SHANGHAI: Shanghai has already chosen their delegates to come to their event! We have students from schools around Shanghai such as Fudan University, Jiaotong University, and Tongji University to name a couple, as well as our own NYU Shanghai. The delegates are a mix of China and international students, and the conference’s language will be in English. Like the other campuses, we encouraged applicants of all majors to apply. Speakers have also been confirmed, including some renowned leaders in the environmental field like the World Wildlife Fund. The conference will take place on the 15th floor of the new academic building in the Shanghai campus from Dec. 5 to 7. “So we already have the framework of the Sila conference and we are trying to fill them up so now delegates and guests are preliminarily confirmed and we just need to check the details and make sure all the transitions are smooth and perfect.” said Angela Wang, the Vice Director of Sila Shanghai. The organizers of Sila Shanghai have been split into several committees: the Executive Board, Human Resources, Public Relations, Event Strategy, and Operations. Committee members also include students from schools outside of NYU. In its first and inaugural year of the Sila Conference, Shanghai’s theme will be pertaining to its city: air quality. If you have lived in Shanghai at any point of your life, chances are you already know why this was chosen as its topic. At NYU Shanghai, we have free air pollution masks in our dorms and academic buildings for days when pollution has become too much- and that has happened a lot. We have air purifiers for every room in the NYU Shanghai dorms as well as all over our academic building. It is not unusual to see the air pollution levels reach a “hazardous” level on the air quality index. Therefore, Sila Shanghai will bring the 60 delegates together to think of innovative solution to the big problem of air as it relates to Shanghai and China. Sila Shanghai has a Friday welcome dinner planned with live performances from NYU Shanghai students, panels, speakers, and even a public speaking workshop to help prepare delegates for their final presentation of their projects. We have also gotten advisors to assist students during their work sessions. There will even be a video interview from other NYU professors. Just as the other campuses of New York University, we are eager to see what great ideas the Sila Conference will bring. NEW YORK: Applications for the first NYC Sila Connection conference are open until Nov. 19. The conference provides an opportunity for students to work with their peers throughout New York City to come up with local, scalable solutions for NYC’s waste problems and compete for $2,500 to implement their plans. Tony Binder, director of Sila Connection NY, and vice director James Amidon are now working with a team of nine to host the Sila Connection New York 2014 conference that will be held on Dec. 6 and 7. “The idea is to bring students together to solve issues without policy solutions, to come up with ideas to address local problems without the need for politicians to intervene, almost an entrepreneurial spirit coming through. It can start as a pilot program and then be implemented elsewhere because 2,500 USD is a scalable budget for a city block solution, in this case for waste,” said Amidon. The Sila staff chose 'waste' as this year’s theme, because they were looking for a problem that was noticeable to New Yorkers and one which solutions could be formulated by students. “Many sustainability issues are just too grand, or just don’t manifest themselves in a way that you can solve them in a local scale, so we thought waste is viable, because it is also an issue people and NYU students see every day,” said Binder. Students from all majors are encouraged to apply. The Sila staff encourages students from all majors to apply. “Having different perspectives can highlight different experiences to come up with creative and scalable solutions,” said Amidon. They are hoping to have 12 groups of five students composed of at least one NYU student on each team, but, no more than three - the rest of the group members coming from other universities. Once they have all the applications - which are online, pretty straightforward and ready for you - they will make the groups, “to make it more efficient and for students not to have to worry about finding a team, as well as to get people from different backgrounds to work together,” said Binder. Binder recommended to apply early and to take time to answer a specific question in the application: How do you define 'waste' outside of the conventional meaning? “Because that is what sets applications aside from each other and gives us an idea of what aspects of the issue people want to work on.”

ABU DHABI: The Sila Connection 2014 Abu Dhabi conference is in full swing. With our delegates, advisors, and panel judges selected, we are fully equipped for our conference taking place this weekend from Nov. 21 to 22. Delegates hail from universities all over Abu Dhabi, including Abu Dhabi University, Higher Colleges of Technology, Khalifa University, New York University Abu Dhabi, Petroleum Institute, Université Paris Sorbonne Abu Dhabi, and Zayed University. Our theme for this year’s conference is the cultivation of green schools. A green school is a school that fosters a healthy environment that is conducive to learning while saving energy, resources, and money. The winning team will receive a generous grant of 5,000 USD to implement their solution in the American Community School of Abu Dhabi. This collaboration with the American Community School of Abu Dhabi will provide the winners of the conference the opportunity to witness their vision come to fruition in a real-world learning environment. The Director of Sila Connection 2014, Myung-In Sohn, commenting on the uniqueness of this year’s conference, said, “We’re reaching out on a personal level. Partnering with American Community School allows us to contextualize our conference issue this year, green schools, and provides our delegates with a sense of grounding to develop even more sophisticated solutions.” The public is invited to see the final work of these delegates at Sila Connection Abu Dhabi 2014’s closing ceremony, which will be held at our newly built NYU Abu Dhabi Saadiyat Island Campus in the A6 Atrium from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Nov. 22. Written by Alessia Miro, NYU New YorkAmata Lee, NYU ShanghaiBill Hyder, NYU Abu Dhabi