Theme: Symbiosis

What will be your first thought when mentioning ZhujiangNewTown? As one of the biggest Central Business Districts in the Southern part of China, ZhujiangNewTown has gone through a long way to grow and establish: the doubts and misunderstandings from the citizen was raised at its first build-up. However, what we see now is that ZhujiangNewTown has become a landmark of modern Guangzhou and more importantly, an asset for the new generation.

When more and more outside culture comes into Guangzhou, ZhujiangNewTown becomes a reflection of Guangzhou’s future. So what are tags and characters when we think about Guangzhou? The 2015 TEDxZhujiangNewTown Conference will be held onSunday Dec 13 2015 (13:30-17:30) atthe W Hotel Guangzhou, hoping to discover the answer from each citizen. The event theme is ‘ Symbiosis’ – which means there is no industries or culture could exist without the communities surrounding. Symbiosis can be both harmful and controversial. But luckily, the diversity of Guangzhou shows the beneficial symbiosis is happening in this city. Eight professional speakers from different industries will join this event to present the interesting ideas rooted in Guangzhou.

We hope this event can show you a different perspective, reveal the complication in its culture and restate its future to the world. Come and join us!

W Hotel Guangzhou
Xiancun Road, Tianhe
Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510000
China

Juan Zi

Founder of Green Tomato. Builder of fragmented urban space.

She values the power of culture in cities and commits herself to propel the socialization and commercialization of libraries in a creative way as well as to build up a sustainable developing environment of library-reading. In 2010, she started the Green Tomato----the first Chinese O2O library project and created a sign of public reading space----“INLIBRARY”. At the moment, the Green Tomato has established a free book-borrowing network with more than 1500 “INLIBRARY” spots which covers a range of over 60 large and medium-sized cities nationally.

Zhaoze (Post-Rock Band)

Chinese indie band

Zhaoze is a Chinese indie band based in Guangzhou, also known as the leading band of Post-Rock and star rock band in Lingnan area. They play frequently in music festivals such as Midi and Strawberry and some other live houses. As the first band combines Guqin(Chinese seven-stringed zither) and rock music together, they successfully compromises the merits of Chinese historical culture and the passion of rock music. Even comparing with rock bands all over the world, it is fair to say they had a style of their own.

Gene Zhang

Co-founder of MakerPlus. Advocator of 3D prosthetics printing.

Gene was a former member of AIESEC, mainland China and one of the 50 who joined the “2041 Antarctic Expedition” initiated by Robert Swan, a famous British adventurer. Also he advocates the decentralization of social campaign. To popularize technologies, he started a business in 3D prosthetics printing, as a vigorous effort to offer affordable and convenient services to the physically challenged.

Haohao Xu

Urban Heritage Architect. Tutor and Doctor in School of Architecture, South China University of Technology.

Xu was a graduate from University of Ferrara in Italy with a PhD of Economy and obtained a PhD of History and Theory of Architecture from the School of Architecture in South China University of Technology. He is a co-founder and the leading architect of Urban Elephant Architecture Design Counting Co. Ltd. To call for attention on urban heritages, he proposed the “Faanngukkei” (“to return home” in Cantonese) initiative where processes of heritage conservation and innovation had been carefully recorded and discussed. At the same time, Xu had been using Internet to add more value to heritages.

Hongjie Jiang

Internet entrepreneur

Jiang starts his product manager career from basic operation. He firstly worked in the NetDragon, then root sculpture business, securities APP and financing service. To learn how factory workers use Internet, Jiang disguised as a migrant worker for three months in over four cities, seeking the opportunities from this huge market of 300 million migrant workers.

Issac Zhang

Co-founder & CTO of Locision Technology limited. Hacker of Environmental Intelligence.

Issac Zhang is an avid learner, a system science savvy and a determined advocate of sustainable environment. He seeks elegant solutions rather than workarounds for recyclable resources discovery and transportation. He believes that a sustainable waste recycling stream is built on a collective effort of every individual and driven by effective supply chains. The 3PO dynamic resource optimization system he developed has helped many companies to better allocate resources and improve performance in everyday operation

Lili Wang

Public Art Experimenter. Deputy-curator of Guangzhou Times Museum.

Wang Lili got a master degree in visual art in Britain and works on art projects in British Council, South China. Wang in early 2011 started to curate the museum’s public exhibitions to build a more interactive sharing platform which is more open to the equal talks with visitors. The exhibitions curated by her are both poetic and popular, for instance, Next Stop, Huangbian and A Cinema.

Wei Wu

City Sign Designer

Wu majored in Architecture at a top university in Guangdong, but chose to study graphic design on his own. For nearly a decade, he devoted himself to Architectural Signage Design. With his unique knowledge and background in “Architectural design and planning, graphic design and creative advertising”, as well as his concept of sign design as “being the best supporting role of architecture”, he designed the signage system for Guangzhou library, Guangzhou Opera House, the heart of Zhujiang New Town (Flower City Square) and so on.

Yong Shu

Contemporary Artist. Creator of Sharing Arts.

Shu Yong is one of the most celebrated Chinese contemporary artist, known as “The First Person of Chinese Environmental Art” and “The Founder of Behavior Art Marketing”. He was the creator of large-scale totem landscape sculpture Golden Bridge on Silk Road exhibited in Expo Milano 2015 and the winner of The Florence Biennale Lifetime Achievement Award (the only Asian winner so far). He proposed that arts should be related to life and society and should be shared by everyone.