Hello everyone! My name is Trenton Gilstrap, a junior Bioengineering major at the University of Pittsburgh and that is me in the picture above. I have started this blog to get the word out about a program offered at the University of Pittsburgh called INNOVATE. The program accepts applications from business students and students of all engineering disciplines and forms a class out of them. The class will then meet once per week during the Spring Semester. The goal of the class is to teach students about Chinese culture, tradition, and how they handle business. The last component is the most important to this course. Turns out that how the Chinese attack issues in Industry is significantly different from the U.S. I will go more into the differences as I experience them in later postings.
Right as Spring Break begins, the INNOVATE class board a flight to China and stay there for break. While we are there we will split time between Beijing, Suzhou and Shanghai. At each stop we will be visiting different companies to see how Chinese companies handle industry and in particular how they attack the issue of sustainability.
I am very excited about the trip. It will be the first time I have ever been to Asia and it was a miracle that I found the money to attend the program. I have always been interested in Asian culture and before I never had the resources to travel abroad, let alone fly all the way out to Asia. So, INNOVATE seemed like a perfect option to me. I will talk about the ups and downs of the trips and talk about specific topics that interest me like the native cuisine, travel, landmarks and other things that catch my eye. I am about to do China and I am taking you, the reader, along for the ride.
