With Audi App Jam project, Audi Tongji Joint Lab and Ask Lab is looking to empower creative professionals and startups to uncover the creative potential of China. You and your team are welcome to make the automotive of the future more exciting, personal and sociable than ever before with your killer app idea!

In Europe and the US, various Automotive Apps are on the market already, serving all kinds of consumer needs. In China, this market is just emerging.

We are calling on people from areas such as design, information technology, digital media and marketing, to develop innovative, market-relevant and interesting App concepts for Audi in China. We are searching for cool App concepts which are meaningful and sustainable.

Disclaimer can be found in the Chinese text.

With the Boot Camp project, Tongji School of Software Engineering’s Apple Club and Android Club, School of Automotive Studies, School of Design and Ask Lab are looking to empower creative students to uncover the creative potential of China. You are welcome to make the automotive of the future more exciting, personal and sociable than ever before with your killer app idea! During Boot Camp we will teach you how to make this real. We make sure you meet the best teachers and mentors from the industry.

In Europe and the US, various Automotive Apps are on the market already, serving all kinds of consumer needs. In China, this market is just emerging.
We are calling on students from areas such as design, marketing and software engineering, to develop innovative, market-relevant and interesting App concepts. We are searching for cool App concepts which are meaningful and sustainable.

What kind of apps are we looking for?

We are looking for innovative App concepts that provide real value for the car user. We seek App concepts that have not been seen before or are being taken to a new level of development. We want new App concepts that enhance the user experience.

A winning concept should be overwhelming in function, use-ability, emotion and beauty. The App should be intuitive, understandable and user friendly. It is important that the main function of the App is easy to reach and controllable.

We are looking for automotive App concepts in the following three categories:

1.) The Smartphone App: This is a car-related app which purely runs on a Smartphone only. You can use these Apps whether you are inside or outside of the car.

2.) The Hybrid App: This is a car-related app which runs on a Smartphone, but can communicate with a car as well. You can use it inside or outside of the car. (for example: you listen to a music stream on your Smartphone on the way to the car, once you enter the car the music will run on the car sound system and you can control the app with the car multimedia interface.)

3.) The Onboard App: These kinds of Apps run only inside the car using the car multimedia interface. They cannot be used outside of the car. Apps of this category need to fulfill extremely high safety standards. Therefore, implementation, lead time and testing need far more time than a pure or hybrid Smartphone app.

Contestants are free to suggest extraordinary Onboard Apps. But we are looking for more input in categories 1 and 2.

In terms of function, we are looking for Apps in the following areas, but the list should not limit creativity.

A. Information Apps – provide car data, service oriented function, execution functions, personal log book etc.
Service oriented functions enable Location Based Services that locate the car, provide local information, directions etc. Execution functions remotely control the car for services such as heating, door locks etc.  Car data provide the costumer with information about the car service and usage such as fuel and oil gage, tire pressure etc.

B. Lifestyle Apps provide the customer with information and connections to services that enhance ease of function in areas such as: sports and re-creation, health and wellness, fashion and style, hobbies, social networking, travel, shopping, pets, magazines, personal finance, household management etc.

C. Entertainment Apps provide video on demand (VOD), films, drama, TV series, culture, documentaries, music and music videos, animations and user-created content, audio books, e-learning etc.

What do we do in the Boot Camp

You will work in groups out of five students with the majors Marketing, Design and Software Engineering. The best experts in town will support and teach each group, how to create incredible ideas and solutions to invent the best automotive App for China.

We use the five steps of the new design thinking method, which has been developed by the Stanford d.school to understand the needs and behavior of a car user, define the problem you are going to solve, create new incredible App ideas, build quick prototypes and test them to get feedback and improve your solution in a very limited time.

The top 5 students of the Boot Camp will be selected to move on to the next level and join the App Jam competition where the winning team of the Boot Camp and the three winning teams of the App Jam have the opportunity to get 25,000 RMB in cash to further develop their prototype into a presentable App within 3 weeks (20% of the prize money will be paid upfront, the rest being paid on the final delivery on July 5, 2013). There is also the potential of being paid with extra licensing fee for the final product.

