In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized (subject to certain rules and regulations).

Ningbo Cultural Plaza Theater
NO.1900 Ningchuan Road, Jiangdong District
ningbo, Zhejiang, 315000
China

Aolin Wang

Free Diving National Record Holder (ranking 7th globally in 2017)

Wang Aolin, known as “the Pioneer of Chinese Freediving", is from Kunming, Yunnan Province. Starting as a recreational freediver, he found huge interest by gaining depth in this sport. As he dives deeper and deeper, obstacle follows, then he start learning and training with several world record holders and eventually grew into a professional free diver himself. He set various Chinese records in the world. More importantly, in 2016 the Vertical Blue Depth Competition (top level freediving competition in the world), he set a new depth record for China on a 11 consecutive times with a Constant Weight (CWT) dive to 105 meters. Such extreme physical and psychological experience—freediving into the deepest place when holding his breath, requires him to have full control of himself. He will show you how human can control the body and mind in a way we never known, how to overcome fear and strike a perfect balance in his life.

Chunhui Ge

Director of the First Institute Shanghai Branch of China Academy of Urban Planning & Design, Urban Planner

Ge is an expert in regional and urban space development, city design and city development management and controlment. He has been responsible for the city development programs committed by the Central Finance and Economy Office, Chinese Academy of Engineering, Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural and the Advisory Committee of Shanghai. He has also participated in the strategic planning for Ningbo. The projects he led have won the Award of Excellent National Design for Town and Country Planning several times. His thesis has obtained the prize of Best Chinese City Planning Paper and he himself has acquired the honorary title for “Advanced Individual for the After-Disasters Restoration and Reconstruction in Sichuan province”. In his view, space is the body of a city and culture stands as the soul of a city. The development of a city should be defined by cultural prosperity so he will lead us to a discussion on the possible ways of upgrading Ningbo’s cultural connotations.

Eugene Ch'ng

Associate editor for MIT Press’ Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments, the world’s oldest and foremost journal for Virtual Reality research, Director of the NVIDIA Joint-Lab on Mixed Reality, NVIDIA Technology Centre at the University of Nottingham’ s China campus.

Prof. Ch'ng has been invited twice to present his research at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition and was an organiser and speaker at the 2017 Royal Society Theo Murphy Scientific Meeting. His current research is in the development and application of cutting-edge Mixed Reality technology, and digital culture and heritage. He leads the complex systems modelling of the ERC (European Research Council) Advanced Research Grant’s “Lost Frontiers” project. He is also an artist, and the head instructor of Ningbo’s first Aikido dojo.

Gengen He

Expert in GIS industry

The professional knowledge and experiences have equipped him with deep understanding of the industry of GIS. He excels at interior modelling and navigation technology and is devoted to massification and standardization of interior data. He is also working on improving the accuracy of the supporting technologies of the Internet of Things and establishing the models for catching dynamic laws of interior design. His dream is to bring the latest industrial concepts into China. Dr. He has a very outstanding vision of the future of Geographical Information's development—that with a better understanding of the importance of human environment interactions and the assistance of technology such as Virtual Reality, Geographical Information will offer the world an easier life and enhance people’s autonomy in altering interior space.

JUJU WANG

Chinese-American Installation Artist

Combining traditional oriental culture with western modern culture, Wang Jue strives to improve the modern society’s collective ability to perceive, appreciate and adore traditional Chinese culture by transforming city buildings and exhibiting installation works of art. Born in China and brought up in US, Wang has been greatly influenced by both cultures. After graduating as a Master in Civil Engineering from UC Berkeley, she is gradually alert to the fact that the handicraft art and traditional art in China are disappearing. In order to make people, especially the young, fall in love with Chinese traditional culture, she has started to put together the oriental and western aesthetic conceptions and bring the traditions back to people.

Junpeng Wu

Senior Marketor

He is the director of the influential campaigns—the “Music Review Train” and the “Music Plane”—of NetEase Cloud Music and that of the movie Love is Not Blind and TV series Let's get married. He is good at tapping the emotional needs of customers and has a special insight concerning the combination of social emotions and product marketing. He always believes that emotion stands as the most essential junction in marketing activities and therefore devotes himself to the integration of product functions and marketing.

Lehua Chen

Professor of Department of Psychology of Sun Yat-sen University, PhD in Social Psychology of Sociology

With research mainly in personality and social psychology, Cheng has been working on the theoretical construction and application of artistic practice of psychology since 2007. Guided by the methods and theories of Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, J. Gibson etc., he has put forward a series of significant concepts and theories, such as is omorphism of affordance, emotional space theory, etc. Under the guidance of those theories, he developed various psychological tools such as image match, psychological nesting dolls, key behavior reasoning and test of emotional gene expression. In addition, he is promoting the research and practice of body-mind adaptation such as face blindness, attachment and IBS (Irritable Bowl Syndrome) in the hope of stimulating human-to-world harmony. Besides, he has also planned and appeared in CCTV documentary Mind Tricks.

