Welcome, everyone. The Council for Advancement and Support of Education is pleased to present this online webinar, Virtual Alumni Engagement and Global Experiential Learning in a Pandemic World. My name is Ann Weller and it's my pleasure to introduce our speaker today. Wei Loon Leong is currently director of International Alumni Engagement at the State University of New York at Buffalo. His current role includes working with campus partners in efforts to engage over 20,000 of the 280,000 UB alumni residing overseas with the university and among themselves a double alumnus of the State University of New York at Buffalo with an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering and an MBA. Wei Loon resides in Williamsville, New York, with his wife Shelly, and their two year old daughter, Janice. Welcome. Thank you. And thank you to Chase for this opportunity to share my experience with everyone here today. The presentation today is just another just to how we will complete some of our alumni engagement task, especially in this pandemic world. For the past 15 months, so as and alluded to, I am director of International Alumni Engagement at the University of Buffalo State University in New York, or formerly known as State University of New York at Buffalo. I've been in this role since 2013. So coming up to a year that I've been involved in this international alumni engagement efforts. This is a very important effort in not just my own opinion, but also our our university as well. So on this slide, I'll give you a very brief introduction of how our university and what our university is. It was founded in 1846. It's New York's number one public university. It is the largest and most comprehensive campus in the 64 campus SUNY system. This is something that we're really proud of because we're within an elite group of institutions in North America by the name of the association of American Universities. You were located in Buffalo, New York. So towards the western tip of New York State, where, you know, our our country is bordering on Canada through Niagara Falls, our student body. This is as of fall 2020 as 32,003 47. And all of that 22,306 undergraduates and the remaining are graduate professionals, program students, faculty and staff. We're looking at slightly over 2500 as total faculty, closing in to about 6000 full, full time equivalent employees. And as far as alumni, we have more than 20,000 in 150 countries and more than 150,000 in New York State. As regards to international alumni engagement on the international front, right now, we have a total of 14 international chapters. The closest one to us, of course, is on our neighbor to the north in Canada. China, including Hong Kong, Taiwan, India. Indonesia. Japan. Korea. Malaysia. Mexico, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey. And the latest being UAE. And that was actually established last summer in the middle of this very unfortunate pandemic that we're going through. So in terms of the top five international chapters and and the way we we categorize international alums as, you know, we're don't we don't go by citizenship. We actually, you know, regard any any international or any alumnus would have a preferred address overseas. You are considered a national. Now, you may be wondering, so what's the what's the number? Why are there two sets of numbers here? Like, for example, a Singapore that's 5147 and then there's 44, 98. Then, you know, now we're looking at 5147. All the students, regardless of whether they are Singapore students or they are, you know, permanent residents of Singapore or, you know, any students who came from Singapore to UAB to study and graduated and then return home. So the 514, seven are that group of individuals and out of that, 4498 are currently residing in Singapore. Now, the reason why it's it's fairly high for, you know, alums in in who are currently residing in Singapore is because we have a longstanding partnership with Singapore Institute of Management. So this dates back to 1996 when we began a executive MBA program with Singapore Institute of Management. And then fast forward to 24, we actually have started a undergraduate program in Singapore. Right now it's up to 14 different majors. The major ones being psychology, sociology, Communication, Business Administration. So, you know, a lot of a majority of the alumnus in Singapore actually graduate in the Singapore campus without having stepped foot in Buffalo. They do have an option to come to Buffalo for a semester or two to experience the whole campus, but they're not required to. So, you know, but that Singapore is regarded as the largest chapter followed by India. Again, the significant difference here is because, you know, they're a majority of the students from India, they come and then, you know, they are here in the U.S. they never return. Now, if you are an investment professional, whether it's alumni get training or fundraising, you know, keeping track of contact information that addresses the challenge. So we do the best we can. But this is what our numbers are looking at. So we are very confident to say that, you know, for example, 3538 alumni are actually residing in India. So a majority of them are, of course, Indian citizens. But we have, you know, other nationalities, other nationalities, too. For example, in Singapore, you know, we are we're not surprised to find Americans, Canadians, Malaysians, Vietnamese, Japanese, Koreans and whatnot within that 4498 number followed by China. So China study for 19, South Korea, 1423. Canada, surprisingly, is not our largest. But, you know, they're within the top five. And this gives you an idea on how our alumni are being spread out. And you can see that we're very focused in Asia because of the numbers we recruit historically and