The Martin Jetpack, which despite a price tag of 2 million yuan ($308,640), has already sold 200 units. The vehicle is being touted as the the world’s first truly practical commercial jetpack.

The gasoline-powered aircraft can carry commercial payloads of up to 120 kilograms with a maximum flying time of 45 minutes at speeds of up to 80 km per hour. The pack can operate in close proximity to trees, buildings, and other confined spaces.

“Our buyers are from all over the world,” said Zhang Yangyang, KuangChi’s CEO. “For example, a rescue team in Dubai ordered about 30 units because the jetpack is easier to operate than helicopters in a city full of skyscrapers.”

KuangChi has also developed the “Traveler”, a near-space device that provides the benefits of a satellite at a fraction of the cost. The 40 metre in diameter, 1 ton helium-filled balloon can float to the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere and can provide WiFi services, resource mapping, traffic control, shipping communications, and aid in search and rescue operations.

Although currently based in New Zealand, Kuangchi intends to relocate to Shenzhen as part of the city’s “peacock” campaign to attract and develop more high-tech companies. Previous success stories include DJI, now the world’s leading manufacturer of UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones).

The post The Jetpack Is Real: Shenzhen Company Launches Futuristic Product appeared first on The Nanfang.

In the next three to five years, about 150,000 square meters of retail space selling electronics in the western area of Zhongguancun will be phased out by local authorities.

In its place will be a 7.2 kilometer “innovation boulevard” anticipated to be a business hub for technological financing, start-ups, innovation incubators, smart hardware, and creative culture. The boulevard will include 36 office buildings expected to house more than 6,000 tech companies.

Zhongguancun has lost much of its lustre over the last few years as e-commerce sites have cut into sales of many of the area’s brick and mortar stores. And while many stores have disappeared, others have adapted: in June 2014, a 220-meter section of Zhongguancun changed its economic model to attract some 40 companies serving business startups. Called “Innoway”, it has become a landmark for grassroots entrepreneurs in the capital.

“After the transformation, the street will be a window for the outside world to see the startups and achievements in innovation at Zhongguancun,” said Yan Xiumin, deputy director of the Zhongguancun Haidian Park.

The post Beijing’s Famous Zhongguancun to Get Rid of Electronics Shops appeared first on The Nanfang.

The 38 year-old native of Sichuan recently received a national patent for his design that took 16 years to develop. The automated machine rinses your hair, dispenses shampoo, gives you a scalp massages, washes and dries your hair all in the span of five minutes.

The volunteer seen demonstrating the laborless hair washer is Chen’s father, described in the report as having an “enjoyable expression” on his face.

Chen was inspired to create the invention for his grandmother, who was paralyzed.

Netizens are both supportive and dismissive of Chen’s invention. One person said, “If he had only taken a trip to Japan, he could have saved himself 16 years of his life.”

However, another person was inspired by what Chen has accomplished, saying “Inventing requires encouragement. This is his ideal, and I don’t think its very respectful to ridicule him this way. Not all inventions will be practical, but this type of thinking should be encouraged. At the present time, Chinese are too practical and only value money. They lack idealism, and the spirit to chase after their dreams.”

In recent years, innovation in China has taken a backseat to imitation. Called “shanzhai“, China’s counterfeiting culture has seen the proliferation of the manufacture and consumption of fake products from things ranging from luxury handbags, iPhones, condoms, and international landmarks, to financial institutions.

The post Check Out this Guy’s Automatic Hair Washing Machine that Took 16 Years to Invent appeared first on The Nanfang.

As captured in the documentary Are Our Kids Tough Enough? Chinese School by the BBC, the experiment tried to determine if doing things the Chinese way can turn around a British education system with lagging students. However, what mostly happened was a clash of cultures in which teachers and students complained about each other.

Many of the Chinese teachers complained about the undisciplined and unfocused nature of the British students. Science teacher Yang Jun was completely flummoxed when a teenage girl left the classroom in tears upon reading tabloid news about a boy band. “In China we don’t need classroom management skills because everyone is disciplined by nature, by families, by society. I found it difficult to understand such emotional behavior over a pop band,” said Yang.

