The one-day 2013 Seattle Biz-Tech Summit on Saturday attracted more than 500 attendees, including a veritable A-list of companies from the US and China — Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Expedia, Boeing, Oracle, China Telecom, Lenovo, Baidu, ZTE, Tencent, Huawei and many others. High technology products, services and innovations from keynote speakers, panels, and roundtable meetings addressed clean technologies, in particular, and other trends such as cloud computing, big data, international trade, mobile computing, and biotechnology.

At most of the sessions, China invariably came up. At a meeting called Tends in Clean-Technology, John W Robinson, chairman of Blue Tech Alliance, a non-profit organization based in Chicago, talked about the market and investment opportunities in the water industry sectors in China, which covered energy, agriculture, urban planning, manufacturing, and health.

In another address, Washington State Governor Jay Inslee said he saw clean tech as a road to prosperity for the state and they were making good progress. The state legislature recently established a Clean Energy Fund to leverage federal, utility and private investment in research, development, demonstration and early deployment of high-value, clean energy technologies. These technologies, he said, save energy and cut energy costs, reduce harmful air emissions, increase energy independence and help create jobs.

Inslee said he was most eager to meet leaders in China to talk about how the state and China can work jointly on problems such as climate change and ocean acidification.

"We share the same atmosphere, we breathe the same air, and our grandchildren are both depending on leaders in China and Washington State, the hottest innovative talents, to create a clean energy economy so that their grandchildren can thrive," Inslee said in his remarks.

Inslee said he will lead a trade delegation of about 50 people on a mission to China next month, with visits to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. He's slated to deliver a keynote address at a biotechnology convention in Beijing on Nov 12.

"The Seattle Biz-Tech Summit is a truly unique opportunity to foster networking and collaboration between China- and US-based technology companies. Technology innovation continues to extend across more fields of science and into more areas of human endeavor. This ever-expanding technology footprint suggests that it really does take a village to meet the needs of so many. As an industry we collectively have the potential to positively impact billions of people around the world. This is why events such as the Seattle Biz-Tech Summit that foster collaboration and idea exchange are so important," said Qi Lu, an executive vice-president at Microsoft.

Contact the writer at lindadeng@chinadailyusa.com