ITU: The Chan Family Value of Quality Education
ITU’s greatest asset is the Chan family value system: education is a basic and necessary Good for the healthy function of all communities, from extended family to the global multi-national landscape. ITU embodies this value system, characterized by an open exploration of all knowledge, disciplined study of forward thrusting technological developments, and classical theoretical training geared for practical application. Culturally speaking, it is the merging of the best of all worlds: a creative American education married to the disciplined & traditional Chinese, family-centered value of education.

Yau’s Convictions
Education is in my veins. My mother founded and successfully ran a Montessori-styled nursery school in Santa Clara in the 1960s-70s, long before such modalities for early childhood development became widely known and lauded. Perhaps because of her early influence, I have always been a good student, whether it be in sociology, acting, dance, multimedia or now, in entrepreneurship and legacy building. I have taught, performed and contributed significant personal energy to every university with which I have been associated. I did my undergraduate studies in sociology at Berkeley, graduating with honors and distinction, and was awarded a Fellowship to attend UCLA, where I earned my MFA in acting. Some people always end up living near mountains, or near the ocean, for the Chan family, we are constantly near a university and spend a great deal of time there. I have taught and performed at USC, Santa Monica City College, Santa Clara University (SCU), Berkeley, UCLA and now, ITU.

Dad’s Life Work
Dad spent over 30 years as an electrical engineering professor at SCU, serving as the Head of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science Department and the Dean of the Engineering School. He retired early to start ITU, a unique model of post-graduate education that integrates strong classical fundamental theory with practical industrial training. Dad’s whole life is education.

Times The Warlord
My grandfather, Chi-Tong Chan, founded over half a dozen schools. He was a warlord in China. In the 1920s, there were five – arguably six – regional warlords that ruled the nation. One of the strongest was the King of the Southern Skies the Industrialist Warlords of Canton Province, grandfather, who industrialized southern China, built out water, power, roads, bridges, over 200 documented light to heavy manufacturing plants. He had a stronger air force than the rest of Nationalist China put together. When China fought Imperialist Japan, it was his air force that defended the Homeland from cruel and brutal Japanese invaders. He is celebrated by both Nationalist and Communist regimes, credited for successfully attracting foreign investment and technologies – exactly what present day China aims to do 80 years later. His rule was characterized by high economic development and hope among his people. Grandfather set the pathway to spread education and technological development benefiting the common citizen – that Dad and I continue to pursue.

Times The family charge
Chi-Tong Chan sent his children to get the best university education in the world to America to study engineering, and to come back, build out China as competent ruling engineers, laying out good infrastructure for the betterment of present and future generations. Four of his sons have Ph.D.s in electrical engineering from America. Dad was prepped to re-engineer the infrastructure of China’s educational system, upholding the best traditions of true Chinese cultural values. Unfortunately the Communist take over in 1949 delayed the family mandate, but at 75, Dad is still aiming to fulfill this sacred family charge.

A mission taking multiple generations 
The Chinese understand that some noble objectives take over a single lifetime to fulfill. So we build in the training for future generations to continue to work for the recognized social Good until the mission is complete and the mountain moved. I am the third generation of the Chan family, determined to contribute fundamentally to the infrastructure of China’s educational system, to extend it globally and beyond with the lessons learned from cross-cultural integration of best cultural values of the democratic West married to the timeless wisdom of the East.

ITU origins
Dad founded ITU in 1994, with under $700K to invest and a lifetime full of community Good will. Our core competencies are engineering graduate degrees in electrical, computer and software engineering. We also have a hi-tech MBA, and offer industry-driven hi-tech certificate programs, generally two to five years ahead of traditional university offerings.

Successful graduates
ITU graduates typically get placed quicker in the job market, earning a higher salary than average, and tenaciously keep their jobs even in a down economy. Our graduates are employment with SUN, HP, Oracle, Peoplesoft, IBM, NASA, Cadence, BEA, among others. One of our graduates went on to Stanford University to do her Ph.D.

Groundwork in place for China expansion
ITU has now proven out its Silicon Valley-styled educational model, merging university education with industrial application, geared to anticipate and serve market need. Although ITU is small in the U.S. and competes in the Bay Area with some of the world’s best universities, ITU is highly respected by all those who have worked with us, studied in our halls, or hired our graduates.ITU model
Our education optimizes strong classical theory mixed with practical industrial application. We ensure our curriculum is the state-of-the-art in the hi-tech industrial field by hiring all our Ph.D. adjunct faculty from the positions of Senior Engineering Managers in the top Silicon Valley firms (including HP, SUN, IBM, NASA, AMD, among others), leading the teams of engineers that have made technological innovation synonymous with the Silicon Valley. They bring this practical industrial know-how to benefit ITU students and get them ready for a smooth transition, contributing to the workforce.

ITU vision to fulfill
ITU was conceived as a well-designed engineering tool, geared to build up China’s developing educational infrastructure with Silicon Valley’s engineering education, pushing the latest developments in hi-tech fields. We are experts at educating open, hungry minds and give the official credential that proudly marks our graduates as ITU quality.

Summary
ITU materialized from our continuing family core values to build out practical education for the Good of community. Our specific charge is a noble purpose, to fundamentally contribute our knowledge, resources and experience to China’s educational infrastructure. ITU has been specifically designed to meet this challenge. We have the track record of a proven industry-centered educational model that is nationally recognized and we hope it will be useful for China’s developing hi-tech industries.

ITU: specific China goals
ITU is establishing the ability to license out our US accredited status. One method to accomplish this is developing an e-learning program, then forming partnerships with education providers throughout China to localize the delivery of ITU content. We will also build in tight quality control and spread our practical educational infrastructure outward, much like University of Phoenix has, here in the US.

Our open invitation
It is our greatest hope that ITU can help China rise to level that it can lead the world, with 5 thousand years worth of history and sustaining cultural values. We believe the best of China’s contribution is not just inexpensively manufactured consumer goods, but a rich and deep value system that promotes harmony, Good community and Good living. China now needs the infrastructure and adaptation of western technology to reach its cultural blossoming, we are convinced that the right path for this development is through education, and we have invested 3 generations of tenacious family energy towards this noble purpose. We invite all of you who share our dream of a better China and a better world to join with us in spreading the ITU model of education throughout China.