Twenty high school students from Shanghai participated in an innovative program last week with 16 students from Connecticut to learn first-hand about American and Chinese business, entrepreneurism, global trade and leadership.

The Junior Achievement (JA) international exchange program, JA Global, sponsored by United Technologies Corporation (UTC), started on Aug 10 with a week of lectures, seminars and workshops including guest speakers from UTC and the US Department of Commerce.

Throughout last week, the 36 students visited UTC's Otis Elevator test facility in Bristol, Connecticut, heard from a panel of entrepreneurs about their business ventures and explored international trade issues.

"Witnessing innovation is one of the greatest motivators," said Thomas Neal, one of the 16 Connecticut students, after visiting Otis, the world’s largest manufacturer and maintainer of people-moving products such as elevators and escalators. “Junior achievement and UTC are giving us the opportunity not only to achieve our goals, but to strive for more. We have been given the chance to break cultural boundaries and share ideas from new perspectives.”

"The Otis visit made me think more about business," said one of Chinese students. "It made me want to be a businessman and have a career. The program is helping me learn about imports and exports, and international trade."

The students were also assigned to develop business plans which they will use over the upcoming school year to trade and sell products within the framework of the JA Company Program curriculum.

Next summer, the 16 Connecticut students will travel to China to complete the multi-year program.

The inaugural JA Global Connection program took place two years ago, when the first group of Chinese students spent a week in Connecticut, working with their American counterparts. Last year, those Connecticut students reconnected with the students in China to complete the program, which was based at Shanghai Fudan University, and included trips to leading business facilities in China, hands-on workshops and case studies and marketing scenarios.

The JA Global Connection program is organized by Junior Achievement China, based in Beijing and Junior Achievement of Southwest New England, based in Hartford, Connecticut.

"Cross-cultural understanding will play a key role in each student's future success in the global economy," said Gao Yang, executive director of JA China.

Hong Xiao in New York contributed to this story.