Lingguo Chen

Master of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Culture and History Researcher of Beilun District’s Political Consultative Conference

Over the past few years, Chen Lingguo has visited numerous villages around Ningbo and tried to communicate and build trust with the elderly there in an attempt to reveal the past stories of the land. He has recorded ordinary people and their stories with words and pictures, reviving the moments of those people who would have been neglected by the public. Chen has also published his works in newspapers and magazines to attract public attention on local history and culture. Meanwhile, he is committed to public sharing of various kinds, including the photo exhibition Xiangtu Siming (Siming the Hometown) and More than Nostalgia, a photo exhibition held this August in Chicago.

Meng Su

Associate professor of Department of Physics and Laboratory for Space Research (LSR) of Hong Kong University, Pappalardo Scholar of MIT, NASA Einstein Fellow

He is the youngest winner of Rossi Prize, the most prestigious award for high-energy astrophysics. His discovery of the Fermi Bubbles has been selected as one of the Top Ten Physical News and of the Top Ten Astronomical Achievements in 2010. His main research interests include the origin and evolution of the universe, high-energy astrophysics, black holes, gravitational waves, dark matters and dark energy. In order to search dark material particles, he is working on the construction of the first gravitational-wave telescope in China and the first space astronomical satellite “Wu Kong”. He is also looking for new methods of combining business with scientific research to further the exploration and exploitation of planets in the solar system.

Mingle Huang

Electronic Music Arranger, Engineer of Remix and Master Tape

As one of the earliest domestic UK BASS-style musicians, Huang created the first electronic music song mixing Chinese and Dubstep styles. His works are included by well-known foreign electronic music websites. However, his exploration of electronic music is not limited to individual creation. He created the biggest domestic electronic music teaching platform in order to create a more favorable environment for China's electronic music. Now many of his students have become professional electronic musicians. In his eyes, electronic music represents not only dance music, but also a kind of music style that can express emotions in a free and playful way. He will demonstrate various possibilities of electronic music in his talk.

Ningbo Storytelling Ningbo Storytelling

Storytelling accompanied by string instruments has been listed in Intangible Cultural Heritage Project of Zhejiang Province.

As two representative bearers of the traditional art performance, Chen Xiangyuan and Chen Xueyun started learning from leading prestigious experts at a young age and have devoted their whole lives to inheriting and disseminating this local tradition. More importantly, both the two experts are trying to integrate pop culture and city characteristics to their creations.

Ruicheng Yao

Student in Grade 11, first place of hack. init() 2017 (a premier Hackathon in China)

A creative-idea lover and self-taught maker, Yao is committed to the promotion of maker spirit among his peers. He applies technology to realizing both the creative ideas of himself and others. He hopes to balance academic study and technological creation with the ultimate goal of promoting the development of young maker groups in China.

Shaoce Zhang

Artist of Ningbo Pinghua, Representative Inheritor of Zhejiang Intangible Culture Heritage, Member of Chinese Ballad Singers Association

Zhang is around 90 this year. Making his debut at the age of 18, Zhang has worked for more than seven decades as a Pinghua artist. He is also nicknamed “The mogul of Pinghua” for his rich performing experiences and exquisite performing skills. His best works include Water Margin, The Legend of Yue Fei, The Yang’s Saga and Romance of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, Wang Ruibo, all of which are of Chinese classics. He has also adapted Poem for Shabby Dwellings. What interests people the most is that Mr.Zhang can change the length of his performance flexibly to satisfy different needs of audiences. He can narrate a story either in two scenes or more than half a month.

Thomas Hirzel

Sinologist, Linguist

Dr.Thomas Hirzel studied sinology and philosophy, credited with a Master degree and PhD from University of Tuebingen, Germany. Back in Germany, Dr. Hirzel taught Chinese history, philosophy and classical Chinese. His expertise in language, history and culture studies has made him a valuable staff member of the University of Nottingham Ningbo since 2014. Eight years of studies in languages, cultures, and economy have molded him into a keen sinologist. Apart from classical Chinese, his research interests also include Chinese memorials (government documents) during the Qing dynasty, especially from the Qianlong to Daoguang periods.

Xiaogang Lian

CEO of PACEE-EDU

During his study at Tsinghua University, Lian launched and presided over The Interdisciplinary Salon for Tsinghua Architecture. Well experienced in design theory, design teaching and construction practice, he designed children’s education courses for Harvard pre-text teaching institution. In addition, he cooperated with a number of schools in organizing and designing workshops and recycled products art festivals. He tried to shape children's understanding of space by architecture and guide them to find the links between different knowledge, subjects and skills by the reconstruction of spaces. Lian said that the space where humans exist is complex. In order to improve the efficiency of survival, our ancestors often took a linear and simple road in understanding and processing space through compressing and coding. To this day, human beings should improve self-awareness in space construction, and the public should make fuller use of the "space rights".

Yashu Zhang

Dancer, Dance Drama Producer, Chief Dancer of Wuxi Song and Dance Theatre Corp. Ltd.

As the leading dancer in many performances, Zhang has visited a wide range of countries, including Germany, Canada, Turkey, Belgium, Egypt, America, Netherland and Cambodia. In 2013, she appeared, as the leading dancer of The Embroidery Girl, at Kennedy Center Opera House and received wide recognition. In 2016, she changed her role into a dance drama producer, with her first work Nine-colored Deer listed in 2016 China Federation on Literary and Art Circles’ youth-supporting program and staged at National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPR) at the invitation of the organizer of Chinese Dance for Twelve Days, a famous dance brand of NCPR.