Meanwhile, 15 year-old Rosie Lunskey also expressed frustration with her new Chinese teachers. “I’m used to speaking my mind in class, being bold, giving ideas, often working in groups to advance my skills and improve my knowledge. But a lot of the time in the experiment, the only thing I felt I was learning was how to copy notes really fast and listen to the teacher lecture us.”

But the controversy didn’t end there. The Chinese teachers also pointed their criticism at the UK social welfare system for causing apathy among its students.

Mandarin teacher Wei Zhao said cuts to the welfare system will motivate students to learn. “Even if they don’t work, they can get money, they don’t worry about it,” said Wei. “But in China, they can’t get these things so they know ‘I need to study hard, I need to work hard to get money to support my family’. If they (the British government) really cut benefits down to force people to go to work, students might see things in a different way.”

Widely available on the internet in China, the BBC documentary caused a lot of discussion among Chinese netizens who looked upon their own experiences with the Chinese education system. Here is some of what they said:

舞者的武者：
Looking at it from another aspect, Chinese students are better able to suffer in silence than students in the UK. 

HHHHHH学院:
It’s like as though by using English-style teaching, the results are supposed to be more innovative. This is just a bunch of crappy students trying to find excuses, and it’s hilarious.

好大一只_蚊：
Actually, I really like the Chinese education system. If it were to become as open and free as the UK system then I think it would turn to rubbish, exploiting the nation’s welfare system.

瓜田澄思：
After the documentary aired, a person from the UK made a post on Twitter saying the vast majority of the students in the film have self-discipline problems, have trouble with comprehension, don’t respect the authority of teachers, and are a disgrace to the UK by losing face. This comment said the UK education system has spoiled these children rotten. If the future of their country is within the hands of these people, then a catastrophe is awaiting. The Chinese and UK systems of education are completely different from each other, and yet they both give rise to a similar concern that they both don’t work.

See Also: 8,000 Chinese Students Expelled from US Schools as They Struggle to Adjust

斯坦福桥的BlueSky：
Chinese and Western education systems each have their own pros and cons, and it’s hard to distinguish who is better or worse at whatever. But there is one thing that is for sure, and that is no matter which system they’re in, lazy people will always be losers!

徐欣V：
It really is just as the teacher said, we don’t have any way to learn the same way as UK students due to the way the things are right now in China. The pressure upon Chinese students to compete with each other is fierce. The population is high. If you don’t work hard, you will get eliminated.

十多年熬一锅粥：
Comparing the two to each other, it’s not a bad idea to use the strengths of others in order to make up for your own shortcomings. So if I were to have incorporated farming techniques as part of my education, I would have become the worst of all students.

古三界：
One way is to perform rote memorization, the other is individualized teaching. One way is to cultivate students to become obedient slaves, the other is cultivate their hobbies and interests.

斑马先生随行笔记：
Many people say that there’s no use to learning mathematics. They say, ‘Do you need to use algebra when buying vegetables?’ I just want to tell these people that upon learning mathematics, you won’t even need to look at the price of vegetables anymore.

大西北的吕先生：
To all the people who say that the Chinese education system has failed, I have to tell you that all the people that have passed through this system will go on to become the cornerstones of society. It may even be that they will become the leaders of China will come from these so-called failed education system. At that time, what are you going to do? Are we all going to die, then?

小小鹿汤圆：
I don’t understand why there are so many Chinese criticizing their own education system as being completely worthless. Other countries find merit and redeeming quality in our education system. Why can’t we be more tolerant and friendly towards our own country?

静夜之轩：
Many of the scientists in laboratories across the USA are from China. Does this not dispel the awful notion that Chinese people are not innovative? The Chinese education system is one where short-term gains can not be met. Even if you were to put US teachers into Chinese high school classes, one week would not be enough time to make an impact upon these students. As well, through the examination you can establish a sturdy base of knowledge as well as providing a way to achieve good results.

forever辰洋：
I don’t know if Chinese-style education in the UK would be at all effective, but I do know that UK-style education practiced in China would be completely useless.

