Theme: Think Beyond Now

Our theme is “Think beyond the now”, it means to become forward-thinking and look after what we are borrowing from future generations. The future is unpredictable in the 21st century, we can’t see the future, but we can think about the future. Many of the greatest inventions still have utility today because those inventors think beyond the now. Economists try to design a lot of models because they want to think beyond the now. Education is ubiquitous because people need it to think beyond the now. Environmentalists are becoming anxious because if we don’t think beyond the now, it will be us who have to live with the consequences of what we do or refrain from doing today. Thinking beyond the now may be the last bulwark against many global problems. Jeremiah is a Hebrew major prophet who foresaw the fall of Assyria while everybody took a sceptical attitude. He did think beyond the now, but he failed to convince others to believe him. Thinking beyond the now isn’t only about inward thinking, to make it meaningful, we have to spread the voices and persuade others. In this event, we don’t simply think, but to talk, to share, to inspire and ultimately to change.

TEDxYouth@NKCSWX
188 Qingyuan Road, Jingkai District, Wuxi
Auditorium in Nanwai King's College School
Wuxi, Jiangsu, 214000
China

Adele Foucart

Brand Designer

Adele Foucart, 30, co-founder of Precious Plastic Shanghai, is a brand designer from France. She has lived in Belgium and Shanghai. Her background is in Product Design. In August 2012 she landed in Shanghai to study design thinking. After working for design agencies and corporate Adele focused on plastic waste when she wanted to embrace a zero-waste lifestyle. Adele is now the co-founder of Precious Plastic Shanghai, a company that focuses on creating awareness about plastic waste in China.

Adolfo Gonzales

Teacher

Adolfo is a teacher of kindergarten and an athletics coach in NKCS. He moved to the United States at the age of eight from Buenos Aires, Argentina, speaking almost zero English. The experiences that he underwent after that fateful move changed him immensely and taught him a valuable life perspective that took him years to fully realise and understand. He hopes to pass that drive and passion to more people in the community.

Changjun Lee

Designer

Changjun Lee went to the Bauhaus University in Germany as a visiting scholar in 2014. He received a master's degree in industrial design from Tongji University the following year. He was the Red Dot Award Winner in 2016. The team he led has also been nominated for national technological innovation many times. In his speech, Mr Lee will lead the audience to explore the topic of "enlightened thinking, inherited creativity” and helps them develop a way of thinking beyond now.

Elaine Sun

Entrepreneuer

上海易辩企业管理有限公司创始人兼CEO Era IV 首饰服装品牌创始人兼CEO "I've met people at their age of 30 to 40, shocked at how a 18-year-old girl establishes three separate businesses. Doubts are as such, all her money comes from her family's support, females are at a low percentage of being entrepreneur, and that I am too young to even figure out myself. I crashed their thoughts when my company Paradox Lab earned a total revenue of 280 thousand RMB for the start of a 6-month period. A lot of young entrepreneurs are judged by others because they are female, or because they are students, I wish to share how to break that injustice, and speak out."

Hang Zhou

Vice President, Head of Cell Culture Process Development

Dr. Hang Zhou has more than 15 years of experience in biologics process development. At WuXi Biologics, Dr. Zhou leads a team in next-generation bio-manufacturing platform development, which enables almost any biologics to be manufactured at ultra-high productivity and superior process performance. Prior to joining WuXi Biologics, Dr. Zhou worked for Commercial Cell Culture Development at SANOFI GENZYME. Dr. Hang Zhou received his bachelor/master degrees in Chemical Engineering from Tsinghua University, and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Joey Desmond

Teacher

Joey Desmond is a Kindergarten teacher at Nanwai King's College School in Wuxi, Jiangsu, China. He was born and raised in Corona, California, United States. Joey will be sharing his interpretation of the idea "Courage for Common Folk". Joey was born in 1987. He is the middle of three sons. His parents divorced when he was a toddler and his mother remarried when Joey was about 12 years old. Joey moved to Wuxi, China, in 2012 where he met the woman who he would later marry and with whom he now has two daughters. People who know Joey often describe him as a loving husband, father, and teacher. He is honored to be seen in this way but he knows that it is the experiences of his life, some of which required courage to get through, that have helped to shape him into who he is.

Julia Jiang

Student

Julia is a grade 11 student from an international school in Shanghai.She hopes to share how she struggled to leave a school that merely diminished her dream and how she felt that some of her expectations were just not true after the arrival in the new school. She will discuss about how dreams motivate us and how we may experience a sudden disappointment and ultimately what really matters.

Leo Chu

Café Manager

Jialiang ZHU, manager of a vegan cafe in Wuxi. Born in Wuxi, China. The previous founded company of Tour Operating triggering constant connections with Western behaviours, consumption habits opened the curiosity and was a source of inspirations over 8 years. Then a passion for yoga and its health-concerned community that started in 2013 led to the creation of the first vegan cafe in Wuxi in February 2019.

Pengsong Zhang

University Student

Zhang Pengsong is a postgraduate studying the Internet of Things engineering, Jiangnan University. He mainly does research on Wiener robot and artificial intelligence. He has won many national competition awards and postgraduate scholarships. In the future, micro-robots will be applied in various fields. Zhang Pengsong will introduce the whole micro-robot system using the interdisciplinary knowledge of computer, robotics, biology, physics and chemistry.

Ranee Zhang

Teacher

Ranee Zhang is a Chinese teacher in an international school who has an innate passion and love for the left-behind children in rural China. She has once worked in a boarding school in an economically undeveloped city where 80% of the students in the class are left-behind children. She realises that the situation this group faces currently isn’t yet improved even though our economy has boosted for 10 years, so she hopes to inspire people to rethink about this unsolved issue.

Stan Crienen

Financial Analyst/Consultant

"My profession took me around the world. From my birthplace in the Netherlands to my current home in Shanghai I remained loyal to my promise to stay curious and energetic. In these 15 years I learned how to position economic theory into the practice of our current financial system and related investment opportunities. I always believed that to understand an economy and its developments one should take the time to view things from multiple perspectives. This is the only way to construct ideas on how the economy might look in the future. Let me share my vision on how the economy can function post-Covid19. "

Zaim Liu

Student

Zaim Liu Zimu 刘子木, Year 11 student of Shanghai YK Pao School, soccer player. Born in Xi’an, Shanxi Province, China; raised in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China; Now living in Shanghai. Fluent in Chinese and English, German beginner. NSDA debater, top 16 in Harvard Debate Tournament International Division, 3rd place in the Original Oratory competition in Wuxi, 2019. The speech topic for this event would be the politicization of COVID-19 from the perspective of ordinary people.