OTS awarding ceremony for the academic year 2011-2012
Feb 03, 2012
The Awarding Ceremony for the Orange Tulip Scholarship (OTS) 2011/2012 has been successfully held at the Royal Dutch Embassy in Beijing on Saturday, 11 June 2011. This event was organised by Netherlands Education Support Office (Neso) China and was strongly supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in China. Over 70 people attended the event, including OTS sponsors, scholarship winners and their companions, media and embassy staff.
Mr. Jan Reint Smit, Science & Technology Counselor of the Royal Dutch Embassy delivered the welcome speech for the ceremony on behalf of the Ambassador. Mr.Smit expressed his high expectation of the OTS and its winners. He also gave the information of Sino-Dutch Science & Technology cooperation, with an emphasis on the PhD programmes. Finally, he concluded by expressing his hope that more and more talented Chinese could pursue their dreams in the Netherlands with the support of the OTS.
Mr. Jacques Van Vliet, Director of Neso China, gave a greeting speech on the awarding ceremony. He informed on the developments of the OTS in the last academic year: 9 universities and companies gathered 268,108 euro and enabled 31 top talents from China to follow master/bachelor courses in the Netherlands in many fields. In the coming academic year 2012/2013 more companies and universities are expected to join in the programme. He also gave several suggestions to scholarship students for the future study life in the Netherlands. He expected the OTS would continually work as a bridge between the two countries and enhance mutual understandings between the people.
Scholarship winners and their companions attended the event. They came from all over China. Most winners expressed their gratitude to the OTS sponsors, parents and Neso China. Some sponsors and alumnus were present and handed the scholarships cups. Emotional moments were experienced throughout the ceremony. During the celebration drinks, many interviews were done by CIEIN and 163.com with sponsors, students, the Dutch Embassy and Neso China.
The participants were very satisfied with the OTS Awarding Ceremony. OTS winners expressed their gratitude to Neso China for the support and organisation of the event. In the meantime, they would take the valuable opportunity and study hard in the Netherlands.