哈哈公主o：
All of a sudden, I feel as though the Chinese-style education isn’t all that bad anymore.

o阿硫克o：
I feel relieved upon reading through the comments. A lot of people seem to understand, while those that don’t aren’t ever likely to understand, no matter which education system they come from. Lots of other countries are starting to study our education system. There will be those people who will invariably belittle and reject our way of learning. I completely believe that the future will belong to China.

allisonlian：
This kind of comparative test is significant. These two education models can increase their strengths through mutual advancement, and is worth exploring.

在自己的故事里成为强者：
Whatever suits the situation of their own country is best. The Chinese education system is not suitable for the UK, while the UK education system is not suitable for China.

L翘翘：
When I was younger I preferred the foreign education system, but now I find myself increasingly in favor of the Chinese system. Some people say that the Chinese education system doesn’t encourage innovation. A person who recently took the gaokao said the questions have all been reformed and don’t ask for the rote answers that were common a few years before. Now, the teacher tells us we should ask if we don’t understand something, and is more prone to discussing things with us. Students who are cultivated to be modest, understanding, and respectful of the authority of teachers will most likely become people who respect the older generation and follow order.

Related:

• Teacher in Foshan sends group text message to parents calling students “trash”
• 70 Students In Shanghai Caught Using Stand-ins To Take Their CET English Exams
• Chinese Spending Big Bucks On Housing In The Name Of Their Children’s Education

The post Chinese React to a Disastrous Experiment of Putting Chinese Teachers in a UK School appeared first on The Nanfang.

Statements made in the US by Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina that Americans shouldn’t fear competition with China because Chinese are “not innovative or imaginative” have unsurprisingly become a thing on the Chinese internet.

Chatting with political blog Caffeneinated Thoughts, Fiorina said:

I have been doing business in China for decades, and I will tell you that yeah, the Chinese can take a test, but what they can’t do is innovate. They are not terribly imaginative. They’re not entrepreneurial, they don’t innovate, that is why they are stealing our intellectual property.

Fiorina went on to add that teaching innovation, risk-taking, and imagination “are things that are distinctly American and we can’t lose them.”

Fiorina’s stance on China was previously spelled out in her book, Rising to the Challenge: My Leadership Journey:

Although the Chinese are a gifted people, innovation and entrepreneurship are not their strong suits. Their society, as well as their educational system, is too homogenized and controlled to encourage imagination and risk taking. Americans excel at such things , and we must continue to encourage them.

Chinese versions of the article published shortly afterward quickly attracted attention. So what did the home of Alibaba, Xiaomi and WeChat have to say? Actually, they were largely in agreement:

贫穷老百姓2015:
There’s not a single word she said that isn’t wrong. She’s completely right! What’s more, this is just what I was saying twelve years ago.

sleipnir71:
Creative thinking has most definitely been a problem for Chinese education. Some people are too sensitive in considering these words to be an insult.

laotie:
Fiorina is basically correct in saying that some parts of China’s systems are not conducive to technological innovation and development.

兰陵客微博:
Not only is [Fiorina] not insulting China, but she’s giving China a free lesson. ‘Chinese are good at taking tests, but don’t have any imagination, entrepreneurism, or innovation.’ This is a fact. In my opinion, we need to find the source of this problem, for only then can this situation improve.

用户5280479276:
Right on the money! What else are Chinese good at besides cloning?

斑马左使的祖宗:
[Directed at other commentators] The enemy all know your weakness, how can you fucking pretend you don’t know this?

fjfhuuje:
[Fiorina’s words] hit the nail on the head. How can these words be construed as an insult? There’s hope for those who change their ways if they don’t know enough, while the worst situation is someone who’s not willing to change if they need it. Writer [of the article], do you have a mental problem? Your mother is telling you to go home and take your medication.

liulele888:
Not a wrong word said.

凯林皇:
[Fiorina] is right. As well, this exactly the reason why we Chinese have never once had one of our scientists win the Nobel prize.

