By Lefei Chen, Junior Project Manager - Academic Relations
Swissnex in China is delighted to partner with START Summit 2021 as streaming hub. On March 23rd and 26th, the program was successfully held onsite and live-streamed from Shanghai office along with other Swissnex global locations.
Kicking off the second day of the Summit, Dr. Felix Moesner, Science Consul & CEO, Swissnex in China and Sébastien Hug, CEO, Consul General, Swissnex in India introduced how Swissnex is fostering innovation worldwide, and sharing their respective experience in China and India regarding the entrepreneur atmosphere and styles. Dr. Felix Moesner said that new innovations and IPs have been booming in China. Deep Tech, life science, Blockchain, Neobankings, and drones are among startups’ big list. China has a very competent startup ecosystem that could incubate ideas to user-friendly products with speed. On the same note, Swissnex in India CEO Sébastien Hug shared with us the rising of cost-effective innovations in India, and the recent focus on building up electric infrastructure for future digitalized systems such as fintech innovation system and digital health.
Dr. Felix Moesner and Sébastien Hug
Then, Joleen Liang, Partner at unicorn Squirrel Ai Learning, delivered her keynote about how AI is empowering equity in education. She said that traditional education simply focused on the training of a child's knowledge acquisition and ignores the cultivation of Ability, Thinking, and Methods. AI-powered adaptive learning could quickly and precisely figure out students’ problems and provide personalized & high-quality tutoring at an affordable price. She said : “AI+education could effectively address the burning needs in our education today while providing equal distribution of educational opportunities for students in poor areas.”
Dennis Zhu, Joleen Liang, Dr. Felix Moesner
Following that, Audrey Ma, Vice President, REFIRE Technology, Dirk Lehmann, eCap, Frédéric Veloso, GreenGT SA, and moderator Claudia Stahel, Correspondent in China, SRF - Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen kicked off a hybrid panel discussion on Hydrogen energy as an alternative to fossil fuels to meet the 2 ℃ scenario. Audrey Ma said that in China, hydrogen energy is mostly used in long-haul and heavy-loaded automobiles such as trucks, buses, and ships in an effort to clean the logistics, but hydrogen is much less used in small cars that consist of most of the private transport. Hydrogen fuel cell, an innovative energy format could bridge this gap by installing Hydrogen-powered batteries in FCVs. Panelists agreed that as both China and European countries have launched hydrogen strategy for decarbonization, a huge market is waiting for partnership and cooperation between Chinese and European companies in the near future.
Dennis Zhu, Claudia Stahel, Audrey Ma, Dr. Felix Moesner
On Friday (March 26th), a FiresideChat on Blockchain was launched with Vincent Y. Wang, Executive President, Wanxiang Blockchain and Chen Wu, Managing Director, The Economist Global Business Review. They inspiringly discussed blockchain technology for the masses, the industrial solutions using blockchain as well as advancements of industrial development and business adoption in this field. Vincent Y. Wang said that as an encrypted and traceable data monitoring technology, blockchain could create a new basis of trust for business transactions and thus lower the cost for trust-building between business partners and joint ventures. Beyond allocating capital, blockchain enables an incentive governance system using different evaluation standards based on the contributions and innovation efforts of respective partners with more shares going to companies that made more efforts. Besides, blockchain is also going to disrupt the financial sector. To explain blockchain-enabled tokenization i.e. the issuance of blockchain tokens that digitally represents real tradable assets, Vincent Y. Wang humorously illustrated that when any items such as pigs, cars, cows could be recorded in the blockchain system as assets, the financial industry could be more accessible, cheaper, faster, and easier, mobilizing more capitals. In the end, Chen Wu asked about the application of blockchain in building up smart cities, Vincent Y. Wang added that blockchain could also add value to the facial recognition system. “As facial recognition penetrates through corners, ‘recognize you without knowing who you are’ become more important to protect privacy.”
Chen Wu and Vincent Y. Wang
Today AI, Hydrogen energy, blockchain technology etc, are changing and refashioning the world. In addition to R&D, sharing and exchange with global startups is essential to prompt more brilliant innovations. As the streaming Hub of the 25th edition of START Summit 2021, Swissnex in China is honored to coordinate this hybrid event. We appreciate all the speakers and participants for their contribution and attention to this Summit, and we would like to thank the START Global team for organizing the event and making a difference. Future is here, more is to come!