Dong Jun / SHINE
The 2024 INCLUSION·Conference on the Bund.
The 2024 INCLUSION·Conference on the Bund wrapped up on Saturday with 52,000 visitors over the past three days, consolidating Shanghai’s position as an attractive and influential fintech hub for visitors from around the world.
Altogether 35 Insight Forums and 10 Innovation Creator Stage sessions were staged, with one-stop immersive experiences of pioneering technology and smart gadgets.
A total of 35 cutting-edge technologies and solutions were presented to the public.
The Huangpu World Expo Park featured 10,000 square meters of exhibition area from Thursday to Saturday.
The Green Life Festival, spanning 3,000 square meters, also featured more than 70 home and overseas brands showcasing recycling and sustainable initiatives.
A wide range of notable participants attended the opening ceremony and the insight forums, and as many as 100 tech players and research institutions plus more than two dozens of artificial intelligence agents were on show.
As one of the member of the organizing committee, Shanghai United Media Group is deeply involved in the tech fair.
Two AI-backed media production models by Shanghai Observer and thepaper.cn were present at the fair, and four insight forums were also organized by affiliate media organizations of SUMG.
The insight forums have shed light on three main themes: Technological Innovation and Industrial Transformation; Financial Technology and Inclusive Future; Sustainable Development and Social Responsibility.
The Internationalization level of the conference has been further enhanced this year with a record number of guest speakers, including more than 10 esteemed scholars and over 500 industry leaders.
Dong Jun / SHINE
The Green Life Festival was popular with the public.
First-time visitors and speakers at the 2024 INCLUSION·Conference on the Bund shared the same feeling of excitement and vibrancy as entrepreneurs.
For overseas young entrepreneurs and industry watchers, the tech fair offered food for thought for the application of AI models and smart solutions for various niche segments for daily life, health care service and circular economy.
Ti Gong
Steve Hoffman, chairman & CEO of Founders Space, believes local start-ups have a better chance to become successful by building industry specific AI models.
Steve Hoffman, chairman & CEO of Founders Space, believes China’s strong foundation for manufacturing capabilities and relevant data provides unique advantages for local AI start-ups.
Hoffman, who is an angel investor and also Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur, believes specific AI applications built on top of vertical industry sectors will become extremely successful as opposed to generic AI.
Hoffman has been engaged with Chinese start-ups since around 2016. He said local entrepreneurs are now becoming more international and more knowledgeable.
Those who have set an eye on a truly global business are as smart and capable as entrepreneurs in the rest of the world.
Ti Gong
Lumbie Mlambo, founder and CEO of non-profit organization JB Dondolo, presents her ideas about empowering underrepresented groups.
Monish Mithra Waran, who is a fourth-year student at Zhejiang University, arrived at the conference on Friday morning and was impressed by the vibrant community atmosphere.
He presented his start-up WAMECO which was just set up earlier this year and focuses on the listing and trading of waste materials by connecting businesses with suppliers through a network to make waste transactions seamless and efficient.
It’s also the first time Wendy Leong, CEO of MOBIVA, a climate tech firm utilizing AI to enhance disaster preparedness and resource management, visited the fair. She’s already amazed by the enthusiasm Chinese young people devote to AI.
“It’s fantastic to see AI-driven abilities on smartphones which were leveraged to benefit the community, such as the smart healthcare assistant for the elderly to facilitate their hospital visits,” she said.
They were both among the four representatives selected to attend the fair to present their solutions and tech concepts by the 10×1000 Tech for Inclusion, a non-profit platform initiated by Ant Group and the International Finance Corporation.
Dong Jun / SHINE
The fair aroused much interest.
Kevin Kelly, founding editor of “WIRED” Magazine and author of “The Next 5000 Days,” offered his version and the frontier in this world of generative AI.
He shared the three major trends – globalism, acceleration of innovation and AI-generation, as AI infuses economy and culture.
“AI is going to generate first the efficiency tasks that humans don’t want to do, and then it will help us do the tasks that we can’t do by ourselves, and lastly, it’s going to help us to create entirely new tasks that we want to do as humans,” he said during the keynote speech at the opening ceremony.
Michael Vallance, global managing director and Global Transaction Banking Head of Wealth & Personal Banking at the HSBC, also believes there’s much inspiration to take from China’s innovation.
“The interconnectivity of China’s digital environment provides new perspectives such as the seamless consumer experience and the digital payment ecosystem which could unlock new opportunities,” he noted.