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Stone Shi (Judge)
Founder and CEO of Bon AppStone Shi is the Founder & CEO of Bon App, Asia’s first bilingual social dining community for discovering great restaurants and connecting like-minded people.
After being featured twice in the App Store, Bon App was selected to represent China in the highly selective accelerator program Google/Blackbox in Silicon Valley.
Stone brings 16 years of global product strategy and marketing experience from seven products in five industries, from a Silicon Valley startup to a multinational company CSR where he managed $400M consumer electronics products.
Kevin Yu (Judge)
Founder and CEO of SideChefBorn and raised in the Silicon Valley, Kevin is a serial tech entrepreneur who relentlessly builds experiences that empower modern day lifestyles and aspirations using technology. He is a vision-driven entrepreneur and three-time TEDx speaker who has cultivated more than eight years of experience at the world’s leading gaming companies, with his mainstay at Blizzard Entertainment.
Kevin is currently based between Shanghai and SF Bay Area, leading design, strategy, and international operations of the cooking app, SideChef, named one of the 36, 'Best Apps of 2017' by Google Play, 'favorite cooking app' by the New York Times, and ranked iTunes Stores’ Top 10 Food & Drinks apps in over 100 countries. SideChef features a mobile-first community platform, combining interactive step-by-step design and user-generated content to bring cooking into the smart kitchens of the 21st century. SideChef has partnered with over 300 groups including the Alice Waters's Edible Schoolyard, Michelin star chefs, and top food influencers.
Lawrence Wu (Judge)
Program Manager at Bits x BitesLawrence is Program Manager at Bits x Bites. He helps founding teams navigate thorny challenges as they build a business from zero to one, so that they can make the best of the 15-week program while having a bit of fun.
As an active angel investor with Angelvest Group and an occasional judge in startup events, Lawrence’s experience with seed-stage companies has given him first-hand insights into what it takes for entrepreneurs to succeed in China.
Lawrence was formerly a freelance designer, photographer, and producer. His portfolio includes videos co-created with Cannes Young Director Award winning directors duo Henry&Ssong as well various creative work for Hugo Boss, Bottega Veneta, and Nike, among others.
Nishtha Mehta (Judge)
Founder and Executive Lean Innovation Coach of CollabCentral Consulting, Inc.Nishtha, a lean innovation coach and executive leadership trainer designs, facilitates and delivers open source agile learning and digital innovation acceleration capabilities for corporate workplaces with the purpose to infuse start-up, learn-by-doing, experiment, 'fail fast-build-right' and intrapreneur culture.
CollabCentral runs organisational digital capability assessment; problem framing and strategic visioning; open innovation, corporate intrapreneurship, new business/new service design, lean start-up and growth hacking programs. These programs are delivered in collaboration with brand owners, industry innovation leaders, tech companies, creative boutiques and start up community with a truly agile, responsive, 'outside-in' approach. Program format ranges from 1:1 coaching to team strategy sessions to trainings to workshops and market learning expeditions - designed to meet desired impact. Client partners range from the Fortune 500 companies across different industries – Beauty, Lifestyle, F&B, FMCG, Health Tech, IoT, Retail and more.
Christina Freddie (Judge)
Founder of Goma GreensChristina is the founder of Goma Greens – a Shanghai subscription service that brings weekly veggie boxes from trusted farms to families in the city. She is committed to support the local communities while at the same time inspire families to make healthy choices.
Before moving to Shanghai, Christina worked 13 years with CSR for a global healthcare company. Throughout her career she has managed a range of projects aiming to promote healthy lifestyle and combat lifestyle diseases such as diabetes. In this process, she has worked with a wide range of stakeholders including media, governments and NGOs.
