On Nov. 4, 2016, Mr. Frank Yiannas, food safety expert and Vice President of Food Safety for Walmart, visited the International Campus. Ying Yibin, Vice President of ZJU and Executive Associate Dean of the International Campus, received the delegation. The two sides paid a site tour around the campus and talked about the possibility of establishing a joint lab for food security.
In the Residential College, Mr. Frank Yiannas was briefed on the construction progress of the International Campus, especially its second phase of construction that was due to finish before September, 2017. Prof. Ying said that the Campus was currently working on the establishment of a platform for interdisciplinary researches to accelerate its efforts towards building a pilot base for technology transfer in China. Mr. Frank Yiannas said that universities were places where cutting-edge researches were conducted and important ideas identified, and that Walmart would like to fund several top institutes in China to study issues concerning food security.
On the afternoon, the delegation went to the Zijingang Campus in Hangzhou. Mr. Frank Yiannas visited the Laboratories of the Intelligent Bio-industrial Equipment Innovation Team (IBE) and the Analysis Center of Agrobiology and Environmental Sciences there, and delivered a speech on Global Trends of Food Safety to the university students.