Alumni Magazine - Summer 2008 - (Page 17) Georgia Tech is the only U.S. institution that is an honorary member of CLUSTER. Angela Della Costanza Turner, executive adviser to Georgia Tech’s Office of International Education and president of the Italy-Atlanta Foundation, is a major proponent of the new degree programs. “We hope to encourage the Italian business communities in both Italy and the United States to sponsor scholarships,” she says. “The program has huge potential and will help educate our next generation of computer scientists and computer engineers.” Alumni Travelers Felt Chinese Earthquake A group of 22 Georgia Tech Alumni Travel tourists was in China when the devastating earthquake hit at 2:30 p.m. May 12. “We had just arrived at the Chongqing airport on our way to meet our riverboat for a cruise down the Yangtze River to the Three Gorges Dam. Chongqing is about 160 miles southeast of Chengdu, the area worst hit by the earthquake,” explains Ginger Amoni, director of Accounting for the Alumni Association and host of the tour. “We all felt it strongly enough that we knew at once that it was an earthquake.” Neither the local tour guide nor the Tech Alumni group could make contact by telephone with anyone in China or in the United States to report that none of them had been injured. “Cell phones were down or overloaded for about four hours afterward,” says Amoni, who was finally able to get word to the Alumni Association late that night that everyone was OK. The group took up a collection and once they reached Shanghai donated the funds to the Chinese Red Cross in the name of Georgia Tech alumni. “The tour guide told us several days later that she was amazed by the response of the Chinese people,” Amoni says. “This was the first time that Chinese people were donating their time and money to help others. In the past, they would not have heard of the disaster so soon and with such complete details. And no one had disposable income in the past to donate to others.” GT “Georgia Tech has long worked with key industry partners in Italy. This new affiliation [between Tech and two Italian universities] will afford students the opportunity to experience competitive and complementary approaches to engineering solutions in a crosscultural environment.” — Gary May Chair of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2008 17
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