任静斋:
Even though there are some problems to Fiorina’s argument, what she said is still a fact: Although Chinese are talented, their senses of innovation and entrepreneurship are not their strengths. Their social and educational systems overzealously pursue the homogenous development of its students who are over-managed and not encouraged to take risks or use their imagination.

神奇的国度1999:
Even since taking tests in elementary schools, displaying any creativity results in a wrong answer. Why let us imagine in the first place?

林513707:
I don’t think that she’s insulting China, but that she’s pointing out where we can improve.

o土豪xo:
As the saying goes, ‘No culture, no worries, but a culture based on slavery is one of terrible crime and sin.’

蓝天锤18:
Hard to hear, but true!

A few spoke out against Fiorina, taking shots at her dubious track record as a CEO:

看的见听得清想不明白:
Since we Chinese lack imagination, who would have thought that one person would be able to so thoroughly topple two Fortune 500 companies – Compaq and Hewlett Packard –(from the inside)? (Who could have thought) these two world leaders in IT during the 90s would allow themselves to be utterly destroyed by this stupid woman? Who could have imagined someone with such poor leadership skills could run for the Presidency of the United States? This is all simply too much for the imagination of we Chinese. We welcome Sister Fiorina to come to China and apply to the administrative department for a position as a street cleaner!!!

无菌大王:
Heehee, what about those times when you steal and rob scientists from China?

无限轮回的马:
US citizens are rich in imagination? First in the world at ruining things is more like it.

A-郝维:
[Remember a thing called] the Four Great Inventions of Ancient China? American IQ remains very low.

Some netizens went so far as to explain why there may be a lack of imagination and innovation in China:

威士818:
If the people’s imagination and creativity isn’t restrained, then China will fall into chaos.

积德在家:
[Fiorina] is basically describing the image of our national civil servants.

天涯沦落人_
I don’t feel it’s about a lack of innovation so much as it is about not having a spirit of adventure, and being under the worship of money.

And proving that there’s no lack of sarcasm in China:

huangyi1125:
I downright refuse to accept (Fiorina’s argument)! If Chinese all lack the ability to be imaginative, then explain to me how the life-changing inventions of hair soy sauce, shoe capsules, melamine milk, and gutter oil – each one amazing enough to make gods and devils to weep in heaven and hell – were all invented by the hand of Chinese people? Once again, I express my downright refusal to accept these words!

积德在家:
We sincerely hope this kind of person will be elected as the next President of the United States.

The post Many Chinese Agree With Carly Fiorina’s Claim That China Can’t Innovate appeared first on The Nanfang.

Many of these 1.04 million super-rich made their fortune in information technology, biotechnology and alternative energy with about 80 percent under the age of 50.

Compiled by consulting firm Bain & Co and China Merchants Bank, one of the co-authors of the reports sees this development as a positive sign for the country.

“China’s HNWIs are driving the growth of the country’s real economy, particularly in key innovative sectors, which is helping to fuel the economy and advance innovation,” said Alfred Shang, a partner at Bain.

“Among the newly rich, we’re seeing a more aggressive investment style, openness toward alternative investments, and increased focus on wealth creation, second only to wealth preservation as their primary wealth management objectives,” he said.

Likewise, the 2015 Billionaire Report released yesterday by UBS and Pricewaterhouse Coopers said that Asia will overtake the United States in wealth creation over the next five to ten years.

In the first three months of this year, a new billionaire was created in China almost every week, the report said.

While the numbers of China’s super-rich has doubled since 2010, they have shown a decreasing confidence in investing back into the motherland, preferring to invest overseas instead. Nearly 40 percent of HNWIs and almost 60 percent of the ultrarich said they have overseas investments, an increase of 19 percent and 33 percent from 2011, respectively.

Less than 10 percent of HNWIs intend to increase investing in traditional manufacturing industries that have made China into an international economic powerhouse.

The increasing numbers of HNWIs is a departure from 2012 when the Hurun Rich List listed only 251 billionaires in China, a drop of 20 from the year before.

Meanwhile, China is still suffering from a widening wealth gap for which experts are demanding urgent action.

“Income inequality in today’s China is among the highest in the world, especially in comparison to countries with comparable or higher standards of living,” said University of Michigan sociologist Yu Xie.

