TechCrunch Beijing is quickly approaching and we can’t wait. For all the aspirational geeks and entrepreneurs out there, TechCrunch Beijing Summit features a two-day hackathon from November 5 to 6 and two-day main stage talks from November 7 to 8. At the same time, a series of exciting parallel events will be held raging from Startup Alley and Startup Competition and VC Meetup, where each entrepreneur can have ten minutes to pitch your project to investors.
Well, you definitely won’t be sorry if our event is on your schedule, because the speakers are awesome. Sinovation Ventures, Microsoft Accelerator, Indiegogo, iRobot, Mobike, 700Bike and vHM Design Futures, each of the name is suffice to make a tech news headline. At TechCrunch Beijing, we have bring them together for our audience to take a behind-the-scene look of their stories.
Below is the line-up of the confirmed speakers so far, enjoy it.
Founder & CEO at Sinovation Ventures, Kaifu Lee
Dr. Kaifu Lee is an investor and startup guru in China who serves as the founder and CEO of Sinovation Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm formerly known as Innovation Works and Idea Bulb Ventures.
He is the founding president and head of Google China Corporation from July 2005 to 2009. Lee is widely known for his pioneering work in the areas of speech recognition and artificial intelligence. He joined Google from Microsoft Corporation, where he served as Corporate Vice President, after founding Microsoft Research China in 1998.
Prior to joining Microsoft, he served as a Vice President and General Manager at Silicon Graphics Inc. He also spent six years at Apple Inc., from 1990 to 1996, serving as Speech Scientist and Vice President of Apple’s Interactive Media Group.
Dr. Lee holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University in 1988 and a B.S. in Computer Science with highest honors from Columbia University in 1983.
Co-Founder & CEO at 700Bike, Xiangdong Zhang
Zhang Xiangdong, a series entrepreneur and passionate cyclist joined smart bike startup 700Bike as a co-founder in 2014. Prior to that, Zhang co-founded in 2004 Sungy Mobile, a mobile content provider which got listed on NASDAQ in late 2013.
From 2002 to 2003, Zhang was a correspondent of New Weekly Magazine. From 1999 to 2000, he served as a manager at online retailer Dangdang. He holds a BA in Information Management from Peking University.
Co-founder & CTO at Mobike, Joe Xia
Joe Xia is an expert in internet of vehicle (IOV) sector. He is a former employee in IOV R&D units of Ford and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, holding more than 20 IOV patents.
In January 2015, Joe joined dockless bike sharing company Mobike as CTO. As a major player in the rising vertical, Mobike leads the new trend and has received the backings from China’s top investors, including Tencent, Hillhouse Capital, Warburg Pincus, Sequoia Capital, Qiming Venture Partners, Bertelsmann and Wang Xing, founder of Meituan who is also a renowned investor.
Co-founder & CEO & Chairman at iRobot, Colin Angle
Colin Angle, co-founder of iRobot, has served as chairman of the board since October 2008, as CEO since June 1997.
Mr. Angle previously worked at the National Aeronautical and Space Administration’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he participated in the design of the behavior controlled rovers that led to Sojourner exploring Mars in 1997. He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and an M.S. in Computer Science, both from MIT.
Co-Founder at vHM Design Futures, Clive van Heerden
Clive van Heerden is the co-founder of vHM Design Futures. Before that, Van Heerden worked at Philips Research since 1995. In 1998 he moved to Philips Design where he became the director of the Soft Technologies design research project. In this position Van Heerden coordinated a team of experts from various textile and apparel disciplines to develop wearable electronic and conductive textile solutions.
He also drives the Philips’ “Probes” program, which consists of “far-future” research initiatives to identify long-term systematic shifts and anticipating changes in future lifestyles. The Probes team, under Van Heerden’s leadership, has won numerous international awards including a Red Dot, IF Award and a Time magazine acknowledgment for Best Invention in 2007.
CEO at Microsoft Accelerator Greater China, Bin Luo
Bin Luo serves as CEO at Microsoft Accelerator. Before joining Microsoft, Luo was the director at Canonical’s Asia-Pacific arm, overseeing business operation, marketing and partner relationship management of Ubuntu operating system.
Prior to that, he has worked in Intel for over 13 years, mainly engaged in investment.
Director of Strategic Programs China at Indiegogo, Sandy Diao
Sandy works closely with technology and design entrepreneurs to launch their businesses through Indiegogo.
Prior to joining, she ran a $460k crowdfunding campaign for a connected piano hardware product. Before that she worked on Pinterest’s growth marketing team and helped incubate Pinterest’s advertising platform from scratch.
Tickets for TechCrunch Beijing are available now at our official website. More speakers and guests will be announced on a rolling basis. Please check back for announcements.