Third TEDxNYUShanghai Brings Together Pioneers

Inviting speakers to elaborate on the theme “Pioneer,” TEDxNYUShanghai showcased six thinkers from the field of arts, education, technology, and sustainable business whose stories of courage and passion riveted the audience in the campus auditorium November 17. TEDxNYUShanghai is a student-run organization that holds a licence from TED, a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks.

JT Singh, a Canadian media artist and urban futurist, shared his project proposal of redefining people’s basic needs, especially in megacities like Shanghai, and redirecting attention to the environment as well as technology, whether on a personal or a social level. Noting the fact that people’s lives are largely contrainted by jobs and daily routines, he said human beings should think of new ways of interacting with ourselves and the surroundings.

Jill Tang, co-founder of Ladies Who Tech, an organization initiated by women in STEM fields to encourage diversity in business, called for a re-examination of the role of women in the technology field. Tang noted that companies with greater gender diversity perform better than those with fewer women in their workforce. Despite this fact, significantly fewer women than men hold executive positions and gender pay gap continues to grow. She called upon men to join in the fight for gender equality in the tech world.

Tim Wang, president of Canature Water Group, brought to the audience the idea of introducing more environmentally-friendly products to the market. For example, installing water dispensers throughout the city, combined with online campaigns, can help reduce the use of non-recyclable plastic bottles.

Emily Wang, vice president of Zero Zero Robotics, a veteran of Amazon and Lenovo, discussed the possibilities of applying various technological innovations, for example, the use of robotic videographer, to photography. She described three generations of hover cameras, each equipped with better technology to pinpoint objects in the photos and to choose the most suitable angles.

Peng Wei, co-founder and product owner of Lingxi, a software supplier and service provider for Chinese NGOs, talked about harnessing data for greater social impact, citing cases such as crowdfunding for social entrepreneurial programs, electronic libraries for children, and mobilizing volunteers online to tackle water pollution.

Zhao Chang, a Schwarzman Scholar at Tsinghua University and former teaching fellow at NYU Shanghai, closed the conference with a call to break the boundary between academia and rest of society. Zhao looked back at her teaching experiences at NYU Shanghai, and advised students to keep an open mind toward career choices, exploring possibilities “from academia to anywhere.”