“Ordinary people in China know about this increase, as they have personally experienced it in their own lives,” Xie said. “Although ordinary Chinese people seem to tolerate the high inequality, they also recognize it as a social problem that needs to be addressed.”

The Gini coefficient, in which zero is complete equality and one is maximum inequality, has risen to 0.55 in China, according to a study by the University of Michigan. The Chinese National Bureau of Statistics says its Gini coefficient is 0.48. Regardless, a rating of more than 0.4 represents a threat to social instability.

Zeng Xiangquan, director of the Labor and Human Affairs academy at People’s University, said China is falling into a “medium salary trap” that is stagnating the Chinese market due to a lack of innovation on one end, and cheap labor on the other.

The post China Now Has More Than 1 Million High Net Worth Individuals appeared first on The Nanfang.

Her words didn’t say anything about her next moves. But her portrait that would appear on the Times Square Billboard six months later said it all: she diverged from the finance path she’d been on for 12 years to join the world of tech titans as the President of Didi.

Little did she know that her good-bye would inject an idea into a nameless banking analyst on the Asia list-serv. An idea so strong and the butterfly effect so drastic that it may just change where he ends up in life.

Liu Qing, atop the concrete jungle where dreams are made of.

Over the last two years in banking, I travelled to Beijing on a bi-weekly basis. My wait-time at the Beijing Capital Airport shortened from 1.5 hours in the taxi queue to 15 minutes when ordering a taxi using Didi or Kuaidi the moment I landed. In other words, I had front row seats to witness the epic battle between the two companies as they burned over RMB 3 billion to acquire 154 million users in the span of less than two years (as of late 2014 when I moved to Beijing).

People thought these companies and their investors had gone nuts, but the insanity isn’t in incentivizing users to use an app when hailing a taxi; it’s in training one billion conservative and suspicious users to entrust a mobile Internet platform with credit card information, phone numbers, addresses, and to accept services provided by complete strangers.

What Taobao and Alipay did for the PC age online, Didi and Kuaidi accomplished for the mobile epoch offline. This isn’t just HBS case material worthy, it is a historical inflection point. It is the beginning of China’s mobile Internet avalanche.

If China looked like this back in 2011, I might’ve been a college dropout and never returned to Columbia after my gap year. Back then, I used to complain about Beijing’s many inefficiencies in comparison with Hong Kong. But today’s Hong Kong is only moving fast physically, as people and cars run at maximum efficiency between Causeway Bay and Quarry Bay, from IFC to ICC. Yet Beijing, where PM2.5 particles are often stuck in the sky and cars are stuck in the streets, is moving fast transcendentally, as an innovative and entrepreneurial mindset penetrates every single industry new and old, every generation young and mature, and every enterprise public and private in a degree and scale unprecedented, unseen, and unimagined by those who have always only managed to paint China’s future by referencing America’s past.

If I had doubted China’s potential to overcome the US one day in technology and innovation, I don’t anymore.If I had doubted China’s potential to overcome the US one day in technology and innovation, I don’t anymore.

Don’t get me wrong. China’s still got a long, long way to go. But something that we as Chinese have always hoped and dreamed would happen is finally happening: a more novelty-seeking population, a more visible legal system, and a more open-minded society, combined with many more merit-driven companies and corporations. If this paradigm shift doesn’t draw every single talented Chinese person back to this land, I don’t know what will.

Gordon Gekko describing Tulipmania to his son-in-law-to-be Jacob in “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.” But unlike Tulipmania and the previous China asset bubbles in real estate (2008-2010), PE/VC (2010-2011), and shadow banking (2012-2013), the changes delivered by this Internet craze are permanent. You and I will never go back to waiting 30 minutes in the rain for a taxi or paying our friends an unexact amount in cash when we could transfer over Alipay.

China is at the inflection point of its development, with Beijing as its epicenter. This is where hundreds of future Fortune 500 companies are born. Some yesterday, some today.

