The conference room of the USA Pavilion at Shanghai Expo was filled yesterday by more than 100 students from Chinese universities, who all had the same goal: winning the ‘GreenCup’ award for their sustainability project! As members of AIESEC student organization, the students have been running green projects in their cities, such as Wuhan, Guangzhou, Ningbo, Beijing, Dalian, Nanjing, and Shanghai. For ‘GreenCup@Expo’, Greennovate and AIESEC worked together to organize this special event.
MIhela Hladin, announcing the opening of the event
Several distinguished members of the corporate world attended the event, to learn more about sustainable youth action in China, and also to share sustainability knowledge from their own business practice. Among the keynote speakers were representatives from InterfaceFLOR, Nike, FedEx Express, and Wellnessecity.
During the competition, the guest speakers formed a panel of judges, to evaluate the pitches of the AIESEC project teams. Each of the 11 project teams had a six-minute time- window to convince the judges of their project, who then ranked the projects according to their impact, creativity, and presentation. In addition, each project had its own promotion video online, which could be voted upon by the general public.
The competition turned out to be a tight race between several projects. In the end, ‘Hi-Green’, the project by AIESEC at University of Nottingham Ningbo, came out as winner in the category ‘Best project of 2009/10’! Here they are with their trophy, and a cheque over 5000 RMB, sponsored by Greennovate.
GreenCup Winner: AIESEC at Nottingham University Ningbo
The video votes made the difference, and put AIESEC HUST a close second, even though their judging panel score was higher. Congratulations to AIESEC UNNC for your project, and for your video, for rallying the support of 736 votes.
The Scoreboard of the competitors for 'Best Project of 2009/10'
In the competition category ‘Best New Project Idea’, the winner is AIESEC at Nanjing University with their concept for their project called ‘Engreenment’. Their prices are bicycles, sponsored by Momentum.
AIESEC at Nanjing University, winner of 'Best Project Idea'
In the end, all of the teams can consider themselves winners, for showcasing their efforts in front of their peers, industry representatives, and the general public through significant media exposure. The event is featured in print publications such as Shanghai Daily, and on TV through International Channel Shanghai.
After last week’s great TED movie sucess, we decided to have another movie night wit the same theme: We will watch only TED Talks. TED is short for Technology, Entertainment and Design It is an annual conferences which aims at bringing together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).
A lot of us are big TED fans, and we watch the talks on their website. Now we want to give everyone the opportunity to recommend their favourite TED Talk, and we will play a selection of them during today’s Wednesday’s movie night.
To suggest a TED Talk to us to play, please send an email to feifeilan@hotmail.com. The talk should be about a sustainability or world issue, and it should be available with Chinese subtitles.
We are excited receiving your recommendations, and to watch and discuss about the presentations.
Attendance is limited to 35 people. Please RSVP on our Douban Website
Bring your own drinks and snacks!
For the first time, on 24th August 2010, AIESEC, the world’s largest student organization, will hold an environmental themed conference at the Expo in Shanghai, where 10 project teams from all over China will compete for the Green Cup and a prize of 5000 RMB!
The four- hour- event, which is co-organized by Greennovate and AIESEC, supported by FedEx, will attract 140 students from China’s top universities, 13 project teams, 4 distinguished speakers, and several media outlets. Set in the USA Pavilion, this exclusive conference is sure to honour AIESECs achievements of the year 2009/10, and give a strong motivation impulse for the coming year.
In order to participate, you need to be a member of AIESEC Mainland of China. To register, send an email to tom.bley@greennovate.net. See the Flyer for more details.
Ecotourism in Moganshan offers some inspiring (and inspired) vistas
Ecotourism is a business that is exploding around the globe, to the tune of over 100% growth each year, which means that the ecotourism industry literally doubles in size every year. Here in China though, ecotourism has, unfortunately, taken a bit longer to catch on. Not to worry though, because there are dedicated operators here, committed to ensuring that sustainable tourism will gain ground in the Middle Kingdom. But first, what is ecotourism? The International Ecotourism Society (who, we imagine, are pretty knowledgeable about the subject) defines it as “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of the local people.” In other words, it’s tourism that seriously takes ecological footprints into account, and also makes an effort to make life better for the residents of the visited area.
China’s population is exploding, and most of that growth is occurring in the country’s large, dense urban areas, which means that many Chinese have few opportunities to visit the many beautiful, scenic locations and landscapes that China has to offer. Some researchers have posited the idea that this plays a role in the lack of environmental knowledge among many Chinese. Whether or not this is the case, ecotourism is, slowly but surely, beginning to take hold as a viable business model in much of China, and while many of the visitors are foreigners (either expat residents of China or tourists who come specifically for the trip), more and more Chinese are beginning to take advantage of the amazing ecotourism opportunities available in their own country.
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by admin on March 24, 2009
Greennovate visited the Shanghai Institute of Visual Art yesterday to teach a class of graphic design students. We provided students with environmental awareness training to inspire students to use their graphic design skills to communicate ways to live greener.
by admin on March 16, 2009
Greennovate visited Madame Jiao Zhiyan, head of environmental education in China, last week.
We discussed our environmental awareness initiatives and future outlook, including environmental training opportunities for adults. We were very honored to present our views and to receive positive feedback on our green initiatives.
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