The ITRI Forum made quite an impression with their event, which was held on Friday, June 20, at the Santa Clara Convention Center. The networking was good, but it would be best if you know Mandarin. But it is always good to get an idea of how research is proceeding in other area, both in other areas of technology and the world.

Politics, which is always a touchy subject when talk of Taiwan and China come up, was gently touched upon. There is really surprising little business done between China and Taiwan. The general feeling seemed to be that many in the room thought Taiwan’s new change in leadership would mean greater business ties to China.

But you still need to be careful. Some of the panelist in the IP and Venture discussion brought up real-world stories that they could confirm with their own experience in doing business with China. The stories sounded more like the problems that you might run into with organized crime. For example, a US manufacturing firm would not ship their products to a Chinese company until their CEO confirmed that the money for the goods was first wired into the US firm’s bank account in China.  It was, and the product was shipped. Almost immediately, the money was wired OUT of the US firm’s account. Sure enough, the business rules of China allowed the Chinese business to wire the money out after it was wired in. The US firm tried to stop the shipment, but it was too late. The US firm also tried to sue the Chinese company for theft. As the head of the Chinese business explained in a face-to-face meeting with the CEO of the US firm, the three judges that would determine if a crime had been committed were all consultants to this Chinese business. The head of the Chinese business offered to write a check right then and there for half of what the shipment was supposed to be if the US firm would call it even.

I attended a talk given by Feng Deng sponsored by HYSTA and held in the Fenwick and West auditorium on Saturday, May 10. The Fenwick and West auditorium  is a great setting for a talk. I had wanted to get there early to network, but I found the front door closed. Turns out that the entrance was around the corner. I have been to this building several times, but I did not realize that the other entrance existed. By the time that I found it, I was only able to network a little. But I did manage to get a place to sit, which was a major accomplishment.

Feng Deng is best known for selling his company, NetScreen Technologies, after it went public on the NASDAQ to Juniper Networks for $4 billion. HYSTA organization itself has an extensive managerial structure and several big names in its board including Feng Deng. The weird thing is that this organization was founded back in 1999. For such a young organization, it is very advanced.

Feng Deng is now a VC in China where he has been living for the last few years. He joked that his English was a little rusty, but I had no problems hearing or understanding him where I was in the back of the room. The only problem with the talk was that there were far more people attending the talk than the room could hold. The talk itself was 2 hours long with another hour scheduled for questions. I think that it would have been better to reduce the time for the talk to 1 hour to keep more focused.

Feng Deng was both enthusiastic and honest about the economy in China. What he said, I have heard from other sources. For example, he does not think that a recession in the US will slow China down. Most Chinese businesses are focused on the huge, growing Chinese market and have not spent much time or effort to become a global brand. The biggest issue of the US and world economy that will affect China will be in the cost of food, energy and overall inflation. Inflation is becoming a huge problem in China.

One area that China still needs to work on in getting her people to be innovative. But innovation is really the freedom to try new things and to make mistakes without fear. That is something that the people of China probably do not feel that they can safely do. For example, I read a story published by a business writer visiting China. His hotel had given him a free bottle of wine. He had brought the wine to a restaurant and asked to have it with his meal. This variation from their standard business practice was too much for the Chinese wait staff and management. After much discussion on the subject, the writer was told that he could not drink wine brought from outside the restaurant. When in doubt, the restaurant management chose to take the safest course.

After a late night when the gods of mobile devices were clearly very unhappy with me, I forced myself to get up extra early to attend a SVC Wireless Networking Lunch.  I attended one of their networking dinners a few weeks ago.  This was my fist lunch.  The reason that I was extra early was not that I was really hungry but was because the last minute lunch was put together to give some Chinese entrepreneurs a chance to talk about their new Education 2.0 venture in China before they left for the airport this afternoon.  

The main speakers were Mr. Jason Ren and Dr. James Ong.  Their next tech venture is to create a type of eLearning Web 2.0 company and web site named Great Weave.  I could not find the web site.  Maybe there is no English language site yet.  Their company is going to help China to find a more cost-effective way to educate their college students.  In China, there are huge hurtles to overcome to provide a college education for everyone who qualifies.  According to Ren and Ong, only 20% of the people who want to attend college can.  The biggest problem is that there are many students and few universities and teachers.  I also learned that college in China used to be free back before 1997.  I was told today by one of the lunch attendees who went to college in China that now it cost around $60K for a college education in China.  Compared to US college costs, that is low.  But in China where a good job might pay $1k month, that’s a bunch of money.  

Great Weave is to mix the virtual world of multiplayer games like World of Warcraft with eLearning with college faculty and with social network sites like MySpace.  They are planning to create different virtual campuses for each member university and have the students create educational content.  I am guessing that the classes can be started at any time and that the advance students will help teach the novice students under the watchful eye of a professor.  The only part that I found distasteful was that this virtual university site is supposed to also include shopping.  The speakers showed a mock-up of a virtual university including a virtual dorm room.  I suddenly flashed to the SIMs world.  I saw students buying virtual furniture that was way cooler than the virtual furniture that came standard in all of the freshman dorms.  I imagine that it will not take much to get to a huge virtual bar tab for a virtual fraternity party that leaves a huge virtual hangover.

Technorati tags: Great Weave, SVC Wireless, eLearning, Education 2.0, China, mobile learning