CBS Event of March

British Chamber Young Professionals: The Art of Failure, supported by CRCC Asia

This decade China is set to regain the status it has held for 18 of the past 20 centuries: the world’s largest economy. A major engine of historic success was China’s inexorable drive to develop and deploy new technologies, far outpacing other civilizations. As British Sinologist Joseph Needham documented in The Genius of China, about 90% of the technologies that underlay the West’s industrial revolution were actually invented in China. Today, revitalizing China’s innovation engine presents unique opportunities to accelerate the world’s next industrial revolution.

One of the biggest fears of entrepreneurial innovators is failure, and yet in many ways it is all part of the game. In this event we aim to answer the question: If China is going to become an innovating nation, do individuals need to learn how to fail?

About our speakers

Zhu Bei, Co Founder of TSL Britain Education, runs a series of education related projects including bespoke tutoring, summer course in Cambridge University, Parental support, Presentation & Critical thinking courses with public schools and various small non-profitable projects, all with the vision to develop internationally competitive Chinese students. Prior to TSL Zhubei worked as a language trainer for Beijing Olympics, and CCTV- IMG as an interpreter/corporate language trainer and business coordinator. 

Growing up in a full Chinese education system and being not very passionate about how classes are taught, she experienced a lot of failure in her own school years. Now running a business that helps with many Chinese students, she speaks to worrying parents on a daily basis talking about failure and challenges students nowadays face and how they could cope with it. She r looks forward to sharing her thoughts and experience on the value of Failure.

Richard Robinson is a serial tech entrepreneur and executive, working in China since 1996. He has served as a senior executive at three companies from pre-IPO through to their public listings then went on to found five companies of which three have exited to publicly listed firms.

Richard is an Adjunct Professor at Peking University's Guanghua MBA program teaching Entrepreneurship in China.  Active as a startup advisor, mentor, and angel, Richard is a mentor at 500 Startups, Chinaccelerator and HAX.  He frequently speaks at tech conferences globally, including serving as master of ceremonies at TechCrunch Beijing, Web Summit Lisbon and Dublin, GMIC Beijing and SiliconValley, and Startup Asia Singapore and Jakarta. Richard earned an MBA from RSM at Erasmus University in The Netherlands, studied at Cambridge University in the U.K., and graduated with a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Southern California.

Q&A