Thibault Genaitay (Mentor)
Founder of Le WagonThibault founded Le Wagon China (www.lewagon.com), a coding school for creative entrepreneurs in Shanghai and Chengdu. The 9-week intensive program supports business people to learn coding and develop amazing products in China! Thibault has 15+ years of experience in digital marketing and software development. From 2010 to 2016 he worked with international luxury brands to design their digital strategy for the Chinese market. Thibault lectures at Le Wagon / Shanghai University UTSEUS / Tongji university College of Design / Jiaotong university Antai School of Economics / ESSCA Shanghai / Condé Nast Center. He often shares nerdy articles on WeChat, Medium and Linkedin.
Roger Mu (Mentor)
Founder of FarmonizeRoger came to Shanghai 10 years ago and has been practicing advanced agricultural techniques in Shanghai since 2009. His journey towards Farmonize started when he tried to recreate the comfort foods he craved from back home in Texas. It was this impetus that drove him to learn about how to grow plants hydroponically, and he began designing and constructing hydroponic systems shortly afterwards. Eventually, he came to the conclusion that local sustainable farms are the best way to produce vegetables that are safe to eat, and he began developing a service to help balance the tremendous risk that farmers have to deal with and to help consumers achieve complete control over what goes into their vegetables and how they are grown. That service became Farmonize.
Gianmarco Meli (Mentor)
Co-Founder and CEO of GroupMallA unique blend of creative and determined, Gianmarco is currently handling different projects ranging from import-export, ecommerce and China sourcing to events and catering.
In 2016, he started GroupMall, a community- based WeChat shop that offers great deals and promotions on selected high quality imported foods.
GroupMall has been invested by SOSV, a top 3 Silicon Valley seed fund, which runs Chinaccelerator, a mentorship-driven program for internet start-ups based in Shanghai.
Qian Shengmin (Mentor)
Partner at FoodplusShengmin Qian is a partner at FoodPlus, a food entrepreneurship community. FoodPlus focuses on linking up entrepreneurs in the food industry through generating high-quality content and conducting unique activities. At present, the FoodPlus public WeChat account provides in-depth content for start-up food consumer products, including industry insight, entrepreneurial methodology and so on. At the same time, Foodplus launched online “private dinner gatherings", practical entrepreneurial workshops as well as professional sharing sessions and forums.
Before joining FoodPlus, Shengmin had a background in industrial design and worked in a number of design consulting companies as a research and strategy expert, approaching issues from the perspective of market and consumer insight and enterprise strategy. She helped enterprises to develop new products, incubate new business lines, and guide them in innovative methodology and enhanced their innovation ability.
Clara Elizabeth Davis (Mentor)
Clara founded and ran Shanghai craft beer haunt District with the support of family-owned Belgian brewery group Duvel Moortgat, before consulting for culinary incubator Hatchery. She's also the founder of the live and roving storytelling platform Unravel. She's spent the last 6 years in China exploring the intersections of food, community, and stories.
Diana Lu (Mentor)
Diana is a Shanghai-born, American-educated management professional. She earned her BA and MBA from UCLA and has 12+ years of experience in the private sector. She has a multi-disciplinary background, having worked in Finance, Sales, Merchandising, and Human Resources. She enjoys working with, and through others, to create durable solutions and achieve strategic goals.
Diana took a career break in 2016 and left Los Angeles to travel independently. In the two years since, she has eaten her way across 17 countries, met her now husband during her travels, and moved back to her hometown of Shanghai in late 2017. She's excited to meet Shanghai's pioneering food tech innovators and share her insights!
Gary Xia (Mentor)
Founder and CEO of SoupriseGary, Xia Yifei, is the founder and CEO of Souprise. He has been associated with CPG industry in core business sectors including R&D, supply chain, production, quality control, storage and logistics, as well as channel and brand building, by establishing his own CPG business for three years.
Before getting into CPG industry, he was part of a leading global community program, Enactus. Working closely with dozens of Fortunes 500 in strategic partnerships, Gary was the leader of quite a few fruitful and impact driven community programs, which up till now, are still nurturing future entrepreneurs by encouraging university students to enable social progress in sustainable business model.