How do you join the Boot Camp
We are looking for both IDEAS and TALENTS. You can apply with an IDEA or explain your skills and expertise and why you have the best TALENT for this Boot Camp to support other’s ideas.

Your idea can be presented in any design or choice of format. You can submit your idea/talent in the form of presentations, text documents, images or video files. We suggest a video not longer than 60 seconds.

Your application should answer the following questions and be sent to:

SHAppJam@gmail.com

Ideas

• Who is the target group for your automotive App?
• What need does your automotive App fulfill (e.g. information, lifestyle, entertainment)?
• How does your automotive App work (function description/user scenario)?
• What hardware is necessary to use your automotive App (screen, camera, smart-phone, tablet etc.)?

Talent

• We are looking for skills in design, marketing and software engineering.
• Why do you want to participate in Boot Camp?
• What is your area of expertise and your major?
• What is your specific talent that you will bring to the Boot Camp?

The deadline of submission is 11:59 p.m. Beijing time, May 19th, 2013

Time of Boot Camp：9am — 7：30pm，25 — 26th May，2013

Venue：Aalto-Tongji Design Factory，100 Zhangwu Road, Yangpu, Shanghai

Who are we?

Tongji University School of Software Engineering’s Apple Club and Android Club

Apple Club of Tongji School of Software Engineering was founded 2006 and has a long record of of succesfully developing award winning Apps and launch them in Apple’s App Store. Android Club was founded later and is supported by Google.

Tongji University School of Automotive Studies’ Automotive Marketing and Management Institute

The institute is unique for China, and collaborates with most famous car brands and organisations in projects regarding customer insight, market requirements and the further development of China’s auto market.

Tongji School of Design

The school, historically evolved from the most famous Architecture School of whole China. It has vast experience on all fields of product design, service design and interaction design and collaborates with all kinds of famous brands and organisations.

Ask Lab

Ask Lab is founded by Xindanwei cofounder Liu Yan. Ask Lab presents a new framework to innovate and create. Through designing, organizing and delivering exciting co-creation programs and contests, we build access between the movers and shakers of China’s creative, technology and social innovation scene, and the grand challenges faced by companies, NGO’s and our society

With the Boot Camp project, Tongji School of Software Engineering’s Apple Club and Android Club, School of Automotive Studies, School of Design and Ask Lab are looking to empower creative students to uncover the creative potential of China. You are welcome to make the automotive of the future more exciting, personal and sociable than ever before with your killer app idea! During Boot Camp we will teach you how to make this real. We make sure you meet the best teachers and mentors from the industry.

In Europe and the US, various Automotive Apps are on the market already, serving all kinds of consumer needs. In China, this market is just emerging.
We are calling on students from areas such as design, marketing and software engineering, to develop innovative, market-relevant and interesting App concepts. We are searching for cool App concepts which are meaningful and sustainable.

What kind of apps are we looking for?

We are looking for innovative App concepts that provide real value for the car user. We seek App concepts that have not been seen before or are being taken to a new level of development. We want new App concepts that enhance the user experience.

A winning concept should be overwhelming in function, use-ability, emotion and beauty. The App should be intuitive, understandable and user friendly. It is important that the main function of the App is easy to reach and controllable.

We are looking for automotive App concepts in the following three categories:

1.) The Smartphone App: This is a car-related app which purely runs on a Smartphone only. You can use these Apps whether you are inside or outside of the car.

2.) The Hybrid App: This is a car-related app which runs on a Smartphone, but can communicate with a car as well. You can use it inside or outside of the car. (for example: you listen to a music stream on your Smartphone on the way to the car, once you enter the car the music will run on the car sound system and you can control the app with the car multimedia interface.)

3.) The Onboard App: These kinds of Apps run only inside the car using the car multimedia interface. They cannot be used outside of the car. Apps of this category need to fulfill extremely high safety standards. Therefore, implementation, lead time and testing need far more time than a pure or hybrid Smartphone app.

Contestants are free to suggest extraordinary Onboard Apps. But we are looking for more input in categories 1 and 2.

