Dec 20, 2016

We were back in China with the Urban Entrepreneurs project to rune a workshop in Shanghai on November 19, 2016 in partnership with swissnex China and with the support of NestlĂ© China. Working with local entrepreneurs and taking into account Shanghai specificities, we wanted to see what new ideas would emerge from the local scene.  

Thanks to our awesome community partners, over 40 participants including industry professionals, researchers, and data experts joined us at Neuni-lab. They formed different teams to work and contribute with their ideas on urban issues related to:

  • Mobility & Transport
  • Food & Agriculture
  • Energy & Environment

Going through the same ideation process, participants brainstormed, worked in teams, pitching their ideas and heard from various experts, such as Shutong Liu who gave a speech on his open-source project in urban farming and gardening. 

With the coaches guidance, 7 projects were developed by the end:

  • Public participation in bottle recycling
  • Urban sensing project using IoT
  • Traditional snacks app finder
  • Vegetable shutters to grow your own food
  • AI platform for Food Safety
  • Big Data analytics to improve joggers health and safety
  • Predicitive algorythms to enhance public transportation routes planification

 

The participants were surrounded by great experts that shared their expertise during short talks and one to one interactions with the teams which helped them to enhance their projects. Their different backgrounds contributed to broaden the scope of discussion in order to explore wider areas of solutions. Meet our experts below:

 

Following the workshop, all teams had two weeks to further develop their proposals and submit the projects. Currently, a panel of experts is selecting the most impactful project based on a set of criteria that includes impact, feasibility and viability. NestlĂ© China will sponsor the winning team to go to Lift:Lab in Geneva (March 2017) to push their idea to the next level and improve the viability of their project. The winners will be announced in January, stay tuned!

Have a look at the photos from the workshop here! And be sure to check out our partner Swissnex China's recap here!