featured participants

Goodwin is the Founder and Managing Principal of Gaw Capital Partners, a uniquely positioned real estate private equity fund management company that focuses on markets in Greater China and other high barrier to entry markets globally. Gaw Capital has raised five commingled funds targeting the Greater China and APAC regions since 2005. The firm also manages value-add/opportunistic funds in Vietnam and the US, a Pan-Asia hospitality fund, a UK creative office vehicle, and also provides services for separate account direct investments globally. Gaw Capital Partners has raised equity in excess of USD$9.6 billion as of 2018 Q1 and currently commands assets of over USD$18 billion under management encompassing residential developments, retails centers, hotels, commercial and logistic properties. 

Goodwin has over 20 years of real estate investment and management experience in the United States and Asia. He founded Downtown Properties in 1996 and serves as Managing Principal. He’s especially interested in re-positioning distressed heritage properties. These include the renovation of the iconic Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and conversion of over 456,000 square feet of empty historical buildings into hip residential lofts in downtown Los Angeles including the acclaimed Douglas Building. He also served as Vice Chairman of Pioneer Global Group and former Chairman of Global Gateway. 

Goodwin received a BS in Civil Engineering from the School of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, a BS in Finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and a MS in Construction Management from Stanford University.

Korean-American singer Eric Nam is one of the most recognized names and faces in Korea's entertainment industry today. Named one of GQ Korea's "Men of the Year" for 2016, Eric not only sings but hosts multiple TV shows and is the go-to for International collaborations and interviews. He's worked with names such as Timbaland, fellow Forbes 30 Under 30 singer Gallant, and most recently interviewed Emma Watson, Chris Pratt, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Eddie Redmayne, to name a few. Nam was also the founding director Kollaboration's Boston chapter, a nonprofit that promotes Asian-American talents across the U.S.

Zeman is a serial entrepreneur and the chairman and 'father' of Lan Kwai Fong Group, a major property owner and developer of one of the most popular entertainment and nightlife districts in Hong Kong. Besides being the Chairman of Hong Kong Ocean Park for over a decade, he is now the Honorary Advisor to the Park and serves as a member of the Board of West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, and is the Chairman of its Performing Arts Committee. He was awarded the Grand Bauhinia Medal in 2011 and the Businessman of the Year at the Hong Kong Business Award in 2008. In 2001, Dr. Zeman was appointed a Justice of the Peace in Hong Kong.

Sally & Malcolm Begbie have served developing nations since 1979.

Initially, Sally worked with NGOs providing communications/PR services pro bono. Malcolm, her husband, a Chartered Accountant, provided financial services. 

In 1995, the couple birthed the Crossroads Foundation and remain as Executive Directors. Crossroads brings people together to combat world need in four ways: 

• Global Distribution: The Hong Kong community generously donates excellent quality goods. These are distributed to people in need, in Hong Kong and around the world. 
• Global Handicrafts sells goods from people in need within Hong Kong, and around the world, on a fair trade basis. Aid helps people today. An income helps them tomorrow.
• Global Hand is a match-making service which links for-profit and non-profit organisations who want to partner to help meet global need. 
• Global X-perience offers simulation x-periences in which participants step, briefly, ‘into the shoes’ of people facing global challenges: war, poverty, HIV vulnerability, blindness, environmental challenges, hunger, etc.

Crossroads’ is headquartered in Hong Kong on 9 acres provided by the government, with additional bases in UK/Europe, USA & Australia. Its international team, all of whom are volunteers, numbers 100.

In 2012, Sally and Malcolm both received the Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) award by the Australian Government for their “distinguished service to the international community in the provision of humanitarian relief, particularly through the Crossroads Foundation, and as a significant contributor to United Nations efforts to connect business organisations with those in need.”