In terms of function, we are looking for Apps in the following areas, but the list should not limit creativity.

A. Information Apps – provide car data, service oriented function, execution functions, personal log book etc.
Service oriented functions enable Location Based Services that locate the car, provide local information, directions etc. Execution functions remotely control the car for services such as heating, door locks etc.  Car data provide the costumer with information about the car service and usage such as fuel and oil gage, tire pressure etc.

B. Lifestyle Apps provide the customer with information and connections to services that enhance ease of function in areas such as: sports and re-creation, health and wellness, fashion and style, hobbies, social networking, travel, shopping, pets, magazines, personal finance, household management etc.

C. Entertainment Apps provide video on demand (VOD), films, drama, TV series, culture, documentaries, music and music videos, animations and user-created content, audio books, e-learning etc.

What do we do in the Boot Camp

You will work in groups out of five students with the majors Marketing, Design and Software Engineering. The best experts in town will support and teach each group, how to create incredible ideas and solutions to invent the best automotive App for China.

We use the five steps of the new design thinking method, which has been developed by the Stanford d.school to understand the needs and behavior of a car user, define the problem you are going to solve, create new incredible App ideas, build quick prototypes and test them to get feedback and improve your solution in a very limited time.

The top 5 students of the Boot Camp will be selected to move on to the next level and join the App Jam competition where the winning team of the Boot Camp and the three winning teams of the App Jam have the opportunity to get 25,000 RMB in cash to further develop their prototype into a presentable App within 3 weeks (20% of the prize money will be paid upfront, the rest being paid on the final delivery on July 5, 2013). There is also the potential of being paid with extra licensing fee for the final product.

How do you join the Boot Camp
We are looking for both IDEAS and TALENTS. You can apply with an IDEA or explain your skills and expertise and why you have the best TALENT for this Boot Camp to support other’s ideas.

Your idea can be presented in any design or choice of format. You can submit your idea/talent in the form of presentations, text documents, images or video files. We suggest a video not longer than 60 seconds.

Your application should answer the following questions and be sent to:

SHAppJam@gmail.com

Ideas

• Who is the target group for your automotive App?
• What need does your automotive App fulfill (e.g. information, lifestyle, entertainment)?
• How does your automotive App work (function description/user scenario)?
• What hardware is necessary to use your automotive App (screen, camera, smart-phone, tablet etc.)?

Talent

• We are looking for skills in design, marketing and software engineering.
• Why do you want to participate in Boot Camp?
• What is your area of expertise and your major?
• What is your specific talent that you will bring to the Boot Camp?

The deadline of submission is 11:59 p.m. Beijing time, May 19th, 2013

Time of Boot Camp：9am — 7：30pm，25 — 26th May，2013

Venue：Aalto-Tongji Design Factory，100 Zhangwu Road, Yangpu, Shanghai

Who are we?

Tongji University School of Software Engineering’s Apple Club and Android Club

Apple Club of Tongji School of Software Engineering was founded 2006 and has a long record of of succesfully developing award winning Apps and launch them in Apple’s App Store. Android Club was founded later and is supported by Google.

Tongji University School of Automotive Studies’ Automotive Marketing and Management Institute

The institute is unique for China, and collaborates with most famous car brands and organisations in projects regarding customer insight, market requirements and the further development of China’s auto market.

Tongji School of Design

The school, historically evolved from the most famous Architecture School of whole China. It has vast experience on all fields of product design, service design and interaction design and collaborates with all kinds of famous brands and organisations.

Ask Lab

Ask Lab is founded by Xindanwei cofounder Liu Yan. Ask Lab presents a new framework to innovate and create. Through designing, organizing and delivering exciting co-creation programs and contests, we build access between the movers and shakers of China’s creative, technology and social innovation scene, and the grand challenges faced by companies, NGO’s and our society

With Audi App Jam project, Audi Tongji Joint Lab and Ask Lab is looking to empower creative professionals and startups to uncover the creative potential of China. You and your team are welcome to make the automotive of the future more exciting, personal and sociable than ever before with your killer app idea!

In Europe and the US, various Automotive Apps are on the market already, serving all kinds of consumer needs. In China, this market is just emerging.