because of the partnership programs we have. The university has worked with other campuses and institutions in Asia and study abroad and not that results in a majority of our international alumni in in Asia. So my my next slide is really about global programs at the School of Management. So I work very closely with the School of management, not just because I'm biased and I'm a graduate, a proud graduate of school of management, but because of this global program. So the global programs at the School of Management at the university offers us students, and we're not limiting to just school management students. So there's partnerships with the School of Engineering, Medical School, public health, nursing and whatnot to actually offer students study abroad opportunities in Africa, Asia, Central America, Europe and North America. So we're only missing Australia for now. And, you know, Middle East is another. And of course Antarctica and south, the South Pole. But, you know, these opportunities really offer for international destinations Ghana, China, India, Costa Rica, Hungary, and we have what we call a domestic 50. So it's really cater to international students from overseas here. And they can travel to Silicon Valley, Texas, you know, Disney in Florida and Boston. So my role is really focus on China because I was a alum of this program as well. When I did my undergrad, my my MBA. And I my first trip to to China was really in the winter of 2004, because I. In fall of 2004, actually. Winter, yes, the winter of 2004. And then in the fall of 2004, I took the class in this. And you know, this this whole program was running. It started back in 1999. So that's a lot of history to this. But, you know, this really class offers the opportunity to learn a lot about international business practices and corporate. And the students will complete a corporate consulting project with a local company that is looking at expanding overseas or helping companies here to expand their product offerings in in China, in Asia. Or, you know, we engage with alums in China to say, you know, can our students help you to look at, you know, perhaps a survey for your consumer behavior or, you know, if you want to expand a particular product, would you like our students to help you with, you know, some feasibility studies and things like that? And following that, following that class, the two weeks at the beginning of January. So we usually you leave the U.S. on the Monday, right after January 1st of the new year. So we go through Beijing and we go to Shanghai and we end up in Hong Kong and we release from home for home for Hong Kong. And the two weeks really include leisure. So, you know, we visit the Great Wall and, you know, we go to different companies to visit. So here comes the corporate visits. And then during that time when we visit the companies, the students work presents their project findings and recommendations. So this is this is going on for more than ten years, and this is how we do this. Everything pre-pandemic, right? So this is how we go from we fly in to Beijing, we take a high speed train to Shanghai, and then we fly to Hong Kong and then we spend some time in Hong Kong and whole company visits. We we visit closely again in Beijing because one of the one of our alums is vice president of Special Projects at Volkswagen. So we we visit this is a picture of Volkswagen Academy sales and services is only one out of the two globally. The other one is in Germany in the headquarters. The next one is in in China, in Beijing, right here where Volkswagen not only sells vehicles or manufacturing, the symbol of this academy really serves to train dealers how to create the customer experience, how to service, you know, customers, but also service car. So at the back here, you see, you know, workshops, literally workshops that simulate a typical, you know, car service workshop where, you know, they have different tools and either vehicle lifting equipment and whatnot. And then, you know, the the students actually present their findings. And this is something that we're very proud of. So this this project with Volkswagen, we we did it for two years, actually prior to the pandemic, the students were offered an opportunity to to gather customer service plan for electric vehicles. Okay. So Volkswagen was developing the electric vehicle, the full electric, not even the plug in hybrid that we see here with a Prius and things like that. But they're really looking at, you know, developing the full electric, which is what it is right now. Today. It's the id4 that we have in in North America and also in Asia, in China. But, you know, China is one step ahead. They have the ID six, which is a three year old SUV. We're very proud of the fact that the customer service plant for those two vehicles are actually contributed and supported by a finding from our students. So the students find out what Tesla is doing, what Nissan is doing, what Toyota is doing, and they sort of present that to the gentleman here on the left here in front of this this, this, this screen and two gentlemen here who really put together the customer service plan customized for China. So the students on here presenting their findings. And every city when we when we visit our before we leave the city, we will have an alumni reception with our students in Beijing. This is for Beijing. This is, you know, 2019. I didn't update this or the 2020 slides, but my last travel to overseas was really this trip. I returned to American soil on January 17th, 2020, and that was when the lockdowns in China started happening. And, you know, surely, you know, the whole world was really affected by this pandemic. And then, you know, this is a picture of the the high speed train that takes us from Beijing to Shanghai, takes about 5 