swissnex China 2018 Year-End Events & Insights

by Quentin Gigon, Junior Project Manager - Innovation and Entrepreneurship

While the year is coming to the end, the technology community in Shanghai is still going strong, and as such swissnex China had the pleasure of being invited to a few conferences and events about various tech related topics. Read more below.

Plug and Play China 2018 Winter Summit

Based in Silicon Valley, Plug and Play is one of the largest startup accelerators in the world. It has helped grow companies such as PayPal, Google, DropBox, SoundHound etc. In China, Plug and Play has invested in more than 200 startups and accelerated over 500 startups.

Fintech Selection Day

The Fintech Selection Day, which saw 20 Fintech startups pitching from fields such as big data analysis, flash payments, and meteorological risk analysis, as well as the inauguration of Plug and Play's new Blockchain Innovation Lab.

Supply Chain | Brand & Retail Focus Day

Brand & Retail / Supply Chain Tech Focus Day, with 12 startups pitching and demonstrating innovative new retail concepts on the one hand, as well as disruptive unmanned vehicle services on the other. Leon Zhao, one of the panelists at our Homes of Drones event a few weeks ago, was among those pitching with his startup Antwork.

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Fea Consulting / The Blockchainer

FEA-Consulting, a subsidiary company of The Blockchainer, has been holding in-depth and high-end summits in fintech, consumer finance, commercial banking, internet insurance, wealth management, AI, blockchain and digital assets areas for many years. It has so far served more than 5,000 outstanding global companies and 30,000 industry leaders.

Finners City 2018

The Finners City 2018 Digital Finance summit brought together international fintech associations, governments, old & new financial institutions, tech providers, as well as investors to discuss and explore the future of digital finance.

The Summit provided interesting insights into the future of fintech: indeed, there seemed to be a consensus among the fintech associations of Zhejiang, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong, that the next "battleground" of fintech will be in blockchain and data protection.

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Chain Plus

The Blockchainer's conference "Chain Plus +" focusing on the Iterative Development and Regulatory Trends in Blockchain. The event offered interesting insights, particularly in the applications of blockchain technology in various fields including crowdfunding and gaming. The crypto winter was a notably recurring theme in many presentations. Once again, there were some familiar faces at the conference, including Olga Feldmeier of Smart Valor, who will be a speaker at swissnex China’s Blockchain event in Zurich on December 11.

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Celebration of swissnex China’s 2018!

by Sacha Pantillon, Assistant Project Manager

On December 4, swissnex China celebrated the end of 2018. The party was held to thank all our partners and friends. It took place in our office in Shanghai and the guests arrived starting from 6pm.

Registration table.

Registration table.

First, we had a welcoming speech by Dr. Felix Moesner (Science Consul & CEO of swissnex China) during which he also presented the whole swissnex China team.

Welcome words by Dr. Felix Moesner and the swissnex China team.

Welcome words by Dr. Felix Moesner and the swissnex China team.

After that, Rahel Gruber (Operations Manager & Co-Deputy CEO of swissnex China) presented all the main events we organized or were part of in 2018, like the 10th anniversary of swissnex China, the Future of Money Series, CES Asia, the Swiss Innovation Week at the Embassy of Switzerland, the Venture Leaders China etc.

Speech by Rahel Gruber.

Speech by Rahel Gruber.

We also had a performance of Ban Lei (stage name ‘BANBANBANBAN’), a Chinese computer sound designer. Afterwards, all the guests enjoyed the buffet dinner with typical Swiss meals provided by Geneva Catering.

Performance by Ban Lei (stage name ‘BANBANBANBAN’).

Performance by Ban Lei (stage name ‘BANBANBANBAN’).

Finally, we randomly select winners for a lucky draw. The winners received two air quality measuring devices, kindly provided by IQ Air, two Caran d’Ache pens, two Victorinox kits, Geneva Catering vouchers and also several other, smaller prices.

Lucky draw tickets.

Lucky draw tickets.

The winners of the lucky draw.

The winners of the lucky draw.

A big thank you to everyone for this magnificent year and we hope that 2019 will be even more successful!

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Visit to Huawei R&D Center with the S&T Diplomatic Circle

swissnex China joined its peers from the S&T Diplomatic Circle on a memorable visit to the Huawei Technologies Shanghai R&D Center to gain in-depth insight into Huawei’s R&D strategy. Founded in 1987 with its headquarters in Shenzhen, Huawei Technology saw its rapid ascension into a leading Chinese multinational information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider in recent years. The company became the largest worldwide telecommunications equipment manufacturer in 2012, and takes a very proactive stance on innovation with its 14 research centers and 80,000 employees worldwide dedicated to R&D, with an annual US$13.8B invested in R&D which accounts for 10% of the company's revenues.

swissnex China joins its peers from the S&T Diplomatic Circle for a memorable tour of the Huawei R&D Center in Shanghai.

swissnex China joins its peers from the S&T Diplomatic Circle for a memorable tour of the Huawei R&D Center in Shanghai.