We are calling on people from areas such as design, information technology, digital media and marketing, to develop innovative, market-relevant and interesting App concepts for Audi in China. We are searching for cool App concepts which are meaningful and sustainable.

Disclaimer can be found in the Chinese text.

Exhibition of emotionandnature – paint and open your mind

Opening party: 4:30pm, 19 May, 2013 – with DJ Pogo
Time: 19 May, 2013 – 16 June, 2013
Venue: Xindanwei，50 Yongjia Road
Cost: Free

Please complete the reservation form on this page before you come.

“emotionandnature” is painting with natural materials, sometimes even without a brush, and using unique objects with a meaning. These is real volcano lava in a fire-themed picture, real desert sand in an aborigines-inspired painting, or real cotton flowers in a fabric collage.
But the idea of “emotion and nature” goes deeper. It is about our nature as humans. From the first days of our lives, we are all lead by feelings and intuition. Conscious reasoning comes in later on out development. To be happy, open and successful, we need all of this combined. In the workshops offered by emotionandnature this can be seen and experienced by one self. Even if people have never painted never before – they will just do it, and be surprised by the result!

About Julie Bauer
Julie painted and made sculptures since she was a child. Being raised in Munich, Germany in an art and antiques collecting family, she was surrounded by cultural objects for her whole life. During a long career as an educator, she developed her own program of experience based learning and art based learning. Now she works as an artist by herself, and she gives courses for children and adults in Shanghai. The results amazed many, even professional artists who are taking courses to get inspiration.

Interview &Translation / Alice Dong

1. Welcome to Xindanwei.com, you are the first choreographer featured in Xindanwei People! Would you mind to introduce yourself a bit?

Sure. I am a choreographer, originally from Australia but I am based in Edinburgh, Scotland. I have been working in contemporary dance internationally for 30 years in areas spanning professional, educational and community dance. I have lived and worked in several countries and over the past 4 years I have worked on several projects involving dancers from Scotland and China.

2. Can you tell us about Janis Claxton Dance the award winning contemporary dance company you are the artistic director for and what you do for it?

Janis Claxton Dance is a contemporary dance company supported on a project to project basis by various stakeholders in Scotland including Scottish Government, Creative Scotland, British Council and Confucius Institute for Scotland.
We make work for touring in small and mid scale venues and specialise in work created for unique public spaces such as zoos, museums and galleries. All of our work is research based. This involves various levels including movement, space, concept and science based research. Some of our most recent projects have been based on human/animal and mathematics/dance connections.
The company has a core team of 4 dancers including myself and we work with different artists for various projects including musicians, actors, costume, set, lighting and sound designers as well as dancers from China. We also consult with people such as zoo keepers and mathematicians as part of our research.
For the company I am the Artistic Director which involves wearing many hats and delivering at all levels of the process. On an artistic level I am involved in training (and inspiring) the dancers, igniting concepts, initiating and carry out research, directing rehearsals, choreographing the work, gathering and coordinating collaborators etc. I also am very involved with the management, publicity and production areas and work with my team to book tours, fundraise, write grants, produce publicity materials, manage budgets and deliver project reports. It is a large job remit and even though I am at the helm of it, it really involves a lot of collaboration and team work. Since being at Xindanwei I recognise a lot of parallels with the concepts of coworking, cocreation and Design Thinking. For example even though I initiate the concepts and research area, it is together with the dancers that we develop the movement material.

3. You have had an on-going relationship with Chinese dance artists and organizations and could you tell us about the experiences you had in collaborating with Chinese dancers for the Shanghai Expo, and with BeijingDance/LDTX ？

Over the past 4 years have worked with Chinese dancers on numerous occasions for projects in China and the UK. All of the experiences have been rewarding and exciting but my favorites have been when I bring dancers from the UK and China together for extended periods to cocreate together. The culture clashes and convergences inform the entire creative process and contribute to the work we make and over time we have developed layers of understandings, interpretations, misunderstandings that have been poetic, sublime, amusing, confusing and we have even developed our own Chinese/English dancers sign language!

