On the weekend of October 10th, Project Pengyou brought together 40 American high school and college students as participants in the second annual Project Pengyou Leadership Training Summit on the Harvard University campus. The first summit was held in March 2014 as part of Golden Bridges’ Project Pengyou Leadership Fellows Program. Project Pengyou works to empower and mobilize next generation US-China bridge-builders through leadership training, high-level events and a social networking site. The program was conceived as the alumni network of the 100,000 Strong Initiative, a presidential campaign that sent 100,000 Americans to study in China.

Project Pengyou Leadership Fellows spent four days of active learning in Cambridge covering the topics of leadership, community organizing and U.S.-China cross-cultural challenges. To date, Project Pengyou has trained over 80 young Americans, selected from nearly 500 program applicants from all over the country including under-represented states with few China engagement opportunities.

Following the training, Leadership Fellows were immediately tasked to apply their skills to lead campus chapters across the United States to strengthen China study and engagement, including participating in “Pengyou Day” to celebrate US-China friendship.

Speakers at the summit included Holly Chang; founder of the Golden Bridges Foundation and Project Pengyou and Acting Executive Director of the Committee of 100, Claire Conceison; Visiting Professor of Theater Studies at Harvard University, Clarence Kwan; Committee of 100 Chairman, Senior Partner at Sino-Century Partners, Henry Tang; Committee of 100 governor and co-founder, Managing Partner of Carnegie Towers Strategic Investment Advisory, Mei-Mei Tuan; Committee of 100 member, Founder and Managing Partner of Notch Partners, and Jeremy Wu; Committee of 100 D.C. Region Co-Chair, Former Senior Advisor to U.S. Census Bureau.