9:30 - Keynote Session - Expand Your Senses with Drones
Angela Schoellig (University of Toronto), Paul Shuo (SDK R&D, DJI), May Lee (ShanghaiTech University)
More than the latest trend, drones are showing their skills in helping human beings expand their reach and efficiency in times of catastrophe as much as in daily life. What future are we expecting with the help of autonomous flying robots?
In this opening session of Lift China, Angela Schoellig, who has been developing both flying and terrestrial autonomous robots in Switzerland, Canada, Germany and the USA, along with Paul Shuo, who has been working on the onboard SDK system allowing developers to create their own applications with DJI drones, will give us their takes on the evolution of drones in China but also internationally. They will explore both the technological and practical aspects of the subject, using examples from their personal work and from the world's best manufacturers and researchers. To close this session, May Lee, who has successfully started six companies before dedicating her work to helping others innovate, will open up the drone discussion to R&D in the field of innovation in China, both in what has been accomplished already and in the challenges that we are facing now.
This session will be held in English, with simultaneous translation in Chinese.
11:15 - Morning Breakouts
Masterclass: Social Design for Urban Change
Bo Gao (Tongji University), Miaosen Gong (Jiangnan University), Jun Zhang (Hunan University)
The topics revolving around “Urban Change”, broadly discussed recently, are both global and local challenges encountered in various transcultural areas around the world, China being no exception either. Fast urbanization brings many challenges to everyday life in Chinese cities, such as in the sectors of public transportation, environmental pollution, and population pressure. Therefore, there is a need for work in the design of urban social spaces, to improve the quality of city life and provide social care as well as a friendly living environment.
This masterclass focuses on public service design for mobility in an urban context, a bike-sharing system in China, and the Social-tech System of Mobility, presented by speakers from Tongji University, Hunan University and Jiangnan University. They all belong to DESIS-CHINA, a network composed of worldwide top design schools, institutions, companies and non-profit organizations sharing a common orientation and sense of mission in the promotion of design for social innovation and sustainability.
This session will be held in English, with simultaneous translation in Chinese.
Target audience: anyone with an interest in design-based solutions to social problems, urban communities, the sharing economy. No specific skill required.
Masterclass: Biomimicry – The Next Generation of Sustainability
According to the long-standing EPI 2015 by Yale, Switzerland is the planet’s most environmentally-friendly country. However, since the late 1960s, Switzerland remains at an average 5.0gha eco-footprint while it possesses a biocapacity of only 1.2gha. Also, the average Swiss citizen’s lifestyle requires 2.4 planets. China is obviously performing worse (EPI 2014 rank: 118), with masses of people who all strive for an increasingly resource-intensive lifestyle.
Humanity has been tackling sustainability since the 1970s. Is this all that we have achieved? Can we do better to secure human survival on this planet?
This masterclass will introduce a next-generation approach to sustainability. Biomimicry emulates natures’ strategies to create more sustainable human artifacts, processes and systems. Biomimicry started in 1997 and is continuously spreading. Many professionals, industries and academics are discovering, applying and getting inspired by it. Besides a powerful introduction into Biomimicry, attendees will actively discover natural strategies that may solve current human sustainability issues.
This session will be held in English. However, the speaker speaks intermediate Chinese and will be happy to interact.
Target audience: anyone with an interest in true sustainability, meaningful human innovation, positive impact to the planet and human survival on Earth. No specific skill required.
Workshop: Urban Explorative Visualization using Game Engine
With the vast array of visualization tools available, how do we choose one that is effective for our purpose? What options of visualization do we have, given the data that we have, anyway? How do we design visualization interaction that could result in better decision-making in urban planning?
The speaker will present a study case of visualization of wind flow around a building using a game engine, from its visual construction to interaction phase. Participants will be given the chance to explore the tool during the workshop and design their own explorative visualization concept given a scenario in urban environment.
This session will be held in English. However, a volunteer will be present to translate questions and assist during group work.
Target audience: anyone with an interest in visualization, interaction design. No specific skill is required to attend this workshop.
Workshop: Makers Challenge Ideation
For 10 years, the Lift team has been developing, testing and refining various conference and workshop formats, in order to provide you with the best experience possible and to generate new ideas, new connections and to foster the thirst for innovation in our participants.
In 2016, we will introduce a brand new format, between a tech hackathon and a role-playing game, using elements of strategy and team-play to spice up the experience for both the participants and the observers.
During Lift China, we would like to invite YOU to get involved in the design of this Makers Challenge. The initial ideas developed during the workshop will then be built upon during our activities at the Maker Faire Shenzhen and Lift India in October, involving the Asian community at large in the creative process.
This workshop will be held in English, though a volunteer will be present to translate questions and assist during group work.
Target audience: anyone with an interest in ideation processes, Lift events, hackathons, strategy role-playing games and makers-oriented formats. No specific skill is required to attend this workshop.