4. As a contemporary dance practitioner what were the circumstances that lead you to coming to Xindanwei? What are your future steps?

I came to Xindanwei because I was a very lucky recipient of a fantastic fellowship called ICE (http://www.internationalcreativeentrepreneurs.com/ )This is a fellowship that identifies 5 leaders in the arts and offers us the opportunity to be placed in an organization outside of the UK for a 3 month period to work with inspiring leaders and entrepreneurs out-with of our usual filed of work and leadership. It is a fantastic to learn outside of my own field which I have been immersed in for 45 years! The fellowship offers opportunities to learn about leadership and entrepreneurship from a totally different perspective.

5. Thanks again for providing Xindanwei.com this opportunity to interview you. Any final thoughts for our readers?

I feel very privileged to be working with Liu Yan who is such an inspiring leader, initiator and creator. Xindanwei is a great space to work in and through Liu Yan’s latest project Ask Lab, I am learning a lot. It’s very interesting how a choreographer can fit into Xindanwei and Ask Lab! I am excited about transferring skills back into my own creative process and hopefully creating new ideas and projects from this experience.

HAPPY：Give me 5 Project Initiation
Time: 5 May 2013, 3:30 PM
Venue: Xindanwei, 50 Yongjia Rd. Shanghai
Organizer: Xindanwei，C14gallery

Notice: This event is by reservation ONLY. Please complete the reservation form on this page before you come.

On 5th May, C14gallery will officially start “GIVE ME 5” as a project to promot young photographic talents. As a joint project between C14gallery and Edition Photo in Paris (21, rue Notre Dame de Nazareth, 75003 Paris), GIVE ME 5 aims to help promising photographic artists in China and France through local shows in two galleries in May and exchanging shows later in October.

In “GIVE ME 5” project, 5 is the principal. We will have 5 artists creating 5 new pieces as a series under one theme within a period of 5 weeks. All the works of Shanghai team will start to be shown on the opening day of June 15th for 55 days. (The opening of Paris exhibition is on May 15th.)

The theme, this year, of GIVE ME 5 is HAPPY (or Why Not). Why we choose to talk about happy? But, why not doing so?
For HAPPY is an absolutely objective experience, which artistic creation cannot live without. What we could not deny is that we are not living happily today. So these days, what does HAPPY means? Moreover, in the age of postmodernism, art has been faced with various crisis. Manipulated to be the slave of political propaganda, the musk of mass capital and the supplier of market, art, thus, has seldom been free. But this time, the theme of HAPPY may provide a free space for more individual and independent creation.

Our five local artists represented by C14gallery will have various reactions or interpretations of the theme HAPPY through their different visual styles. It can be simple and refreshing, or dim and cold, or obscure and sentimental, or straight forward even a bit rude.

Meanwhile, GIVE ME 5 project is not only a journey of self reflection through HAPPY for the artists, but an interaction with “audience” as well. We would like to have medias’ attention over the whole project. At the same time, C14gallery will keep posting the working process of our artists through Sina Weibo and Douban. Let’s witness and participate in the shaping of their creation. Let’s look forward to the staging of neo Chinese photography.

Project Duration: 2013.5.5 – 2013.6.9
Opening: 2013.6.15
Artists: Yang Jingyi, Jia Rui, Tang Yinting,Yuan Xiaopeng, Zhou Peng

Mini Green Challenge 4#: Emotion and Nature
Time: Apr 21, 2013 14:00 – 16:00
Venue:chi K11 art space (Shanghai K11 Art Mall, B3, 300 Huaihai Zhong Lu）
Age: 3 years +
Language: English/Chinese
Contact Person: Julie Bauer (emotionandnature@gmail.com)
Organizers: Xindanwei, Greennovate
Admission: 150 RMB per painting including material costs, RSVP require

From the first days of our lives, we are all lead by feelings and intuition. Conscious reasoning comes in later. To be happy, open and successful, we need all of this combined. In this workshop we are going to paint without brushes, but with natural materials together. You will see and feel this by yourself, “emotion and nature” goes deeper. Even if you have painted never before – you will just do it, and be surprised by the result! Ultimately, our nature are humans too.