Gary is always considered a passionate figure in his dedicated area. He is also a licensed simultaneous interpreter with in-depth beliefs of continuous study, being humble and hunger for new technologies.
Patricia Hu (Mentor)
Founder and CEO of DUMBØ ORIGINALEven before Patricia received her Bachelor Degree in Psychology and Finance from New York University, she has already got job offers from companies like Amazon and a social enterprise funded by Bill&Melinda Gates Foundation headquartered in the heart of Manhattan, on 5th Avenue. She joined the latter as the first-ever Asian to oversee the branding strategy and local partnerships within the whole Asia Pacific region. Shortly after joining, brand exposure increased by over 200%, and long-term business partners increased by over threefold within 9 months.
In 2013, Patricia worked at BBDO TAIWAN headquarter and took charge of
western brands' localization strategies including, VISA, Rogaine and etc. In
2014, She was invited to join the Planning&Strategy team at McCann Erickson in Berlin, Germany and created a themed-cover for the World Cup that year.
After living in New York City for the past 10 years, Patricia decided to bring this fast-casual metropolitan lifestyle & eating habits back to Asia, especially
Shanghai, where she found that most young people can’t afford to live or eat
delicately and freely. She is passionate and determined to advocate this
DUMBØ ORIGINAL life to the youth here and to cultivate more people to join this campaign of “DUMBØ EMBRACE”.
Victoria Poon (Mentor)
Founder of The Potluck ClubVictoria is a young, Polish-Chinese entrepreneur, and founder of The Potluck Club, a potluck community based in Shanghai turned digital platform that allows users to host or join community-driven food events around the world, with a mission to break down social and cultural barriers through food.
Prior to moving to Shanghai 2 years ago, Victoria graduated with a Bachelor of Laws, however decided to shift her focus from a career in Law in order to pursue her passion: food, community-building and social entrepreneurship.
She has worked on multiple food projects, from researching undernutrition in Asia and Africa, to helping farmer cooperatives in Hunan, China explore and implement technology solutions.
Claire Victoria Pan (Mentor)
Wine Business Writer / EntrepreneurClaire was born in Shanghai, 18th generation descent of the PAN’s family from Suzhou （富潘），ancient Sino-European merchant; nonetheless Claire’s early life was influenced by Shanghainese culture. Being a wine business writer and entrepreneur, Claire spent years in Paris where she started her career. In 2010, Claire made her first visit to Saint Emilion, when she developed her knowledge and passion in Fine Wine. Claire is the founder and director of VA (China’s first Wine for Ladies platform), Ambassador of Prosecco, Ambassador of Wine in Chile, Portugal Wine Ambassador; Associate Judge of SIWC (Shanghai International Wine Challenge), and a columnist of WBO (Wine Business Observation).
Claire speaks fluently in six languages, mostly Mandarin, English and Cantonese, along with French, Shanghainese and Teochew. She holds a Master degree in management from IAE Lille. She is the current President of IAE China Alumni.
Nikolai Niklaus (Mentor)
Founder of Hash Blockchain IncubatorNikolai Niklaus received a Bachelor Degree in Investment and International Business from Dornbirn University of Applied Sciences in Austria, and a Juris Master Degree in International Economic Law with focus on Securities Law from East China University of Political Science and Law in Shanghai. He is Co-founder of “Hash Blockchain Incubator”, Incubation Manager at the Shanghai based Venture Capital firm “23Seed” and experienced in early stage start-up investments across various verticals, Blockchain technology and Start-up Community Building across China and South East Asia.
Abbie Zhou (Mentor)
Founder of Meet Love @ ShanghaiAbbie Zhou, Founder of Meet Love @ Shanghai and is also a Start-Up Weekend alumni. She has more than 10 years’ risk management experience in tech companies, such as PayPal, FraudMetrix and Coupang. Meet Love@Shanghai is an honest community to form friendships for single young people in Shanghai.