Lau, a Yale economics grad, came back to China in 2012 to pursue her young lifetime's passion for social causes and philanthropy. Aiming to empower the next generation to donate to organizations with impact and accountability, PIM has enlightened more than 1,000 individuals. Most alumni have made donations or gone on to work full-time in the social sector. With a recent startup, Kliptap, Lau has gotten into crowd-funding campaigns of social causes as well, taking a 5% cut of transactions. Remarkably, Lau started her first charitable organization, Ember, at the age of 16, and raised $300,000 to support girls' education in rural China.

Esther Wang is the founder of Joytingle, a healthcare education startup that specialises in child life programmes, patient engagement, paediatric education and hospital play speciality. The company designs and produces an educational toy called "Rabbit Ray" that educates children about medical procedures such as injections, vaccinations and intravenous drips. Products currently used by by leading hospitals across 5 countries. Customers include, Johns Hopkins Children’s Centre (USA), Great Ormond Street Hospital, Evelina London Children’s Hospital (UK) and National University Hospital (Singapore). In April 2016, Joytingle was highlighted in Singapore’s Parliament as an example of “innovation by design” by Minister of Finance, Minister Heng Swee Keat. Wang won the Shell LiveWIRE Global Top Innovator Award in 2016 graduated from Nanyang and spoke at TedxSingapore in 2012. She graduated from Technological University with a bachelor of fine arts in product design.

In 2016, Leng Xiaokun founded robotics startup Leju in Shenzhen. The company's main product is Aelos, a humanoid robot that can perform motions such as dancing, singing, as well as taking voice commands. During 2017's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, it also unveiled Talos, its latest version of service and companion robots. Leju Robotics has received $7.4 million in financing from Chinese gaming and social media giant Tencent.

Shriyans Bhandari and Ramesh Dhami are both athletes. As they burned through shoes running they became increasingly aware of the waste they were creating and decided to do something good, so they cofounded Greensole. The startup gave them a platform to recycle discarded shoes and donate the upcycled footwear to children in need for free. Partnering with heavyweight corporates such as the Tata Group, Rolls Royce and Just Dial, they now have their own repurposed retail footwear line available online.

Simmendinger is the founder and CEO of Soundbrenner Ltd., which makes wearable smart metronomes for musicians who need help establishing a rhythm. Before starting the company in 2014, the German national based in Hong Kong got a degree in business administration from schools in Germany and Mexico. He published his first non-fiction book at age 24. Simmendinger speaks four languages and goes backpacking around the world.

Stanislava Pinchuk (Miso) is an artist that maps areas of conflict around the world, data mapping how landscape is changed by political events with tiny dots. Her practice examines the ways in which ground retains memory of violence. Crossing disciplines between science & art, her gallery work has put forward a new research question within topographic & political spheres. She’s mapped nuclear zones and topographies of changing borders in war, such as Chernobyl and Fukushima. Miso has worked with international clients such as Chanel, Tiffany & Co., and Nike -- for whom she is currently fronting a global campaign and has tattooed her drawings on singers Florence Welch and Sam Smith.

Vinesh Sinha is the founder and Managing Director of Fathopes Energy, which he set up in 2010 with a refund from London’s School of Commerce after he dropped out. The company turns waste oils from the food industry in Malaysia into biofuels that he sells to companies globally. Consequently, FatHopes takes waste oils out of the food chain and reduces carbon emissions. FatHopes had sales of $147.6 million last year and are looking for other growth opportunities. Sinha was nominated for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award 2017.

At the age of 24, Parsons' graduate Aakriti Kumar returned to India to set up Differniture – a sustainable, design-based furniture atelier and design-house. The award-winning designer follows a cradle-to-cradle ethos, which means her manufacturing processes are non-toxic, zero-waste, and utilizes responsibly purchased reclaimed wood. Kumar’s next project includes working on an eco-conscious cabin community in the Himalayas.

