Professor Vilas Wuwongse, Vice President for External Relations and Dr. Weerakorn Ongsakul, in his capacity as Greater Mekong Subregion Academic and Research Network (GMSARN) Secretary General, visited Kunming University of Science and Technology (KUST) and Yunnan University (YU) on 19 and 20 September 2007, to strengthen AIT's GMSARN collaboration with the two universities.
At KUST they met with Prof. Baojain Yang, Vice President; Prof. Qun Zhao, Deputy Director of School of Graduate Studies; Prof. Gang Deng, Director of International Cooperation and Dean of School of International Programs; and other senior faculty and staff members including AIT alumnus Prof. Songjiang Wang of the Faculty of Management and Economics. KUST has been actively contributing to GMSARN activities and has offered to co-host the next GMSARN International Conference, as well as the Board Meeting in 2008. In addition, KUST has expressed its interest to cooperate with AIT in some joint or unified international programs, as its new School of International Programs has just been established and KUST will focus more on GMS and ASEAN. Prof. Changchun Zhou, Deputy Dean of School of International Programs, will attend a workshop on the development of a joint study program in GMS Development Planning and Management, to be held on 18-19 October at AIT.
Also as part of the visit, Professor Vilas and Dr. Weerakorn had a meeting with Prof. Xian Xiao, Vice President; Prof. Jianxin Zhang, Director of Research Institute of Higher Education; Mr. Xinli Yu, Executive Director of International Exchange Programs and other staff members. During the meeting, Prof. Xiao mentioned that Yunnan University considers GMS and ASEAN to be its most important regions in terms of developing partnerships. The university has been assigned by the Ministry of Education to be the Chinese contact point with the ASEAN University Network. In this connection, YU wishes to be more active in GMSARN and will be pleased to co-host the next GMSARN International Conference and Board Meeting in 2008, together with KUST. Yunnan University is a comprehensive university with traditional strengths in natural and social sciences. Now it has plans to strengthen its engineering and other international programs. Therefore, it wishes to explore closer bilateral cooperation with the Institute and has requested AIT to consider the possibility of the establishment of a center at YU similar to the one in Vietnam.