Theme: Enlightened

Talks, talks, talks and more talks. Inspiring ideas, thoughtful takeaways and

Nanjing International School Performing Arts Center
Xue Heng Road 8
Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210023
China

Gracie Gu

Entrepreneur, Telecommunications Engineer

Entrepreneur, dancer, skater. Born in Suzhou, Gracie Gu moved to Nanjing to study Optics and Telecommunications Engineering. She quickly discovered that it was the Communications part of her degree that impassioned her, and in 2012, she opened her own Expat Services Company. Now based in Shanghai, Gracie has learned more about the art of communication over the last decade than she ever thought possible- between colleagues, clients, family and friends; but most importantly, honest communication with the Self.

Heidi Dean

Performing Arts Teacher

Heidi has been living and working overseas for eighteen years. She is a Performing Arts teacher and a keen sportswoman who likes to set personal goals and challenges that stretch herself. During her time overseas she has experienced the loss of three family members, two of whom she lost during the Covid 19 pandemic. Through her personal experiences Heidi explores love, loss and legacy.

Jiayin Gu

Bad Decision Sopecialist, Scholar

Jiayin is a Grade 9 student, a conversationalist, a hobbyist, a learner but most importantly an experienced decision-maker; albeit not always good ones. In fact, he has made countless bad choices in the fields of being a communicator and learner. However, he’s more interested the results of his worst choices and never says optimistic words like “I’ll get better next time”. Instead, he looks for opportunity to profit from his bad decisions as a chance to enhance his future, so he benefits from every decision he makes, not just from the good ones.

Manuel Braun

Metaverse Enthusiast, Student

Manuel is an athletic, technology-orientated, innovative risk-taker. As a digital native, he has always felt at home in the technological landscape of the 21st century and has been recently digging deeper into the concept of Non-fungible tokens (NFT’s) and the how Web 3.0 and The Metaverse will become the future of our everyday lifestyles. He explores the endless opportunities of this new immersive technological advancement and how it will advance us as humankind, as well as the multibillion-dollar industry that is about to be born.

Nico Parra

Teacher/ Experience Designer

Nico is a risk-taker, a dreamer, a hotelier, designer, cyclist and teacher. He take son new challenges and nourishes himself with new ideas every day. Born in Colombia, he grew up in a united, enthusiastic and vibrant society, which instilled in him a great sense of social responsibility and hospitality. Living between the city and the countryside, his dream is to participate in the development of a self-sustaining community. To this end, he dedicates his student and professional life to the fields of design, ecology, tourism and education.

Robert Wang

Telecommunications Engineer

Robert Wang has been a tele-communications for almost 30 years, and has experienced the single greatest technological revolution in the history of China: the shift from 2G to 5G and Beyond! His interests are wide-ranging, covering business innovation and entrepreneurship to sports and medicine, among many others. He is a self taught English speaker, and believes in cross language exchange as a means of promoting diversity and inclusion. He stands humbly by, to deliver his knowledge of the future of 5G.

Sunny Cho

Student, First Aid Aficionado

Sunny is an NIS student in Grade 10. Born in Korea, she has spent most of her life in an international educational environment in Nanjing. She has a special interest in Health and medicine, and hopes to enter the medical profession upon completing her studies. Her talk stems from research projects into global pandemic outbreaks and control, safety and prevention. Sunny considers the dangers of toxic ignorance of basic safety measures and aims to change th world for the better, by saving your life.

Tim Dai

Student, Inclusion Advocate

Tim (Tianwen) Dai is a 7th grader at NIS. He was born in China, and when he was 6, moved to Canada and stayed there for several years. When he first arrived in Canada, he was hit by a wave of stereotypes. Slowly, he was changed into someone else by these stereotypes. After he realized his change, he started understanding the importance of an inclusive community and how much harm both intentional and unintentional stereotyping can cause to others. You can expect to find him nowadays either munching on a McFlurry, sipping on some bubble tea, or listening to rags while he finishes up homework.

Wicky Chen

IT Technician, Photographer

When Wicky is not saving the luddites from themselves, always with grace and good humor, he is an avid photographer. In his free time, he enjoys desert hiking, rock climbing, scuba diving and beach camping, to name but a few of the extreme sports he has thrown himself into in recent years. He his also an avid philanthropist and active supporter of charities within his community.

Xun Ji

Inclusion Activist

Ji Xun, founder of Rare & Roll, is a rare disease patient, wheelchair user and world traveler. She holds dual master's degrees from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Paris School of Political Sciences (Sciences Po Paris). She is a recipient of the renowned ETS TOEFL scholarship, France Excellence scholarship, and Canadian governmental research funds. She is a winner of 2018 Booking.com Cares fund in sustainable tourism and has then taken over 600 Chinese people with disabilities out of their home for a tourist experience. Before her entrepreneurial endeavor, Ji Xun worked as an independent journalist, writing for Vice China, Netease, and Caixin, and translating for Lonely Planet and Global Blue.