hours, very comfortable. And then this is a picture of our rich products. So rich for us as a company based out here in our backyard here in Buffalo, New York, are rich products. They do supply bakery raw materials. So they are a business to business company. They don't sell to consumers directly, but they sell to businesses. So the company customers in China are like, you know, Starbucks where they they they sell bakery items. So all the schools, all the muffins that you see at Starbucks in China are from our supply by rich products. And this is their Shanghai office, which happens to be their Asia-Pacific headquarters. So you can you can tell how important the Asia-Pacific market is to rich products because, you know, they have their Asia-Pacific headquarters in Shanghai. They have five factories in China alone. They have locations in Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, whatnot, which we're going to touch on in this presentation. So this is a good picture. After the consulting project presentation. And then we also visit GM, General Motors. We all know General Motors, but this is just a visit. We don't, do we don't have a project with them. But this is a 5050 joint venture in Shanghai that General Motors has with Shanghai Automobile, this investment company, SAIC, which really, you know, they they they they manufacture the JL eight, which is the minivan. They, they, they they manufacture. So the something similar to the Buick Encore that we have here, they have the they're starting to manufacture the Cadillac some some models of the Cadillac in Shanghai. But like the high end, you know, if you're looking at the Cadillac higher end SUVs, then that's that's going to be important. And then in Shanghai, we do some cultural an alumni reception is following this. This particular activity is something I'm very proud of because, you know, we usually go in January when it's very close to the Lunar New Year. The students will will team up with alums. And you know this on the right, here are our lumps here and on the left there's a of here the students on the right. And then the students will team up and there's actually a few more loans or not in the picture. But our alums will team up with our students to actually learn how to write some Chinese calligraphy and how we're alums will will tell the students what to write and also tell them what that means. And the students will actually have to do a presentation again to tell to the to the group or actually to everyone in the events at the events what those words means. Okay. And this red calligraphy is usually decorated in homes during the year. So the students go there not just to visit the Great Wall or, you know, go to see the pro tower in Shanghai. But they also learn a lot about the Chinese culture and things like that. So, you know, they get to do the touristy things and then you don't hear they did the after events. This is Hong Kong, This is at the headquarters of HSBC Bank, HSBC. There's a pair of lions, which really is the hallmark of the HSBC brand. And then in Hong Kong, they do the same thing. We we organize an alumni reception with the with our low levels in Hong Kong. And the students get to interact with our alumnus in Hong Kong as well. Fast forward to 2020 was our last one. So for 2020, what do we do? Well for 2020 it was the end where we were in the middle of the COVID 19 pandemic. So obviously study abroad, travel were prohibited. We cannot travel unless State University of New York, SUNY approves it. And so far there's still a travel ban, international travel ban. So so we're like, okay, we still need to run this class. How are we going to do it? So for us, we see opportunities rather than, you know, this as a as a barrier or disadvantage. So with the virtual we we we thought to ourselves, we have been involved with a lot of the China companies. How about we touch on Japan and Vietnam and Singapore. So when we went back to our partner Rich products, we said, well, can you perhaps think of projects for our students in Asia that we can help you with? And they suggested Japan and Vietnam. So for Japan or Vietnam, it was they would like to expand or actually introduce a new product into Japan, but they need the students to do a feasibility study and also determine whether it would be a good fit. And the same thing for Vietnam. What is the product? Will they fit with the consumer taste in Vietnam, whether it's North Vietnam or South Vietnam? And then, you know, so the students get to to really work with their sponsor in Japan. So the students are learning how to have Zoom calls with their their project sponsors in Japan, which is 13 hours ahead of us Eastern time. Vietnam, same thing. You know, they're talking to the product sponsors in Vietnam, but also coordinated by the manager in the Shanghai office, which is the Asia-Pacific office of US headquarters of Rich Products. And in the process of this, alumni, Japan and alumni in Vietnam are project mentor. So the alumni school will meet with the students and tell the students, Oh, maybe you should not be offering this, but this may work better or this may not work. And, you know, things are these are some things that you may want to consider for Singapore. We have an alumni who is a manager at the recruitment services firm in Singapore. And by October, September, October, you know, Singapore has really done well back then in controlling containing COVID 19. So there were already this this services firm, recruitment services firm was really thinking about post-COVID. How do we, you know, look at recruitment in the sea level or at the mid-career level for positions in Singapore. So the launch was sponsoring and mentoring students to complete this business plan. And then along the way, it's not just some other projects. The