Speakers and Videos

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Martin Barnes

Martin Barnes is pushing the boundaries of creativity as an artist, videographer, and creative director pioneering new approaches to advertising and visual arts. Taking unique influences from the Beijing community, Martin has worked with companies from around the world to develop innovative marketing campaigns. His unusual projects demonstrate the surprising and powerful impacts of new collaboration once we awaken our creative spirit. Watch the video here.

Du Fangzhou (杜方舟)

Du FangZhou (Ark Du) challenges our conventional notions of energy generation, using methods in biological engineering to adapt the bacteria inherent to the human body as a means for generating electricity. A graduate student at BeiHang University’s Laboratory of Environmental Biology and Life Support Technology, he sheds light on the vast potential of and emerging technologies behind alternate electricity generation, with applications ranging from medicine to aeronautics. Watch the video here.

Sam Flemming (费嘉明)

Sam Flemming has been a leader in China’s digital evolution for over 10 years. As the founder of Chinapay.com, he created China’s first online payment platform, and he currently serves as founder and Chairman of CIC, a China-based social business intelligence provider. Sam is a pioneer of Internet Word of Mouth (IWOM) in China, providing extraordinary insight into the Chinese netizen community by systematically analyzing the tens of millions of BBS and blog posts they exchange. Watch the video here.

Nick Frisch

Nick Frisch is a freelance music correspondent covering China. A boy soprano at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1994-1998, his singing career also included solo appearances at Carnegie Hall and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. After studying music and Chinese at Columbia University, he researched China’s developing classical scene as a 2009-2010 Fulbright Fellow based at Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music. His favorite color is green. Watch the video here.

Gaoyan Jinzi (高艳津子)

Gaoyan Jinzi is the artistic director of the Beijing Modern Dance Company, which she joined after graduating from the Department of Modern Dance Choreography of the Beijing Dance Academy in 1995. Her work stems out of the mysterious nature of energy, breaking conventional boundaries between tradition and modernity, East and West. Critics have given her unique style international attention since 2004, described as having “strong oriental flavor, but a very dynamic stage show that goes beyond the world of imagination.” Watch the video here.

Adam Kidron

Adam Kidron is a serial entrepreneur and former music producer based in New York who brings his diverse business and non-profit experiences to his projects. Currently, as the founder and CEO of Beyond Oblivion, he is developing a new technology that may revolutionize how people pay and listen to music. He hopes that this will challenge the way we think about piracy and offer a fresh perspective on the future of the music industry worldwide. Watch the video here.

Lu Zhi (吕植)

Dr. Lu Zhi is one of the world’s most respected panda experts and one of China’s most esteemed conservationists. As a leader in the country’s struggle for environmental and wildlife protection, she founded the Shan Shui Conservation Centre in 2002, focusing her work on reconciling urban dwellers with their natural roots. She is also the Director of the Center for Nature and Society and a Professor of Conservation Biology at Peking University. Watch the video here.

Meg Maggio

Meg Maggio established Pékin Fine Arts, a Beijing-based private consultancy and art gallery, in November 2005. A 20-year China resident, Maggio directs, curates, and writes for the gallery, while simultaneously acting as advisor to leading museums, corporations, and individuals on collecting and exhibiting contemporary art. With over 600 sq. meters of exhibition space designed by Beijing artist/architect Ai Weiwei, Pékin Fine Arts strives to represent and promote the best and most innovative contemporary artists from Asia. Watch the video here.

Wang Hailei (王海磊)

Wang Hailei is an artist, designer, and computer programmer with a background in classical Chinese philosophy, history, literature, and art. In university, he majored in English and literature while minoring in economics and computer science. Since his first certification by Microsoft as a Systems Engineer, he has also worked as a programmer and an Interactive Designer. He left Microsoft in 2008 to start Farefore to became fully engaged in interactive design and generative art. Watch the video here.

Wen Fang (文芳)

Wen Fang innovates by using art as a tool for social change. As a multidisciplinary artist, her latest project, Art Against Poverty, takes her around China as she empowers communities through locally-produced art. She started nurturing her artistic passion at an early age with calligraphy, and went on to specialize in photography at the National Film, Photography and Sound Engineering School (ENS) Louis-Lumière in Paris. Her work is regularly featured in galleries throughout China. Watch the video here.

Xie Guangming (谢广明)

As Professor of Engineering at Peking University’s Intelligent Control Laboratory, Dr. Xie Guangming develops cutting-edge technology in the field of robotics. Imagine a large oil spill – what if we had robotic fish that could help deter wildlife from the danger zone? As futurist as this may seem, Dr. Xie is developing robotic technology and designing autonomous robotic fish (even capable of playing water-polo!). Watch the video here.

Lijia Zhang (张丽佳)

Lijia Zhang is a journalist and contributor to the Asian Wall Street Journal and the South China Morning Post. What sets her apart, though, is her remarkable journey towards becoming an acclaimed author and wordsmith. From humble beginnings in a Nanjing factory, Lijia taught herself English and worked tirelessly towards her dreams. Fueled with a passion for literature, she her recently published memoir Socialism is Great has circulated in five continents. Lijia inspires us through her journey and her push through life’s most challenging obstacles. Watch the video here.

Majin Buu

Majin Buu is Beijing’s first and largest drum circle. Founded this year, it stems out of a shared passion for life and “original art”. The troupe strives to relax stressed urbanites with an ethos centered around tolerance, cooperation, freedom, peace, happiness and positive attitudes towards development. From the traditional West African drumming to the integration of modern percussion from diverse cultures, the group believes in interpretation as a movement from the heart to give a pulse to the city. Watch the video here.

Keith Lipson

Keith Lipson became the youngest clarinetist to be accepted into the world-renowned Curtis Institute of Music where for two years he was principal clarinet of the Curtis Symphony. Keith is principal clarinet of the Knights Chamber Orchestra in New York with whom he has recorded two albums for Sony Classical and toured extensively in the United States and Europe. As a devotee of new music, he is a co-founder of the Beijing New Music. Keith is also a devoted teacher whose students have been accepted at prestigious music schools and conservatories in the United States. Watch the video here.

Zhao Jiazhen (赵家珍)

Zhao Jiazhen is one of the most famous masters of the guqin, an ancient Chinese seven-string zither. Zhao has performed for visiting presidents and dignitaries and has been featured on the soundtracks of movies such as “Red Cliff”, and “Dream of the Red Chamber.” A New York Times review of her recent Carnegie Hall performance called her playing “rarefied” and “pointillistic.” She is currently a professor at her alma mater, China’s Central Conservatory of Music. Watch the video here.

Eli Marshall

American composer Eli Marshall moved to Beijing in 2003 as a Fulbright Fellow. Since then, he has made the city his home, written for orchestras and ensembles of the region, and tailored new compositions towards unconventional venues. As artistic director of the Beijing New Music Ensemble, his innovative programming was hailed by the Macao Daily as “revolutionizing the way chamber music is played.” Watch the video here.

DJ Slide (Jonathan Smith)

No Go Die Records was founded by DJ Slide (Jonathan Smith) in 2009. It began life as a podcast showcasing the best in Afrobeat, Funk, Dub, Broken Beats, and a whole host of delectable electronica from like-minded beatsmiths worldwide. Now it is one of the few China-based labels to consistently push musical frontiers, bringing global artists into the Chinese music market, as well as hand-picking the best local talent to be showcased in the UK. Watch the video here.