The International Forum, Xiamen - Success: Vision & Action was successfully held at Conference Hall, Keli Building, Xiamen University (XMU) on 20 March 2009. The forum, a co-joint project between Cambridge University Education Without Borders and Xiamen University, was started off by an impressive opening speech by Prof. Fangzhao Gu, Vice President of XMU, followed by the generous welcome remarks of Prof. Chongshi Zhu, President of XMU.

The international panel of world-class speakers, Prof. Alan Barrell, Prof. Teng-Kee Tan, Prof. Dingkun Ge, Dr. Seena Rejal and Mr. Rob Valli from four different countries in the world delivered a series of inspiring speeches to over 300 students selected from XMU and universities in the region.

Cambridge University Education Without Borders (CUEWB) successfully held its inaugural local project, ‘Talk on Surviving the Financial Crisis’ (TSFC), in Gonville & Caius College’s Bateman Auditorium from 7-9.30pm on 2 December 2008. More than 70 members of the University turned up for the Talk and were engaged in an enlightening evening with Prof. M. Hashem Pesaran FBA, Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for International Macroeconomics and Finance, and Mr. Rupert Taylor, Vice President, European Equity Sales, Nomura International plc.

It all started, as have many great things, in Cambridge. A most enterprising group of Chinese students – all working on Master's Degrees in Engineering, all tremendously entrepreneurial, decided that there was a great need to break down barriers between student communities and young people generally around the World, and give real help to processes of internationalisation and integration by starting a new movement – CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY EDUCATION WITHOUT BORDERS, and to launch a Worldwide programme with a high profile conference in Beijing.

On 8 December 2007, more than 600 Chinese students braved the bitter cold for an international forum on success at Beijing's National Library Hall. Delegates at the forum, hosted by the Cambridge University Education Without Borders (CUEWB) team, were lectured on creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship by speakers from across the globe. As well as having passion and ambition, the students were told that success lay in a combination of vision, action, risk and flexibility. Education and social networking made success more likely.

Let’s begin! It’s about exchanging ideas and knowledge about education across the world. The Beijing International Forum presented by Cambridge University Education Without Borders (CUEWB) is a great way in which this aim can be achieved. With the support of Nomura, Credit Suisse, and Marks & Clerk, international leaders in academia as well as business can share the same stage. With the one overarching aim of breaking down the barriers that exist between academia and industry, under the united theme of vision and success. Even though they speak from varying angles and concerning differing themes, taken together they provide the audience with the inspiration to seek the ability to achieve their aims.

In 387 B.C. Plato founded the Academia in Athens, Greece. It was one of the first universities in the world, encouraging its students to think particularly in the world of philosophy. In the modern world now, universities make it their primary aim to encourage their students to think. Education is in one way seen as a transfer of ideas from one generation from another, how a society’s culture is passed down. Yet this misunderstands human beings. Humans naturally think for themselves. No matter how hard certain concepts are drilled into people, they can still interpret them in different ways. One of the most incredible things about people is that they can understand each other despite this.