class included presentation by guest speakers and alumni from China, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore and Vietnam. Students are learning about East Asia. So we we usually call this China class, but you know, of last year, we call it East Asia because we're involving China, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore and Vietnam, which are technically, you know, east, southeast Asia nations on the continent. So as students, I engage in real world consulting projects. Alumni get to mentor and work with students. So they they enjoy that. And the companies that are benefiting from the projects, they they are getting, you know, project recommendations, data that they would not have had time or resources to complete if not because our students helped bring that. So, you know, just a few screenshots. You know, we we actually leverage on a leverage on resource on campus, which is the Confucius Institutes. So we had the director present to the students what, you know, some of the Chinese culture, you know, some of the festivities and food and, you know, traditions in China we had every approach of with a partner, a venture capital fund in Indonesia, talking about P2P peer to peer financing in Indonesia. And this is a screenshot of when the students had their presentation to their project sponsor. And we had our alumni from Singapore talks about, you know, how Singapore gained its independence from from Britain and then, you know, very rapidly become a First World country as soon as they become independent and then the diversity there, how to be successful in entrepreneurialism in Singapore and things like that. And then in Vietnam, this was the presentation that our project sponsor introduces students to on what the Vietnam market is for rich products, the dynamics of doing business in Vietnam. And then, you know, it turned out to be a very productive semester. I would say everyone was very happy and glad that they had this fall semester experience. The students had one more thing to include on their resume. They learned about countries in Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam and the countries that I mentioned. And then the companies were happy because they're getting, you know, data and information from all students free of charge. And then, you know, our LUMS are happy because they are able to give back to the university in the form of helping students understand more about their home country and also the business aspects of things. So the key takeaways from this whole experience is really to be in way. This I cannot stress more on this, just this particular innovation or innovative trait and resiliency that you you have to have. And, you know, I may be repeating this for some of our season international investment colleagues, but, you know, innovation being innovative, being resilient is very important in our line of work. Never be afraid to ask because you never know what's going to what's going to happen and always have a positive mind to seek out opportunities during challenging times. I mean, yes, COVID is unprecedented. We never experienced something like that in our lifetime. But, you know, try to look for the the gems. Right. The the the opportunities that this challenging times is presenting to us. Be collaborative and think outside the box. Things don't happen alone. We all work in the team. And, you know, we just have to be collaborative enough to be creative and think outside the box to make things happen. Obviously, Alumni is a gem. They are a significant group of volunteers who are always ready to help. They raise their hands. We just need to be sure that we are looking them into this whole process, be entrepreneurialism curious and take risks. I mean, when we decided to pivot to virtual and, you know, go on this path of having students complete projects virtually and not knowing when travel will resume, not knowing what will happen, because, you know, Japan and Vietnam, this is our first time to be involved with these countries. We don't know the culture. We don't know a lot of information about these countries, but we were very, very, very fortunate to have very good partners to guide us along. So take risks. You know, you never know what will happen. And we were very fortunate to to have such an incredible semester. And, you know, unfortunately, the students are not able to go to Japan in Vietnam. But in the fall of 2021, we already considering maybe, you know, we could include Vietnam in if we get to travel, include Vietnam, our in our itinerary besides Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong. So that's the take away from it. I will end my presentation here with my contact information. You feel free to call me on this phone number. My email address is on there. You know, I'm happy to help. You know, I've persisted a few schools with, you know, studying on similar activities like this. And obviously, you know, the first few moments there'll be bumps here and there. But, you know, when you are comfortable with running it, things will just turn out to be wonderful. So I'll pass or stop here. And again, I want to thank you for this opportunity to share my experience. I'm always very passionate, mindful of, you know, giving back to the wonderful community, that case, because we all live together. So with that, I'm going to turn it back to Ed. Thank you so much. This concludes the webinar. Today's program is Copyright 2021 by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. All rights reserved. For additional case on demand webinars, please visit. W w. W dot case that organ demand. Thank you.

Virtual Alumni Engagement

Global Experiential Learning

International Alumni Engagement

Global Programs

Real-world Consulting Projects

COVID-19 Pandemic

Innovation