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Asia Oceania Top University League on Engineering
Promotes Academic Cooperation and Exchanges

Distinguished guests, alumni, teachers, and students:

The College of Engineering and the College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science coorganized the "2009 AOTULE Conference" which was held at NTU from December 2-4th this year. The Asia Oceania Top University League on Engineering (AOTULE) was founded in March 2007 for the purposes of improving the qualities of engineering education and for enhancing the qualities of research while promoting international cooperation. Its members comprised of twelve universities, which are: Japan's Tokyo Industrial University, Korea Advanced Institute of Technology, Beijing's Tsing-hua University, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Malaysia's the University of Malaysia, Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, Indonesia's Bandung Institute of Technology, Thailand's Chulaongkorn University, India's Bombay Institute of Technology, New Zealand's University of Auckland, Australia's University of Monash, and National Taiwan University. These twelve members represent the best engineering or technology institutions of higher learning in Asia and Oceania, and AOTULE was founded to promote interchange and cooperation among its members, which includes:

  1. Holding an annual conference for the deans of colleges of engineering of the member universities
  2. Holding academic seminars every year
  3. Exchange of students
  4. Exchange of academic and administrative personnel
  5. Exchange of academic information and research achievements
  6. Other academic exchange and cooperation programs under agreement

The first conference was held in Tokyo, Japan in March of 2007, the second conference was held Taejon, Korea in November of 2007, the third conference was held in Auckland, New Zealand in November, 2008, and NTU now hosts the fourth conference. The theme of this year's conference was "Student mobility and Internationalization Strategies", and was attended by deans of college of engineering from 10 member universities and 31 high level administrators.

December 3rd marked the first day of the conference. After Vice President Dr. George Tai-Jen Chen made the welcome speech, Dr. Huan-Jang Keh, Dean of the College of Engineering, and Dr. Lin-Shan Lee, Dean of the College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, officiated the opening ceremony and delivered their speeches. This was followed by the delegates from each of the member universities reporting on their student exchange and internationalization situation. In the afternoon a 70 minute laboratory tour was arranged for the delegates. In accordance with the delegate's interests and areas of specialization, the laboratory tour was divided into two routes: the first route was guided by Dr. Jer-Ren Yang, Head of the Department of Material Science and Engineering, where the delegates visited the material analysis laboratory (electron microscopy and high power X-ray diffraction instrument) and by Dr. Bin-Juine Hwang, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, who led the delegates to visit the thermal laboratory, the world's first 150 watt high power LED and 100 watt solar powered road lamp, and the solar energy research laboratory. The second route was arranged by the College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, which led the delegates to visit the image processing, communications and multi-media, e-beam and nano technology, neural biology and cognitive science laboratories. In the evening, the College of Engineering took all delegates and their families to the Swallow Lake at Wu-lai, where they enjoyed a sumptuous Kaiseki cooking pot. The second day was the highlight of the conference, where the delegates discussed strategic issues such as student exchange, internationalization, bi-lateral agreements, etc, and exchanged opinions on the ordinary issues of the League, such as the 3-month short term student exchange program installed by the Tokyo Industrial University and its implementation results and future plans, the installation of an international network for top notch universities, the feedback of students' meetings, the selection of a host nation for next year's conference and other issues relating to the exchange among AOTULE partners. After the busy conference all delegates went to tour the National Palace Museum, after which they went to Ping-xi to release the sky lanterns. It was a blessing that the weather was fair, so all delegates could relax after a busy day of serious conferencing and enjoy the folk culture of Taiwan. For all concerned, it was truly an enjoyable trip where all the delegates had unforgettable memories of Taiwan.

In accordance with the practice of AOTULE, this year a "Dean's Conference" was also prepared. In addition, a graduate student's meeting was arranged on December 2nd and 3rd for the member schools. The themes of this year's graduate student meeting were water resources, environment, energy, sustainable development and bio-technology. It was attended by 13 graduate students from National Taiwan Universities and 58 graduate students from other member schools, totaling 71. The first day of the graduate students' meeting was opened by a speech from Dr. Huan-Jang Keh, Dean of the College of Engineering, followed by a lecture by Dr. Ken Okazaki, Dean of the College of Engineering from Tokyo Industrial University, who gave a lecture on "Curbing global warming for sustainable survival—the engineering challenges". Dr. Fa-lin Chen, Director of NTU's Energy Research Center, also gave a lecture on "using the Kuroshio currents to generate electricity". What ensued was that the attending graduate students delivered 35 speech papers and 28 poster papers. Regardless of whether these papers were delivered by speech or by poster, the standards and the level of sophistication were quite high, and the discussions were very enthusiastic. Especially the graduate students from Tokyo Industrial University, their performances were extraordinary. It was our understanding that they had held an international seminar in August of this year, and 34 students were selected from among 60 some students to participate in this year's AOTULE conference. Perhaps this was a strategy worthy of our reference.

This year's "Asia Oceania Top University League on Engineering" conference and its graduate students' meetings have received very abundant results. In addition to the concrete follow-up exchange programs proposed by the deans of the member schools, facility and capability cooperations were also proposed, and students capitalized on this international conference to broaden their perspectives. What is especially worth mentioning is that, according to the original plan, NTU was slated to host the fifth conference in the Fall of 2010, but , owing to the situations in the originally scheduled host country, NTU was asked to host this year's conference as late as September of this year. The College of Engineering had to take the job on such short notice, and, under the leadership of Dean Huan-Jang Keh and Vice Dean Chia-Pei Chou, the staff and students of the college made ardent efforts to prepare for the conference within two months. So, as the timing was right, the location was auspicious, and people who were involved were enthusiastic, we completed this almost impossible mission.

Chinese version