8 year old USA Team member Awonder Liang of Madison, Wisconsin is the best chess player in the world for his age group. He won the gold medal at the World Youth Championship in Brazil in the Under 8 Open, November 26, 2011. 

This year's coach and World Chess Federation Senior Trainer (FIDE - Fédération Internationale des Échecs) was Michael Khodarkovsky. 

Photo (Left): USA Team member 8 year old Awonder Liang wins Gold Medal at World Youth Chess Championship in Brazil.

Photo by permission Andrea Rosen

 Here's a sample of the rankings from the American team competing at the World Youth Championship in Caldas, Novas Brazil this year:

Awonder Liang of Wisconsin earned a gold medal in the Under 8 Open with 7.5/9

Ruifeng Li of Texas earned a silver medal in the Under 10 Open with 7/9.

Sarah Chiang of Texas earned 4th place in the Girls Under 14Jeffrey Xiong of Texas earned 5th in the Open Under 12.

David Peng of Northbrook, Illinois earned 7th in the Under 8 Open.

Albert Lu of Southern California placed 12th in the Under 10 Open.

Kevin Wang of Maryland placed 15th in the Under 14 Open. 

Varun Krishnan of La Jolla, California placed 14th in the Under 14 Open. 

Click here for the story from NPR here for the story in the New York Times and
here to the U.S. Chess organization. 

Events are conspiring to hurtle me into my distant past, to my childhood years in Oakland’s Chinatown, where my sisters, brothers and I served time at our restaurant, the New Eastern Café.

First, there was the closing of the Silver Dragon, an institution among restaurants in Chinatown; one of the first ones built for banquets and special events. Since 1974, when it settled in at Ninth and Webster Streets, it was a gathering place for the community, whether it was a young couple on a date or a family hosting a red egg and ginger party or a wedding banquet.

It’s being replaced by Asian Health Services, and that organization had a fundraising dinner gala the other night at the nearby Marriott, with 600 people in attendance. The featured entertainment was a tribute to the Chee family, the clan behind the Dragon.

Sherry Hu, the MC for the event, asked me to speak as part of the tribute, and, although I didn’t have the time, I made time.

You see, my family’s restaurant was sold, in 1954, to the Chees, who turned it into the first Silver Dragon. I was nine years old then, but my time at 710 Webster Street helped shape my life.

As I told the audience at the Marriott, the title of my memoirs, The Rice Room, is about a space in the back of that restaurant. “We were all in the rice room,” I said, “where rice, soy sauce and children were stored.

I continued, “This is where, while my parents were cooking and running a restaurant, I grew up.  This is where I...

You Are Good Enough

By Marilyn Tam

They cannot take away our self-respect if we do not give it to them. 

 ~Mahatma Gandhi

            Are you good enough? Most people harbor feelings that somehow if people really knew who they are, they will not like them. This nagging feeling buzzes in the brain like small yet powerfully irritating mosquitoes, ready to sting at any moment, undermining our confidence to claim our rightful place at the table. This sense of insecurity can be negatively self-fulfilling and very destructive because it robs us of the confidence and courage to forge ahead on achieving our dreams. The choice to change is in our own hands.

            Being an unwanted child I was told from as early as I can recall that I was worthless, not a good start to building self-esteem. Yet eventually I learned to trust my inner knowing that each person is worthwhile just as they are. Self-respect gave me the strength and resilience to leave home in my mid teens and come to America, and to succeed in business, humanitarian work and in life.  How did that happen? I was blessed along the way with angels who told me that I was OK. We all have those angels in our lives when we look for them.

            My first angel was my grandfather who gave me my Chinese name, Hay Lit, the...

 October 8, 2012

Dr. Shinya Yamanaka - Photo by Chris Goodfellow Gladstone Institutes SF

 The world of medicine has taken a huge leap forward with the startling discoveries by Dr. Shinya Yamanaka, 50, and British researcher Sir John Gurdon, 79.

Yamanaka and Gurdon are winners of the Nobel Prize for medicine announced today for their joint discoveries in stem cells.

As a post-doctorate scientist at Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, Yamanaka began what would become his life's work to unlock the code to creating stem cells.

By 2006, he succeeded in unlocking the code, furthering the research published in 1962 by Sir John Gurdon, who now works for the University of Cambridge.

The groundbreaking discoveries prove that it is possible to take genetic material from any cell in the body, such as skin cells, and tranplant and reprogram them into a stem cell to become any other cells in the body. 

Dr. Yamanaka, currently a professor at Kyoto University in Kyoto, Japan still works and commutes monthly to San Francisco for Gladstone, which is affiliated with the health-sciences institution University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). 

Related stories:

Nobelprize.org

Nobel medicine prize goes to SF scientist by Erin Allday, San Francisco Chronicle

British, Japanese scientists share Nobel Prize for stem cell work by Eryn Brown and Jon Bardin, Los Angeles Times

Forbes Magazine has released its "30 under 30" for 2011. 

Distruptors and Innovators in the field of Energy include Danielle Fong, Zizhou Zhou, Eden Full, Javier Fernandez-Han son of Peter Han, the president of NGO, Inventors without Borders, Inc., and Alexis Ringwald. Congratulations!