Lim Yuet Kim, Lee Swee Lin and Ling Shook Shian are the cofounders of the Picha Project. Named after a young refugee boy, their social enterprise empowers refugee families in Malaysia by connecting those who have cooking skills with companies, organizations and individuals needing catering. Home-cooked traditional food is first prepared by refugees, before it is packaged and delivered by the Picha Project to the end consumer. Around 50% of all revenue goes to the refugee family who did the cooking. The three entrepreneurs won the Edge Inspiring Young Leader's Award in 2017.

Togo Ogi cofounded the company – which has raised nearly $1 million – with Waseda University classmate Ryushi Shiohama to train people for sports like weightlifting without a real instructor. With its augmented reality system called ARC Mirror, the trainer’s image is projected onto a full-size mirror to show form. Meanwhile, people practicing can see their reflection and try to follow the coach’s model; Its 3D scanning checks the form and gives advice.

Julius Tan is the founder of Electrify, an energy retail marketplace based in Singapore. As the country liberalizes its electricity market, the company allows consumers to compare electricity prices from multiple retailers and purchase directly from them. According to its website, Electrify has facilitated $3.8 million worth of transactions since March 2017, with commercial and industrial customers buying 30Gwh of electricity through the platform. Its next move is a new energy marketplace based on blockchain, which enables peer-to-peer trading from small-scale producers such as residential rooftop solar and wind turbines. The company recently raised $30 million in less than ten days through the sale of electronic currency tokens.

Hu's dream since junior high school was to launch a rocket. In May 2011, he led an amateur team of college students in Guangzhou, China, to study rockets, and two years later, his dream came true, launching a space-exploring rocket he made in Inner Mongolia. In 2014, Hu set up China's first non-state space rocket firm, Linkspace, where he serves as its CEO, and is planning his first commercial launch in 2017.

Tekriwal founded JetSetGo, an India-based private jet concierge service that links passengers to planes through an online marketplace. She defied the odds first by breaking into a male-dominated profession as a woman and again by starting the company in 2013 after a bout with cancer. She went into aviation because of a passion for the profession since age 16. The MBA graduate's firm now has contracts in excess of $6 million and manages assets worth $70 million.

Miles Wen received his Bachelor degree in Computer Engineering with First Class Honors and minor in Finance from HKU in 2011. He then obtained his PhD degree in Electrical & Electronic Engineering under Prof. Victor Li from HKU in 2015.

Dr. Wen is an alumni of Lee Hysan Hall, former resident tutor at New College, former Founding Vice-President of Eta Kappa Nu (Lambda Iota Chapter) at HKU, and former Fulbright scholar at Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, UC Berkeley. He is an expert in power system, information and communication technologies, optimization algorithms, big data, and machine learning. He is the author of over 10 academic papers and the inventor of one patent. In 2015, he co-founded Fano Labs Limited, a high-tech startup backed by HKU, Hong Kong Science & Technology Park, angel investors, and venture capitalists. He is currently the CEO of Fano Labs. Since early 2016, he has been appointed as an Honorary Assistant Professor (Electrical and Electronic Engineering) at HKU.

Ah Moon Marip (known as Ah Moon) is a singer and songwriter from the Kachin State of Myanmar. A former member of Me N Ma Girls, Myanmar's first all-girl pop band, Ah Moon released her first solo album, Min Pay Tae A Chit, in 2014. It sold out in the country within weeks. She's since released another album, Automatic, with plans for another in 2018. She's one of Myanmar's most recognized performers, with over 2.5 million Facebook fans.

After studying in Paris, pastry chef Talita Setyadi returned to Indonesia in 2013 to open her first bakery, BEAU. Among the classic French favorites, Setyadi offers twists in her entremets, or multi-layered mousse-based cakes (raspberry, yogurt and pistachio is a signature combo). The bakery provides goods -- all made with natural, local ingredients -- to about 100 cafes, restaurants and hotels in Jakarta, and took in close to $1 million in revenue in 2017. Setyadi has also made education a pillar of BEAU; nearly all its bakers are trained from scratch, starting as cleaners or stewards at the company. The 29-year-old served as the youngest and only female judge in The World Pastry Cup in 2017.