Gu Yong sits in his office in the picturesque Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)Science and Technology campus in the old French Concession of Shanghai, now the trendy Luwan District. He is surrounded by history while dealing with such cutting edge issues as the legal liabilities of cell duplication patents.

He is on the Board of Directors of Scien-Tech Import and Export, a division of OSIC, Oriental Scientific, headquartered in Beijing. Scien-Tech is used by all the universities and institutes in Shanghai and neighboring provinces to handle their scientific equipment and lab needs.

He talked about the value of his time at Stony Brook as part of a special program set up by Charles Wang, founder of CA, in 1997. Yong was in the last group to come, affectionately known as China V, in 1999. Officially the group was the CA / CEAS AIMP - Computer Associates / College of Engineering and Applied Sciences Advanced Information Management Program.

Wang had returned to China in 1995 for the first time since he left as a child of 8. At that time China was only graduating 500 MBA's per year. He offered to send 100 of China's up and coming IT professionals for university management courses at SBU. His only requirement, they really be worthy of being chosen, and they must come from every area of China.

The program is talked about in other articles in this issue but suffice it to say, China did choose some of its best and brightest and they have gone on to change China. Some directly in its SOE's, or State Owned Enterprises. Some indirectly by becoming the entrepreneurs that have catapulted China into the 3rd largest trading economy in the world following the US and Germany.

And many of them attribute their time in Stony Brook directly for how it changed their lives. WANG Shanshan is a perfect example.

Unlike GU Yong who helped to transform his CAS enterprise into one with the government only having 4% ownership, Shanshan changed gears completely. She saw the possibilities and spread her wings, leaving the SOE she worked for to join a private firm. She now heads the Division of Information Services for www.mytong.com and www.mytong.cn  (Both sites are in Chinese.)

For those of you who can't read them, mytong is a provider of international business information for Chinese firms and institutions. It researches overseas industries and international trade trends. (Part of why China is now number 3!)

Because of what Charles Wang and Stony Brook did for them, they feel honored to Chair a SB China affinity group of the SBU Alumni Association. To quote Associate Dean Jiuhua Chen, with whom they have been working, they and China V hope to be "the heart" of an ever-growing SBU China Alumni Association.

And if the first reunion they held in Shanghai in August is an example, SB China will blossom. Carlos Yang (Yang Hanyu), who traveled 18 hours all the way from Western China to attend, had been in Kazaqstan in the days before the reunion. He joked about the daily emails he got from Shanshan convincing him that the journey would be worthwhile. And upon arrival, Gu Yong provided a van to carry everyone everywhere together - reminiscent of the 'field trips' at Stony Brook. 

If you are in China - you can contact GU Yong in Shanghai at guyong99 @ hotmail.com or WANG Shanshan in Beijing at sharonwang3000 @ yahoo.com.cn

AIMP Stony Brook China V Alumni Reunions, August 2006
http://www.aaezine.org/articles/vol15/15N1AIMPSBChinaVAlumniReunions0806.shtml

AIMP Stony Brook China V Photo Albums, August 2006
http://www.aasquared.org/gallery/SBUChinaAlumni0806

by Ja Young, Alumni Editor, Shanghai Summer, 5 Sept 06