14:00 - Early Afternoon Breakouts
Talks + panel discussion: Beyond Data Canvas: how open data and hardware change the way citizens get engaged
Earlier this year, the Data Canvas: Sense Your City project deployed open sensors across 7 cities in three continents to provide the public with real-time environmental data feed. Many developers, artists, and makers joined the competition to make innovative visualizations helping everyone make sense of our environment.
Built upon the success of Data Canvas, this session will explore how open data and open hardware ultimately transform the way we make sense of and contribute to our city. How does openness empower citizens in such bottom-up innovations?
The three distinguished panelists will explore this question in the specific context of environmental issues. They will share their stories and insights from the perspective of civic hacking, NGO and government. The session will be closed by an interactive discussion during which you are encouraged to ask questions and exchange on your ideas with the panelists.
An introduction on Data Canvas: Sense Your City will be given at the beginning of the session, followed by the exploration of one of the winning projects with its designer: Sonic Particles 2.0.
The introduction and artist project presentation will be given in English. The following talks and panel will be held in Chinese. It is advised to understand spoken Chinese to fully benefit from this session.
Target audience: anyone with an interest in open-data, open-hardware, civic hacking, urban environments, citizen sensing. No specific skill is required to attend this workshop but a visit to the Data Canvas exhibition held in the exhibition space is advised to better understand the project.
Workshop: Gamestorming and Rapid Prototyping Challenge
Leigh-Anne Russell (Nestworks), Part 1. Note: this workshop will last until 17:30
It’s easy to say to yourself, “I’m just not a creative person.” But the fact is that successful creative people use simple strategies and practices to get where they want to go, and they are easy to learn and fun to do.
For anyone who wants to use design to solve problems, create a better future, and change the world, being able to rapidly prototype, test and refine your ideas is an essential part of the process.
During this workshop you will:
- Train your brain to think more freely and unleash your creativity
- Learn the essence of human-centered design, putting the people you serve at the centre to come up with new answers to difficult problems
- Apply Gamestorming techniques to generate and develop better ideas
- Improve collaboration and communication with visual-thinking techniques
- Learn how to take your ideas off the paper to build a tangible prototype
This session will be held in English. However, the speaker is fluent in Chinese and a volunteer will be present to translate questions and assist during group work.
Target audience: anyone with an interest in human-centered design, creative ideation tools, rapid-prototyping and visual-thinking techniques. No specific skill is required to attend this workshop.
Note: this workshop will last until 17:30. Participants are requested to remain until the end.
16:00 - Late Afternoon Breakouts
Entrepreneurs & Pitching Session
Pascal Marmier (swissnex China), Olivier Glauser (Shankai Sports) and various entrepreneurs
This session will start with an introduction speech exploring the state of Venture Capital, Innovation and Entrepreneurship in China. With 2.4x more early-stage investment in Asia-Pacific startups than in foreign ones in 2011, the Chinese ecosystem has benefited from a serious boost. What is left today of this situation and how has competition impacted the drive of Chinese people to start a company?
A second part will allow the audience to discover innovative local and international startups in a fast-paced pitching format. Want to find a new idea to invest in? Come and see our selection. The session will end with a panel discussion between the speakers and selected entrepreneurs from the pitch presentations.
This session will be held in English, with simultaneous translation in Chinese.
Target audience: anyone with an interest in venture capital, entrepreneurship and early-stage investment. No specific skill is required to attend this workshop.
Masterclass: Rediscovery of Ancient Chinese Art through Digital Technologies
Fei Jun (Interactive Beijing)
What if younger generations could access traditional Chinese culture through the comfort of their smartphone? Is it possible to access art from miles away through technology? The speaker will take us on a journey through the project of connecting people and art that he and his team have undertook. A Q/A session with the audience will follow the talk.
This session will be held in English, though questions in Chinese are more than welcome.
Target audience: anyone with an interest in the use of technology in art, interactive design, cross-generational apps and Chinese culture. No specific skill is required to attend this workshop.
Workshop: An Adventure in Data Visualization between Time and Art
Data visualization refers to the visual representation of abstract information that exploits our visual perception abilities in order to amplify our cognition. Thanks to computational design approaches and techniques, the creation of data visualization projects can driven by the data itself that work as raw matter for generating unpredictable visual representations.
The workshop aims to introduce Lift China participants to an adventure in the domain of data visualization based on the use of computational technologies and art and design approaches. After the presentation of the methodology and the development tools used during one-day workshop carried out at Tongji Unviersity, participants will explore the topic of how to program generative visualisations by accessing and manipulating the environmental data provided by the Data Canvas platform.
This session will be held in English, though a volunteer will be present to translate questions and assist during group work.
Target audience: anyone with an interest in data visualization, interactive design, open-data, open-design, creative coding. No specific skill is required to attend this workshop but bringing a laptop is recommended.
Workshop: Gamestorming and Rapid Prototyping Challenge
Leigh-Anne Russell (Nestworks), Part 2. Note: participants are kindly requested to attend both parts
See description here.
