Day 5 in Shenzen and Hongkong

This morning we checked out in Beijing heading to the airport where we boarded our plane to Shenzhen. The trip was an excellent opportunity to discuss what we had learned the previous days and discuss Aocheng’s research. Upon arrival in Shenzhen with heavy rainfall we went straight towards the joint campus of Beijing, Harbing and Tschinghua university. A massive campus where we met Prof Hai, Founding Dean of PHBS, the Peking University HSBC Business School and the Vice Chairmain of Peking University Council. Following a long and very insightful meeting discussing the growing relations between Peking University and the UK I then had the chance to try my caligraphy skills with a bit of help by Prof Hai.

We then left towards our hotel, where we had 10 minutes to drop off our staff before heading towards the station for boarding a high speed train to Hongkong. In Hongkong we met Daniel and learnt that HK had just been hit by the first Taifun of the season. Unfortunately, after a superb „fast food“ meal on top of the city it was time to head back to Shenzhen. Now looking forward to a good night sleep and an exciting day 6 tomorrow.

Day 4 in Beijing

This has been a particular exciting day in Beijing and sadly our last one before we had to Shenzhen early tomorrow. Following my keynote talk on „Technology Foresight in the Age of AI“ and the best paper prize ceremony we headed towards Tschighua University. At the X-Labs we met with Prof Pearl, the current director, who gave us some excellent insights into the X-Labs with some very insightful details about how the importance of IP for X-Lab startups has been growing over the past years. A very exciting place with some fantastic companies that have grown out of it, with an extremely delicious coffee from „Yee Coffee“, one of the X-Labs spinouts.

Following that meeting with met with Prof Rong from Tsinghua’s School of Social Sciences and some of his colleagues, before we had to go to Kangxin Partner for a meeting. It was very interesting to hear how the company moves forward with own investments in new technologies for providing more advanced IP services. This meeting was then followed by a visit to Peking University, where we met Prof Justin Yigu Lin, former Chief Economist and Vice President of the Wold Bank. Having the chance to discuss with him the role of IP for different types of technologies in countries that have to catch up was extremely interesting. Also, I have to say that the campus is very impressive and beautiful. The day then came to a nearly close with a fantastic dinner with Prof Yuan Zhou („Joseph“) and his team from Tsinghua’s School of Public Policy and Mangement at the 1911 restaurant, where we had some interesting deserts including white rabbits and yellow pigs. Then it was finally time to head home and pay tribute to Aocheng, who had turned 25 today with a very special cake from Blackswan bakery. What a day!

Day 3 in Beijing

Today was the first day of the 10th China Forum of Future-oriented Technology Analysis. A conference with some very interesting presentations, some of them in Chinese thought (which actually had really interesting titles). Following a visit to Beijing Institute of Technolgy with a very warm welcome by the dean and very delicious Chinese dinner with the invited international guests we explored a bit the Chinese night.

After we found a large German toy shop (Schwarz, with a most impressive collection of German SIKU play cars) in the middle of what is probably amongst Chinese most expensive malls we found a very nice hidden cocktail bar. You enter the room that looks like a book store, then having to find the hidden door that then slides away so one can enter the real bar. Fantastic! So were the drinks! We then ended up walking quite a bit towards the hotel. The air was nicely cool after it had rained. We had lots of good discussions and also discovered a fully automated public library vending machine. Eventually however, we gave up. Beijing is just soooo big! Such an excellent day and evening.