Mini Green Challenge
- rapid prototyping workshops for a greener me

Cities need a healthy regenerative supply of resources and goods that ensures food, water and energy security. Mini Green Challenge is a call to action for everyone living in the city to raise awareness about conscious living, informed consumption, and the collective impact of individual actions. Our goal is to inspire urban youth and familes to transition from conventional to conscious living, take action, and sustain a healthy, just planet.

Mini Green Challenge designs creative participatory learning environments for game-changing conversations. This project will demonstrate an innovative, community-focused actions toward a sustainable way of living. 5 Mini Challenges will be brought to the public by: Artists, Educators and Green Movement Advocates.

Mini Green Challenge is brought to you by Xindanwei.
Meet Xindanwei, a Shanghai based international open innovation program in experiential and radical learning for organization, startup and strategy development. We design and deliver creative participatory learning environments and experiences for game-changing conversations and disruptive solutions, and connect the participants with the movers and shakers of China’s creative, technology and social innovation scene. We challenge participants to leave their comfort zones, harness individual and collective creativity to evolve and innovate. The outcome is inspiration, transformation, confidence, ownership and next individual and organizational endeavor. This isn’t just about generating ideas. It’s also about making the ideas happen.

The co-working community we serve and work with is a self-nourishing network embedded in China’s creative, tech and social sectors which provides community members with the opportunity to seek out resonated spirits and share in rich discussions about creativity, entrepreneurship, innovation and impact to the society.

Julie Bauer
After a long time in education and managing a kindergarden in Germany, I saw established education methods being too narrow to unleash the full potential in pre-school and early school children. Therefore, I developed an experience based learning program for pre-school children years ago.
After having moved to Shanghai, we added arts to the program, for which we started “emotionandnature”.

Mini Green Challenge 3#: Rapid Prototyping to Save The Planet
Time: Apr 20, 2013 16:30 – 18:00
Venue:chi K11 art space (Shanghai K11 Art Mall, B3, 300 Huaihai Zhong Lu）
Age: 10 years +
Language: Chinese
Contact Person: Flora Lan (feifeilan@hotmail.com)
Organizers: Xindanwei，Greennovate
Cost: Free of charge, RSVP required

14million hectare of forest, which is roughly the entire national territory area of Napel, is disappearing annually. Also, 1/5 of the world’s coral reef, 1/3 of the world’s mangrove forest and 1/2 of the world’s wetland have already disappeared. To make it worse, the thickness of the ice cover on the North/South Pole has decreased for 40%, and the record of peak temperature has been refreshing for years.

Now the population on earth has reached 7billion, and is expected to break 9billion in 2050. So please imagine what a tough environmental disaster our Mother Erath is suffering from! Fortunately, things can be better ever if we just move a small step forward. Since the Earth Day is coming, why not having a close view of environment protection and trying to find out the greener alternatives for our daily life via a knowledge contest on this topic? Just paint your idea out, and we may record a video to make widely spread.

Mini Green Challenge
- rapid prototyping workshops for a greener me

Cities need a healthy regenerative supply of resources and goods that ensures food, water and energy security. Mini Green Challenge is a call to action for everyone living in the city to raise awareness about conscious living, informed consumption, and the collective impact of individual actions. Our goal is to inspire urban youth and familes to transition from conventional to conscious living, take action, and sustain a healthy, just planet.

Mini Green Challenge designs creative participatory learning environments for game-changing conversations. This project will demonstrate an innovative, community-focused actions toward a sustainable way of living.5 Mini Challenges will be brought to the public by: Artists, Educators and Green Movement Advocates.

Mini Green Challenge is brought to you by Xindanwei.Meet Xindanwei, a Shanghai based international open innovation program in experiential and radical learning for organization, startup and strategy development. We design and deliver creative participatory learning environments and experiences for game-changing conversations and disruptive solutions, and connect the participants with the movers and shakers of China’s creative, technology and social innovation scene. We challenge participants to leave their comfort zones, harness individual and collective creativity to evolve and innovate. The outcome is inspiration, transformation, confidence, ownership and next individual and organizational endeavor. This isn’t just about generating ideas. It’s also about making the ideas happen.