The Shanghai Center in particular has given birth to some of the most successful solutions in the history of Huawei, including distributed base stations, SingleRAN and the brand's flagship smartphone. The institute gathers high-profile experts of the highest calibre, and is one of the most sophisticated research labs in the world.

S&TDC Meeting with Jack Li, Vice President of the Research Center.

S&TDC Meeting with Jack Li, Vice President of the Research Center.

Huawei demoing enterprise drone technology operating on 5g network.

Huawei demoing enterprise drone technology operating on 5g network.

One of the fundamental cornerstones of Huawei's strategy revolves around the development of proliferation up of the 5G ecosystem. In this domain, we were presented with five interesting use cases: connected drones, connected vehicles, VR with cloud processing, connected healthcare and wireless robotics. The 5g network allows for low-latency massive connections, which in the case of the drones enables them to send high-definition, real-time data to the cloud.

Huawei also showcased its developments in rural network construction, presenting solutions such as RuralStar and TubeStar which target emerging markets to help reduce customers’ total cost of ownership (TCO) while increasing their return on investment.

Huawei's Smart Lamp Post solution plays an important part in the mass-deployment of IoT solutions.

Huawei's Smart Lamp Post solution plays an important part in the mass-deployment of IoT solutions.

With cloudified VR, logical computing and image rendering are processed via the cloud, improving user experience and reducing the cost of terminals.

With cloudified VR, logical computing and image rendering are processed via the cloud, improving user experience and reducing the cost of terminals.

On the consumer side, Huawei presented the newly-launched P20 Pro which features a three-lens camera optimized with AI. The phone is equipped with the world’s first smartphone SoC chipset Kirin 970 with dedicated Neural-network Processor Unit (NPU).

We were delighted to have participated in the visit with 20 peers from 15 countries, and would like to express our special thanks to Ms. Anna Romsicka (Consulate General of Poland) and Ms. Einat Lev (Consulate General of Israel) for their great work in coordinating this visit.

Visit to the Alibaba Headquarters

By Valentin Beuchat and Sébastien Quadri, Junior Project Leaders

On May 25, swissnex China joined SwissCham in visiting the headquarter of Alibaba in Hangzhou which gathers more than 16’000 employees!

It was a great opportunity to learn more about the most well-known Chinese success story, with deep insights and impressive figures.

 

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Data is the new natural resource

Just to name a few examples, Alibaba Cloud is the backbone of their operational activities with large amounts of data being received and processed through the numerous platforms (e.g. Toabao, Alipay, Yokou, etc.).

During the single-day shopping festival that occurs each year on 11.11, cloud records demonstrate highest peaks of 325,000 orders and 256,000 payment transactions in one second. In only 1 day, Alibaba sees more sales volume and revenue than the entire USA during the black Friday!

Originally founded in Hangzhou, Alibaba is also improving its hometown with its innovative program dubbed “Hangzhou City Brain”. With the extensive network of CCTVs in town, the Alibaba Cloud can monitor and analyze various traffic parameters (e.g. traffic jam, car’s speed, plate, etc.), predict the traffic and then optimize the traffic lights to smooth the traffic.

This ever-growing flow of data is used by Alibaba to build an entire ecosystem around its products. On a B2C level for instance, Alipay is not only a financial services provider, but also a social platform; a life- and city-services provider; a guide to restaurants, leisure activities, travel destinations, and shopping experiences, etc.

 

Alipay goes international

As more and more Chinese travel abroad, Alipay follows them during their entire journey by having its own booking agency, then by recommending shops and restaurants that accept Alipay at the destination, by offering some coupons and special offers, by making the VAT refund process smoother (everything is done in the Alipay app), and by updating consumer profile and further recommendations based on the data acquired.

In Switzerland for example, the holiday resort Davos now has many businesses (restaurants, hotels, shops) accepting Alipay for Chinese tourists (for more information, see https://technode.com/2018/01/29/davos-alipay/)

 

An “H&H” vision

An interesting culture of “Health and Happiness” can quickly be noticed on the campus. Jack Ma, perceived as a great leader, implemented various creative ways to enjoy the working time and to give a “family feeling” to the employees.

Thanks to Alibaba for the invitation, SwissCham for the organization, and Quintus Dienst for the great presentation!

A Monkey up in the Alps

To celebrate the upcoming Monkey Year and to thanks their partners and friends for their support during this year swissnex China had invited them to a Sino-swiss New Year celebration.

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