December 3 2008, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation delegation led by its new CEO Dr. Jeff Raikes visited CAAS. Dr. Liu Xu, CAAS Vice President met with the delegation. A roundtable discussion for a wider partnership was held afterwards. Institute of Crop Sciences, CAAS, China Agriculture University, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and National Natural Science Foundation participated in the discussion.

Followed by Ms. Patty Stonesifer, the former CEO and Bill Gates, the President’s visits to CAAS in November 2006 and April 2007, this is the third high level delegation from Gates Foundation. Before that, Dr. David Bergvinson, project officer for agricultural development have visited CAAS several times for a cooperation project on rice. In November 2008, CAAS and the Foundation finally signed the project agreement on “Green Super Rice for Poverty Reduction in Southwest China, Africa and Southeast Asia”, which signified the beginning of the substantive cooperation between the two sides. The project aims at contributing to the food security in the developing countries through promoting China’s technology and experience in rice production.

At the roundtable, Dr. Jeff Raikes emphasized several times that contributing to the food security of developing countries especially African countries and to the global health of all humanity are the key concerns of Gates Foundation. In that sense, CAAS found its EIAV research, which holds the potential key to successful HIV/AIDS vaccine, matches well with the purpose.

Together with Dr. Raikes are Dr. Ray Yip, director of the foundation’s Beijing office and David Bergvinson, responsible for Agricultural Development of the Foundation.