The 2006 IAMOT Conference took place in Beijing on May 22-26. The local hosts was the Technology Economics and Management Department, led by Prof. Guisheng Wu, at the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University in Beijing, who also organized the event, as well as Zhejiang University in Hangzhou. The conference took place at the Beijing Friendship Hotel, one of the premier hotels in China which is characterized by a strong Chinese flavor.

Under the theme of “East Meets West”, the 300 or so participants hailed in approximately similar numbers from China and abroad. Keynote speeches were given from industry representatives of HP and Microsoft (United States), CNPC and Hisense (China), Sanofi-Avents (France), and Infosys (India), and of course from public institutions such as MOST, Tsinghua, and others. Visits were organized to Lenovo’s Innovation Center, Tsinghua and the Zhonguancun Science Park.

One of the innovations at the conference were themed sessions outside the normal tracks. Volunteer theme coordinators were free to assemble papers from among the accepted authors on a certain theme, and this encouraged a greater inflow of quality papers on their theme to make sure a sufficient number of papers were present. For instance, one such session ran on the topic of “International R&D and China”.

Apart from the many hundred papers presented – as thus the exchange of many hundred or thousands of ideas – the participants were also inspired by a first-hand experience of a country on the move. With the conference hotel situated close to leading universities such as Tsinghua, Beida and Renmin, the city’s downtown area, and within easy travel distance to many of Beijing’s cultural highlights, this conference provided a rich mix of impressions about the old and the new China.

Pictures from Beijing, China ... Abstracts and Papers