Shanghai? What the f... are you doing there????

I have arrived in Shanghai yesterday afternoon and I realized I "forgot" to tell some people about it. Not nice... :D

I came here to spend three months, until end of April, and this is part of my Education at the Kaospilots. Every class of students (called Team) goes abroad for three months during their 4th semester, with the goal of exploring new trends and movements outside Europe. Previously the Kaospilots have been to Durban in South Africa after the end of the apartheid, in San Francisco during the Internet boom, Havana and Vancouver. This year the choice was Shanghai, China, with the overall purpose of studying and researching Social Innovation.

Shanghai is believed to be a "mover" in this early 21st century, capable of create changes that would influence east and west societies. Sort of London, New York, Paris of this new millennium... with over 18 million people and being the financial and economical capital of China, host of the World EXPO 2010, we can assume this statement might become true. Anyway, many challenges and many opportunities, and a bunch of young creative hippies from Scandinavia are here to find out - and publish it - in the 12 weeks...

Besides researching on Social Innovation, we will be working for 4 weeks on projects with local clients, which gives both funds to travel to China and also opportunities to work together with Chinese people and learn with them. The project I'm involved with is together with HaPe International, a toy company who has created a unique line of products based on bamboo. Our task is to use our creativity and idea development capabilities and create a new toy for their 2009 catalog, using sustainable materials such as bamboo, cotton, wood... very challenging and pretty interesting task. We will have the chance to visit their factory, their research & development department and even the Anji bamboo Forest near Shanghai.

I made a promise to write at least once a week in this blog, and I am sure I will have a lot to write about. Keep in touch, more to come... :)