Visit to Central Asia

After doing a few days work in Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) I was driven to Almaty (Kazakhstan) from where I had a flight to Dushanbe (Tajikistan). Taking off from the Almaty airport...

The scenery over the Central Asian mountain ranges is beautiful and when arriving in Dushanbe the mountains are all around you. The stoplights in the city have a nice "count down" light system which helps the traffic flows. On the photo below you can see an example + also what seems to be - according to the Guinness Book of Records - the largest flagpole and flag (no wind that moment so you have to take a good look...)

The view of the city from my hotel room. Below some shots of the city. The next photo is theTajiki version of their "White House" and they also have what they call the "Twin Towers"....

I visited the Ismaili Center in Dushanbe of the Aga Khan organization with whom we are starting our project work in Central Asia in July. The photos below show the impressive hallways and how the  center functions. There are six such centers in the world (two in Canada in Vancouver and in Toronto)

Finally a photo of the country Tajikistan. Where the person holds his finger is where the University of Central Asia - with whom Seneca will partner - will be built.  It is right on the border with  Afghanistan. The UCA will construct three campuses:  in rural Kyrgyzstan to open in September 2016, in rural Tajikistan in September 2018 and in rural Kazakhstan in September 2020.

Bollywood atmosphere in Toronto

Seneca College and other Canadian institutions have signed agreements with the National Skills Development Council of India to work on curriculum development and teacher training for many of the professions which we call "Technologists" and "Technicians" (obtained after 2 and 3 year diploma programs). Seneca will work on projects in training for aviation and health. The agreements were signed during a visit of the Prime Minister of India to Canada (1st time in 42 years the Indian PM did visit Canada). He visited in 3 days Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver. Yesterday I was one of  10,000 people who came to listen to Modi's speech (fully delivered in Hindi to the 9,900 Indo-Canadians in the stadium). Before the speech took place there was Indian song and dance from 5 to 9 PM....

Prime Minister Harper briefly introduced Prime Minister Modi and then the Indian PM was welcomed as a true "Bollywood star" in the stadium. It was an interesting evening....

Creative juices flow at Seneca College

Seneca College has a variety of creative programs from Graphic Design to Documentary Production, Floral Design to Visual Merchandising Arts, and Event Management to Fashion Arts. Tonight many students from these programs worked together to present "Redefining Design 2015" during which 35 fashion design graduating students showed some of their creations on the runway.

A good audience gathered at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Center in Toronto, and the show was very well organized. It was a pleasure to see all this creative work from young professionals!

China and Australia

The past few weeks I traveled for work to China. In Beijing we participated in the APAIE, the Asia Pacific Association of International Education. The location of the conference was next to the "Birds Nest", the main Olympic Stadium of the Games hosted by Beijing in 2012.

At the conference many countries promote their education systems and many existing and new partnerships are discussed and presented. Here are a few of the country booths: a splashing one from the Australians (who will host the APAIE in 2016), the modest booth of Canada, even my small country of Holland was there, and the Catalonians assumed people know they are part of Spain and Europe (even though their booth design was one of the most eye-catching)...

Beijing had nice clear skies this time (compared to the horrible smog I experienced in October last year). On the Sunday I had some time to walk around near our hotel and hereby a few shots:

The rest of the days were filled with meetings at several of our partner institutions in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Some impressions of the campuses, the meetings and the very nice welcome signs they always put up:

On the way to China I flew via Brisbane in Australia to do a short two day evaluation visit of the Peace & Conflict Resolution Master degree program offered at Queensland University to 10 fellows sponsored by the Rotary International Foundation each year (same as I did in January at Uppsala University in Sweden). It was such a busy few days that I forgot to make photos other than these two of the river which flows through the city and one of the fun little restaurants I was hosted in...

 Talking about food, I have to show a few of the photos I took in Beijing when we walked past the daily famous food market: all sort of things there including cooked scorpions....

The hosting in China was again superb and we had a variety of work lunches and dinners where the food "just kept coming" on the typical traditional moving round plate in the middle of the table:

Now back for a while again in Niagara at home and in Toronto at work. Lots of projects, partnerships and student recruitment work to oversee and coordinate. Seneca is an exciting and happening place!

Never a boring moment...

Sleeping is not on the list of suggested activities, but student life is exhausting as we all know.
A day in the life of the corridors of the Seneca campus buildings.

Recently we hosted visitors who got to see the flight simulators for one of the aviation programs at Seneca. Brought back memories from my six years of work at Fokker Aircraft in Amsterdam and the travels for that company in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Spain (1983-1988).

The simulated landing was at the island airport in downtown of Toronto. You can see the CN Tower on the simulated screen. Our visitor landed well (with some help) but then stopped paying attention and drove off the runway. Some good laughs resulted. Fun thing to do with visitors.

I had lunch with James Orbinski at Massey College (University of Toronto) where he is a Senior Fellow and teaches on international health & politics. Was great to see him again. And despite the fact that he hangs out every now and then with highly ranked folks (see this photo of 2006), he told me that he makes every morning breakfast for his wife and three kids. Next meeting at his house!

Off to Australia and China the coming two weeks...