What’s coming next can only be even more unthinkable. WeChat is extending far beyond the IM scopes of Whatsapp by capturing the flow of information and payments by connecting users with media and businesses; Xiaomi will turn everything in our homes into an internet device, from light bulbs to air purifiers, to make them controllable via mobile; SF Express is experimenting with drones to deliver packages to remote areas; and the days of “Copy to China” is quickly vanishing as companies like Cheetah Mobile begin to take China experiences overseas.

Cheetah Mobile, a Beijing-based tech company, listed on the NYSE in May 2014. It is the publisher of Clean Master, the #1 mobile app in the Google Play Tools category worldwide. 65 percent of the Company’s 395 million monthly active users are from outside of China.

In the face of this “new normal” – not in the sense of slower GDP growth, but in the sense that people’s way of living has fundamentally changed – it dawned on me that many of the futuristic technological advances which I thought would only remain in films may actually become realities within our lifetime.

I moved to Beijing six months ago to join the population known as 北漂, or “one who drifts to Beijing.” Those who have come here for something more than career or wealth, more than a spouse or a house. Those who aren’t here for another Gatsby party, who have stopped wondering about the “what if’s” in life as they walked out the doors from the Saks Fifth Avenue buyer job in New York, the Skadden Arps corporate lawyer track on Wall Street, the CNBC news anchor spotlight in Singapore, the Sotheby’s training program in London, or even the Google programmer gig in Silicon Valley. Those who could have made it somewhere comfortable and developed, but chose to come to Beijing in search of something more.

If Zimo Zeng’s book《墨迹》was the manifesto which conscripted a generation of well-educated Chinese into the world of investment banking and Wall Street, then Liu Qing’s picture in Times Square is the wakeup call for us to stop proofreading IPO prospectuses and start self-actualizing through the world of innovation and change.

To quote Budd Fox from Wall Street (1987), “Life all comes down to a few moments. This is one of them.”

Today, I spent my last day working as a professional in finance.

Tomorrow, I start my first day living as an entrepreneur.

The day after, I may end up beatboxing in the Zhongguancun subway for money. But I will have tried, in my most productive years, to do the most of what I can do.

Wish me luck. I’ll need it. ;)

You can follow David Zhu’s adventure on his WeChat account by scanning the QR code below.

The post Leaving Finance in the Dust to Join China’s Transformative Digital Economy appeared first on The Nanfang.

The governor-general gives his speech at the forum, image courtesy of Nanfang Daily

Canada, despite its independence from the UK, retains Queen Elizabeth as its sovereign. But while the Queen can’t be in Canada personally, she has a representative in the Canadian capital to carry out her business.  That person is Governor-General David Johnston, who happens to be in Guangzhou.  He gave a speech on innovation in life science while attending a forum with academics from China and Canada at Guangzhou’s Sun Yat-Sen University, Nanfang Daily reports.

A plaque was also unveiled to commemorate a new joint life sciences lab between University of Alberta and Sun Yat-sen University.

Here is a taste of what he said:

I have spent all of my career deeply immersed in university life—first as a student, then as a professor, dean and, finally, president. Universities were my professional home right up until the day I became Canada’s Governor General. So as a university man at heart, I’m thrilled to be standing here among so many colleagues at one of the world’s great centres of learning.

We are all academics. We are students, teachers, researchers, administrators and executives who share a citizenship that transcends boundaries of culture, ethnicity and nation. Ours is a citizenship based on a collective understanding that we hold firmly and cherish deeply.

You can read a full transcript here.

The governor general is the federal viceregal representative of the Canadian monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. The office has its roots in the 16th and 17th century colonial governors of New France and British North America, and thus is the oldest continuous institution in Canada.

The post Canadian Governor-general visits Guangzhou appeared first on The Nanfang.

The ministry received 5,956 suggestions from the public by Aug. 30 and the new draft will bring about an education system that, according to an official from the ministry named Xin Tao, will enable students to enjoy the learning process and become more rounded people.

If successful, similar changes will be introduced to middle and high school teaching.

China Daily has more:

The guideline, which was introduced by Chinese education authorities, suggested a ban on written homework in elementary schools. Instead, it suggested organizing field trips to museums, libraries and cultural facilities, and cultivating students’ hands-on capabilities through handicrafts or farm work.

