Levy accompanies mayor to Middle East

Levy accompanies mayor to Middle East

BY B.J. ALMOND
Rice News staff

Rice Provost Eugene Levy was among the 25 representatives of Houston business and education invited to accompany Mayor Bill White last month on a business development and international relations mission to the Middle East.

The delegation visited Abu Dhabi and Dubai, both in the United Arab Emirates, and Doha in Qatar. The trip gave Levy an opportunity to learn more about the education and research programs and partnerships that are developing in the Middle East.

	EUGENE LEVY

Although the primary focus of the delegation was on industry and trade, Levy also had the opportunity to learn about education and technology initiatives in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, as well as to gain an overview of the pace and nature of urban and business development in the region. ”This is a very rapidly developing part of the world with vast natural resources that can provide the wherewithal to support a remarkable pace and level of economic and social development,” Levy said. “The opportunities for development of education and technology are extraordinary. We should all be watching to see how these opportunities are capitalized upon over time.”

In Abu Dhabi, Levy was impressed with the Masdar Initiative, a new town being designed to stringent energy and carbon-footprint requirements that are intended to set a new standard of energy efficiency. “It’s a very ambitious and conceptually exciting project, aiming to be the greenest urban development on the planet,” he said. “I will certainly be very interested to follow the progress of the Masdar Initiative to see what measures of success and economic viability it achieves.”

Levy said traveling with the Houston delegation also enabled him to connect with several local Houston companies that might have potential for collaborating with Rice in engineering research and education. 

The trip was one of several that Levy has made recently as part of Rice’s Vision for the Second Century goal of developing international outreach.

Last year Levy visited Israel to help foster exchange programs for students and faculty. “Israel already has half a dozen world-class institutions of higher education and research, which offer enormous opportunities to Rice students and faculty, both for educational exchanges and other experiences, and for research collaborations at the highest levels,” he said. “We are working toward increasing the level of engagement with Israeli institutions.

“Israel’s achievements in education, research and technology development set an extraordinary pace by any measure, but the totality of development and achievement, especially measured against the small size and short history of the country is astounding,” Levy said.

Earlier this year he visited Vietnam and Singapore.

“Rice’s Connexions project has gained significant traction in Vietnam,” Levy said. In 2006 Connexions announced an agreement with the Vietnam Education Foundation, Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training and the Vietnam Advanced Software Company to deploy Connexions’ Web-based, open-source document creation and management system and content.

Levy said Singapore also offers extraordinary opportunities for exchange and collaboration with Rice. These opportunities grow out of Singapore’s most impressive strategically focused approach to planning – and investing in – the nation’s future, Levy said. One important initiative is already moving forward. Last year computing researchers at Rice joined electronics specialists at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University to form a $2.6 million Institute for Sustainable Nanoelectronics to dramatically reduce design and production costs for embedded microchips. Rice’s Krishna Palem, the Ken and Audrey Kennedy Professor of Computer Science, heads the institute.

”Altogether, Rice’s already very impressive stature in education and research and its ambitions to grow in size, accomplishment and impact make greater international engagement an essential part of our university’s future,” Levy said.