. And to generate interest in its service, she said the company will return free translations to anyone who texts to 95997 through July 15 as part of a World Cup promotion. AT&T’s new partnership with Muuzii is just one of the carrier’s speech recognition and translation efforts. […]
RVINE, CA, (October 3, 2013) – BlueFire Renewables, Inc. (OTCBB: BFRE.OB), a company focused on changing the world’s transportation fuel paradigm has integrated a synergistic wood pellet production plant to its facility in Fulton Mississippi. The reconfigured design will be a 9 million gallon per year ethanol plant integrated with a 400,000 ton per year wood pellet plant. The pellets will be sold under long term contracts into the European mandated renewable energy market. “This restructure provides a more robust economic model for the Fulton facility with a significant increase in projected revenues. It has become apparent in our attempts to obtain financing for the project that the right synergies and revenue model would be needed to build this first of a kind facility” said Arnold Klann President & CEO. “The optimum use of biomass in the integrated facility strikes a much better balance of revenue with costs and a better utilization of resources. The more profitable use of capital and the enhanced security of projected revenue streams more closely match what the banks have been requiring in the very conservative and restricted credit markets” stated Klann. Traditionally wood pellets are used for electricity generation and can be sold under long term, fixed price contracts to credit worthy utilities thereby adding financial stability to the project. Blended with lignin from BlueFire’s process, the wood pellets create a market advantage under the international mandates for renewable energy, especially for power in the European Union. BlueFire has previously announced start of construction and has completed the preliminary site work for the ethanol facility. The engineering and other development activities needed are already under way to add the pellet plant. Synergistic partners will be announced once the definitive agreements are signed. About BlueFire Renewables, Inc. BlueFire Renewables, Inc. was established to deploy the […]
Beijing, China | July 19, 2012 – 2012 China Polysilicon Technology & Market High-level Forum (the “Forum”) was held on July 19, 2012 in Beijing. The Forum was jointly hosted by China Energy Investment Net (“CCEI”) and The National Center for Sustainable Development (“NCSD”), and co-sponsored by Poly Plant Project, Inc. (“PPP”). Senior Management of CCEI, NCSD and PPP Terry T. Kunimune, Chairman and Founder of PPP, gave a welcome speech at the Forum. “I would like to thank each person participating in this conference and hope you will be rewarded with valuable information and mutually beneficial relationship with PPP” added Mr. Kunimune, “I believe that PPP’s expertise and experience can be an important component of helping China’s future polysilicon production industry. We, PPP, want to be a partner with China and its future solar Industry.” Terry T. Kunimune, Chairman and Founder of PPP, gave an opening speech “I’m honored to be here to congratulate the opening of this very important event on behalf of the NCSD. This conference is about the future: China is the world leader, as evidenced by the participants here, in recognizing that sustainability of the world’s resources, particularly energy, through practical innovation.” Eric Fang, Trustee and Senior Vice President of the NCSD gave a congratulatory address, “Renewable energy is a critical building block of the current and future global economic prosperity. We are encouraged by the great number of interested groups and individuals represented at this conference and believe that much good will come to all from the work done here.” Eric Fang, Trustee & Senior Vice President of the NCSD, gave a congratulatory address The Forum mainly focused on the global and China’s polysilicon technology innovation and market development trends, with in-depth discussion related to the market access, demands and development strategies and trends, […]
Beijing, China | June 11, 2012 – ENFOS, Inc. (“ENFOS”) today announced that a Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) has been signed with Beijing Shougang Automation Information Technology Co., Ltd. (“SGAI”), the automation and information technology company of Capital Steel Group, committing the two partners to the development of a multi-faceted long-term relationship conducting environmental business management activities in China. Mr. Craig Modesitt, CEO of ENFOS and Mr. Guan Shaobo, GM of SGAI Under the MOU, SGAI will serve as a reseller and exclusive cloud provider of the ENFOS Software as a Service remediation application (the “ENFOS Service”) in China. SGAI and ENFOS will work together to build an information-sharing platform for environmental remediation business management, including data management, business process management, performance management, and develop customized features to satisfy Chinese users’ requirements. SGAI and ENFOS will make unremitting efforts for the implementation of Capital Steel’s remediation and redevelopment Beijing project, to achieve high quality with low cost in a proper time limit. “In China, relocating industrial enterprises from central districts of large cities has become an irreversible trend for the economic development in China. Most of the abandoned sites left behind by the relocation of industrial enterprises are likely to be seriously polluted and have high potential risk. Therefore, remediation and redevelopment of these former industrial sites is an urgent priority in order to protect the urban environment. Capital Steel’s relocation has been exerting far-reaching influence on the regional layout and the development of the domestic steel producers to promote structural adjustment in the steel industry in China,” said Mr. Guan Shaobo, President of SGAI. He further expressed that “Now, it is the right time for ENFOS to enter the China market. ENFOS will help us manage information to best serve the interests of all stakeholders for Capital Steel’s remediation […]
