NSF: US & China Collaboration

Participants

• Richard Ziolkowski, University of Arizona• Ophir Frieder, Georgetown• Jason Hong, CMU• James Landay, University of Washington• Ruixin Yang, George Mason University• Peter Chen, CMU• Ning An, Oracle• Douglas Fisher, Vanderbilt

Our Discussion Topics

• Barriers• Location• Finding Connections• Non-controversial Issues• Chinese view of stability• Establishing World Lab

Barriers

• IP / export control (HPC, encryption)• Wolf Amendment limiting use of US funds

• Social graph between US and China• Need framework for cross cultural studies• Low payment for interns from US

Location

• Beijing vs. Shanghai vs. Other Areas• Would Westerners be willing to live in other areas?• Tradeoff is competing with other universities• Lots of potential impact in outlying areas

• Possible model: collaborate with other universities thru Beijing connection

Find Connections

• High profile conferences in China• SIGIR, SIGMOD, CSCW, Ubicomp• Maybe leverage these for US researchers to visit

other universities, have a local chair help arrange visits

• Opportunities for US students to meet Chinese students

• Pairing up US and Chinese student volunteers• Postdocs and visitors

• China Scholarship Council

Non-controversial Issues

• China• Not related to organizing people• Not questioning legitimcy of Communist Party

• US• Avoid defense related projects• Avoid possible concerns from Congress

• Jobs being shipped overseas• Need to be clear win-win for US and Chinas

• Good win-win areas• Education, health, environment• Work with Chinese government to get endorsement

Chinese View of Stability

• Long term view (5k years)• Huge desire in Chinese society for stability

• Framing sustainability as stability

Establishing World Lab

• Central vs. Distributed vs. Hybrid• Few core centers with satellites

• Europe: the network of centers of excellence• Danger of losing focus• High travel cost

• Virtual organizations• Distributed temporally

• Handling time zones well• Re-hydration of contexts and tasks

• “Beyond Being There”

Healthcare

• They need overhaul of healthcare system• Aging population: taking care of the elder

people• Long-term care situation

Environments

• Chinese wanting American dream of middle class• Friends• But would consume a great deal of resources

• Developing safe nuclear plants• Buildings in China being re-built for long-term

Education

• MIT open courses is well received in China• Deliver education to rural areas via mobile

phones• 7 million migrant workers at Beijing only have

access to low quality education • Students swap their skill sets

• Chinese students (math & sciences) and US students (creativity & imaginations)

• Parents can help here too