The co-working community we serve and work with is a self-nourishing network embedded in China’s creative, tech and social sectors which provides community members with the opportunity to seek out resonated spirits and share in rich discussions about creativity, entrepreneurship, innovation and impact to the society.

Time: 18 April 2013, 6:30 PM
Venue: Haworth Organic Workspace ,17F, Eco City, 1788 West Nanjing Road
Organizer: Xindanwei
Language：English

Notice: THIS EVENT IS BY INVITATION ONLY, and we are expecting no more than 30 audiences. If you want to be invited please send us an email with your name, occupation and bio to xindanwei@gmail.com 

Technology is enabling small and large organisations to work in a very different way, for large organisations the imperative has moved beyond simply retaining and connecting the talent within their organisation and it’s future financial success is more and more dependant on it’s potential to leverage and mobilise the talent outside of the organisation. For freelancers and small companies the ability to connect the dots and mobilise a global small business has never been more possible or more important.

Come to join the dialogue with two coworking movement pioneers in Australia and China to build new insights and understanding how the future of work would entail for all of us.

Brad Krauskopf

Brad Krauskopf is an entrepreneur, innovator and speaker that is passionate about connecting the dots to create new business models and ways of working. As CEO of Hub Australia, Australia’s largest coworking community, which he founded in 2011, Brad works with small and large organisations across Australia to drive innovation through collaboration across sectors, disciplines and generations. His most recent venture is Third Spaces, which works with business, government and the community with an aim to enable a national network of shared workspaces in Australia. He is an ambassador for the Connected Village and part of the Leadership Group of the Shared Value Project.

With the freelancing economy growing at a game-changing rate, specialisation and niches giving way to hyper-specialisation and micro-niches, organisations, whether big or small, are collaborating in order to deliver even the most basic services. There is always more talent outside your org than in it – an organisations future success will be largely determined not just by its ability to connect the people and knowledge within its organisation but its ability to leverage the talent outside of your organisation.

He believes strongly that Australia’s future lies in fostering a ‘collaboration boom’. On a global level, Australia is a small business, to ensure our economic prosperity beyond the mining boom we will need to become absolute ninjas in collaboration. There is awesome potential in combining our diverse knowledge capital, tourism/ agricultural/ resource assets and our proximity to Asia.

Brad is a dynamic and engaging professional speaker. He has spoken on a diverse range of subjects including the coworking movement, new ideas on shaping the future of work, and creating social capital and knowledge through collaboration. These topics appeal to a broad spectrum of the public, from corporate executives to freelancers and government to education.

Liu Yan

Liu Yan is a learning community builder, a social entrepreneur, a learner and a mother. She established Xindanwei in 2009, the first and by far the largest coworking center in China, an international innovation hub and one of the “World Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in China” listed by FastCompany. She is the author of “Coworking Manual”– a book published at App Store under Creative Commons to help entrepreneurs to set up coworking community worldwide. She is the founder of Ask Lab, an open innovation platform and consultancy to connect startup/creative community with the large business/societal challenges.

Liu Yan’s educational background is predominantly in Arts Management and Marketing with a breadth in cultural and creative entrepreneurial study and practices.She is the founding participant of THNK, the Amsterdam School of Creative Leadership. Liu Yan speaks regularly at international conferences on social innovation, leadership and social media. She served as the jury member of Prix Ars Electronica 2011-2012, one of the most premium international award for digital art and community project. And she is the mentor of ESCEL China, a fully-subsidized incubation program for entrepreneurs looking to build or expand a social business in greater China, and the lead organizer of Startup Weekend Shanghai.

As an independent consultant and lecturer in the Netherlands from 2003-2007 prior to her return to China, she served as advisory board member on cultural entrepreneurship for the city municipal of Utrecht, and worked as the advisor of the China program of Dutch Electronic Arts Festival(DEAF), an international and interdisciplinary biennial that focuses on art, technology and society, and has curated and organized the Creative Cross China & Europe conference for PICNIC, Amsterdam’s leading annual international event, highlighting creativity and innovation.