Rector visits universities in USA 14th of November, 2011 On 14 November, RTU Rector Prof. Leonids Ribickis concluded the week long working visit to the United States of America. During the week he visited University at Buffalo, University of Maryland, Virginia Tech, Wayne State university, where he met with university representatives and discussed the posible collaboration between RTU and USA universities, and several other institutions in Buffalo NY, Washington DC and Detroit MI. Meeting with representatives of University at Buffalo. The visit was concluded with two very emotional events of Latvia's Independence Day celebrations at the Latvian congregations in Saginaw, MI and Detroit, MI. The Rector was to invited to give a keynote address on the 150 years of higher education in Latvia and his vision about the future developments. The events were also addressed by the Deputy Chief of Mission of the Republic of Latvia in Washington Mr. Juris Pogrebnaks. He provided brief outline of the key developments of Latvia-USA bilateral relations. Both speeches were very well received and participants noted the substantial amount of information provided by the speakers. The speeches were followed by informal discussions with the speakers ranging from latest developments in engineering to the future of Latvian communities abroad. Rector also met representatives from United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Eurasia Foundation (EF), visited the National Press Club, and had discussion with the members of the Latvian Chamber of Commerce in the Americas (Latcham). Meetings with USAID and EF focused on continued collaboration between RTU and the United States on higher education initiatives in Eastern Europe. Visit to National Press Club involved meeting with the President, Executive Director and Director of Programs. The objective of these meetings was to explore further cooperation in attracting world class speakers to RTU through the state-of-art vidoeconfernce capability just developed at Riga Business School. Rectorate Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org).