In the below Feb. 2009 TED lecture, Barry Schwartz argued that factory teaching, the type that has long been prevalent in China, “insures against disaster by ensuring mediocrity.”

This lecture underlines the fact that, contrary to what was once popularly believed in China, “Western” countries such as the United States have their fair share of uninspiring education institutions.

It was argued in The New Republic on Monday (Sept. 2) that American schools were failing non-conformist kids.

In the meantime, he’s part of an education system that has scant tolerance for independence of mind. “We’re saying to the kid, ‘You’re broken. You’re defective,’ ” says Robert Whitaker, author of Mad in America. “In some ways, these things become self-fulfilling prophesies.”

It was reported this year that a not-very prestigious school in Guangzhou was an unlikely innovator in encouraging self-expression in its students.

The post China to reduce homework, enhance students’ creativity appeared first on The Nanfang.

Mike Michelini is passionate about startups, and founded Startup Weekend

Startup Weekend Guangzhou is kicking off tonight, bringing together many of the city’s entrepreneurs for 54 hours of networking, learning, and inspiration.  Michael Michelini, Nikhil Bhaskaran, and Kawai Or began organizing startup events with the first in Shenzhen last year, and are now taking their show on the road.

Michelini, who started his first e-commerce business in his New York City apartment back in 2004, took questions from The Nanfang team about Startup Weekend, the PRD, and entrepreneurship.

What is Startup Weekend?
Startupweekend is a 54 hour event where we INSPIRE entrepreneurs, starting from Friday night team-building through Sunday night where you pitch to the audience and a panel of business experts / VCs. You can bring your own idea to pitch, or join another idea/team. Startup Weekend is a platform, but does not invest in any teams – the judges or other VCs in the audience may make offers but SW itself doesn’t.

How long have you been doing them?
I attended my first in early 2011 in Hong Kong, and organized my first in Shenzhen, China in September 2011. I have now been part of 6 weekends – participating in one in Hong Kong, organizing 3 in Shenzhen, facilitator of 1 in Seattle 2 weeks ago, and now an organizer of this weekends first in Guangzhou.

What was your inspiration behind starting Startup Weekend?
I wish these existed when I started my first business in 2004!  I think entrepreneurs need it, they need to experience accelerated FAILURE and face it.  And after I participated in my first in Hong Kong, I was reminded how much I love being an entrepreneur. It really inspires us, and also helps build a startup community. A network of do-ers.

Startup Shenzhen has earned lots of community support

How would you characterize the startup community in the PRD?
I would have to say still very fragmented, both in the local Chinese community as well as in the expat community. There are tons of entrepreneurs and I see PRD as a melting pot of entrepreneurship, but everyone startsup ALONE in a home office after quitting their job – or flying out from their home country to make a business in the PRD.

The startups are also super paranoid and secretive, this is because there isn’t a community. We hope to use startup weekend to change that, and from the few we have already done in Shenzhen, we are noticing a much more established trust network and more openness and creativity thus coming from that.

Sure, there are many networking nights, but those are just happy hours at bars with some random name card trading. Startup Weekends are hardcore weekends where you meet DO-ers, and entrepreneurs and VCs,  – as the motto goes, NO TALK, ALL ACTION.

What kind of reaction has there been to Startup Weekend?
People have loved it! Shenzhen’s last startup weekend was in Tencent HQ with over 100 participants, and seven high level judges and almost 20 mentors on site. Everyone was extremely satisfied and are so pumped to attend the next one. We have had many participate in more than one, or even two weekends!

How does the PRD’s startup community compare to those in other places?
I mean, no one can compare to San Francisco. But I cannot really answer it, as most of my entrepreneur career has been in Shenzhen (since end of 2007) – but I can say, many entrepreneurs from all over China and the world come here to setup their business….seeing China as the new “gold rush”.

You can read all about Startup Weekend Guangzhou and how to attend here.

The post Startup Weekend Guangzhou starts tonight! appeared first on The Nanfang.