By ANGELA JIE WANG, MARGOT LAMBILLIOTTE, MARIA RINCON, NATALIE MEYER and NICO GOUS She likes spicy food, drinks hot water, and can eat rice three times a day. “Yes, I am 100% made in China,” she readily acknowledged during her talk at TEDxYouth@Suzhou conference in November 2017. So what makes Peng different? She likes to…
Author: tsjcdatateam
Sophie Sun: Why one young woman gave up a stable corporate career to become an entrepreneur
By Michelle Chen, Jimin Suh, Tony Xie and Troels Jeppesen The path of entrepreneurship is a difficult one. The pain and tribulations faced in the field of entrepreneurship frightens most people away from entering the field. However, for Sophie Sun, this feeling of uncertainty and trepidation is exactly what she is seeking in life. As…
Li Ziqi: A blogger and food entrepreneur with one foot in the past and one foot (very much) in the future
By SIJIA LI On this morning, white mist rolls through the lush mountaintops of Sichuan Province, China. Birdsong mingles with a piano soundtrack. A young woman in an indigo-dyed blouse, a straw basket in her hand, picks her way through a grove of persimmon trees. Her slim white hand reaches out with a pair of…
Illuminating reality: VR startup explores new form of story-telling
When the train silently approached the station at La Ciotat, the audience broke into a panic. People screamed, running for their lives, fearing that the train would come straight at them, bursting from its screen. This is the story of one of the first-ever film screenings, showing the arrival of a train in a minute-long, […]
Gifted: A French entrepreneur finds success in surprises
Creator of social gift-giving app Lihaoma, Rachel Daydou, is not only a successful entrepreneur. She is doing her utmost to see that other young women succeed in China’s dynamic entrepreneurial world.
Head in the game: A hijab for women athletes
Gulzat Ahmad excelled at basketball when she was a young girl growing up in Urumqi and Shanghai. But her hoop dreams were dashed by a problem that had nothing to do with her on-court skills. It’s about her head scarf or hijab.
Young Tsinghua graduate makes it happen in digital video startup
by Monica Wang Zhu Feng prepares herself for every challenge. When she landed an interview with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair during her journalism studies at Tsinghua University, she spent hours in the school library learning intimate details about the Middle East peace envoy, even the name of his dog. When she was learned…
Jackie You thinks outside the box, plays by her own rules
by Linda Lew Four years ago, Jackie You was a rising star, the 39-year-old CFO of a NASDAQ-listed Chinese company with a turnover in the hundreds of millions and more than one thousand employees. Now, the casually dressed but elegant financial advisor runs a startup, which has four employees and is based out of shared…
Commercial photographer proves that passion beats bottom-line
by Martin Hall Larsen Growing up in the Dutch capital of The Hague, Chi Qing was always surrounded by beautiful landscapes, blooming flowers and some of the world’s most famous art treasures. “I have always known that I wanted to work with something creative, and I have always been interested in art,” the 34-year-old photographer…
Organic goes online: College students carve out niche in China’s booming ecommerce market
by Sasha Grebneva Organic food is a trend all over the world. However, China has been slow in embracing the pesticide-free production system. But Jiarui Yang and some of her friends think this dearth of organic food is a business opportunity, and they started a company called Evergreen Agriculture to improve access to organic and…
Traveling the world from a guesthouse in PingYao Ancient City
by Alexis See Tho The thwack of a cleaver slicing on a wooden block and the smell of fresh coffee fill the air. A hissing cloud of boiling water escapes from a wok steaming traditional Chinese buns. It’s 7 a.m. at Jiaxin Guesthouse in Pingyao City in rural Shanxi Province. The guesthouse is 700 meters…
Saving newborns: A doctor quit her job to meet a greater need
by Leslie Zhang In the past two years, Gao Jingxiang has gone from obstetrician to an entrepreneur. The 33-year-old doctor and expert on fertility studies created “Happy Mom Pregnancy” after seeing too many cases where lack of information led to the deaths of Chinese infants. “I do this, because I have witnessed the lamented loss…
Thai restauranteur dishes up taste of home to China’s burgeoning middle-class
After quitting her comfortable California lifestyle, Thai entrepreneur Ally Chonlakarn knew that setting up a business in China without a local business partner might be the most difficult part of the process, so she set out to choose her industry carefully.
From first bloom: A Chinese florist finds her calling
by Marta Redigolo The marriage between economy, marketing, creativity and willingness is the heart of Zou Tong’s business. She is a young passionate entrepreneur with the desire of enhancing the network between people through a network of flowers. The alarm rings early in the morning. A flow of thoughts, like a sudden aura, unconsciously starts…
The Art of Food: Former Russian artist opens a Chinese culinary school
by Zoya Rusinova Elena Timofeeva, a happy housewife and mother, moved to Beijing from Moscow more than 20 years ago. Raising her daughter far from her native land, she never imagined that one day she would call herself an entrepreneur. Timofeeva is a tall, beautiful woman with an insightful gaze. Her outward appearance gives the…
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