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[PDF Download of Speech]
Welcome Remarks to African Telecommunications Ministers Meeting
Center for International Development and Conflict Management
Colony Ballroom, Stamp Student Union
University of Maryland, College Park
March 16, 2007
C. D. Mote, Jr.
University of Maryland
Thank you. Welcome to all our distinguished guests. We have representatives from 11 African nations with us today. We are very honored to welcome Ministers, ambassadors and senior government officials from the Continent of Africa. This is certainly a very elite group. We are grateful for the hard work of the US Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the U.S. Trade Development Authority in helping to make this meeting possible. I am pleased to welcome many of the scholars on our campus and guests from industry who enrich this meeting with their diverse perspectives and expertise.
I would like, particularly, to thank my friend, John Gage, Chief Researcher and Vice President of the Science Office of Sun Microsystems. John has been a staunch supporter of initiatives in Africa, and his interest and attention to these issues helped make this event possible. Finally, thank you to our own Center for International Development and Conflict Management (CIDCM) for facilitating this event. The CIDCM has been engaged in Africa since 1995 and we are very proud of their efforts to join scholarship and practice. You will hear more about this from Ernie Wilson and Kelly Wong later on. To all of our guests, we are very pleased that you have chosen the University of Maryland to host this forum. The contemporary university is not only a place for scholarship but for innovation and entrepreneurship. None of these components can thrive in the 21st century without an international focus.
In the 21st century a great university must have a focus that extends far beyond the nation. The University of Maryland is very diverse: the faculty hail from 61 countries and the students from 150 nations. We are proud to have students from at least 26 African countries on campus. Our faculty across numerous units has programs and collaborations with colleagues in many African countries. University of Maryland Students are heartily encouraged to have an international experience. We offer numerous options, such as, "Engineers without Borders" Program. This program sends students to Brazil, Thailand, Ecuador and Burkina Faso on engineering projects. Students at the University are increasingly studying and traveling abroad: 85% of our juniors and seniors have been outside of the U.S. Our international focus is recognized world-wide: according to the Shanghai Jiao TongTop 500, the University of Maryland ranks 37th in the world among all universities in 2006.
The University of Maryland is particularly strong in Science and Technology. We are one of only a handful of schools with Top-20 programs in all four areas of Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science and Engineering. Our engineering school is ranked in the top 10 nationwide. Our graduate program in engineering is ranked first the Mid-Atlantic region. Faculty bring is $ 350 million in research funding annually. We not only create knowledge, but transfer it and train students in entrepreneurial techniques. Building entrepreneurship into the curriculum is part of our mission as a research university. We have a very active Technology Transfer program. We focus on bringing research from the University to the marketplace through a variety of programs such as incubators and bioscale-up process facilities. If any of you is interested in learning more about how these programs work we would be delighted to share more with you through MTECH.
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Let me share a few other reasons that the University of Maryland is a major research institute. Our scholarship crosses disciplines. For example, both the Engineering and Business Schools focus on many aspects of telecommunications. Our distinguished faculty: Nobel Prize winners in our Economics and Physics departments—in the last two years alone! There is a distinctly international focus to our programs: the Business School already has an Executive MBA program in China and it is planning a Masters in Business in Tunisia (with a focus on Information Systems and Technology).
The Campus is very interested in working further on issues related to Africa. We have a history of programs and dialogues led by Africans. In 2006 the Anwar Sadat Lecture for Peace was given by Egyptian, Mohammed El Baradei, Director General of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency and winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize for Peace. Kofi Annan from Ghana gave the 2003 Sadat lecture. In 2001 we had President Nelson Mandela as the speaker and in 2000 I hosted Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda, at my home.
I am very proud to add your delegations to the list of important dialogues on Africa that have found a home here at the University of Maryland. I know that my University colleagues look forward to learning from you. The exchange of ideas is what universities are all about. I appreciate that you are confronting some very complex issues and there are some challenging facets to them, but that is another reason that the University is the perfect venue for such meetings. We thrive on challenges. I know that everyone is looking forward to a free and open discussion of these topics. Thank you, again, for joining us at the University of Maryland. I hope you will feel welcome here and will take the opportunity to look around our campus.
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