3. Sprint master Dingyu Hu on design thinking, TEDx and a lifetime of cultural exploration

Hello, bonjour, ni hao and salut. Welcome back to the Impact around the World podcast. I'm Cassandra Pittman, edX Country Manager for the UK and Ireland and host of the show. Joining me this week is our Shanghai based alumnus, Ding Hugh Hu. Or as he prefers Snow, as in, you know, nothing, John Snow. Except as we'll hear this, Snow knows quite a bit. He's currently the China lead for Accenture's Liquid Studio and founder of the Design Sprint China Community Group. He's facilitated hundreds of teams through the design thinking process, including at Johnson and Johnson Deloitte and the European incubator startup Boot Camp. Snow, thank you so much for being here. How are you?

Yeah, it's good and happy to meet you, Cassandra.

Yeah, I'm happy to meet you as well. So paint a picture for us of what life is like in Shanghai. I mean I know that first of all China is a huge country. It's hard for us in the west to wrap our heads around it and we don't get much news except the very dramatic news obviously in these Covid times from China. So how's life where you are?

To be honest, it's quite good now actually since we have suffered from COVID 19 in the beginning of this year but China government has done a lot of things to fight for the COVID 19 so we recover from like much and now as everything goes goes good in our working and our lives but we still have raised a lot of habits like the co working online session with our clients and now we are still decreasing a lot of travel times and also spend a lot of time to doing online things with our clients and also our colleagues. So our life goes virtually but with our families so face to face every day.

That's good. Now you in terms of your social life, have things resumed to normal? I mean are you guys out back eating out and doing events or.

Yeah, but we still have a lot of policies. Like in the past we can organize like 500 people events offline, but now we have a lot of limitations. For example, if you want to organize the 100 people event you need a lot of permissions, so that's the difference. But we still can hang out and also have some small events and large events will all go virtually. So that's a big change.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I know that you are an active member of the alumni community in China which is really rather large and growing every year. Is the alumni community back to in person events yet?

Not really because I'm not that familiar with all the Alumni. But we have organized one alumni event I remember last month with like at Shanghai alumni. And they come from different areas. Some just find the jobs, their new fresh graduates. And also some are experienced. Hyde. We are all getting together. So I haven't seen some big changes for them. But I have heard about some stories like they lose their job, especially in some specific industries. But the alumni community can help them to find new jobs as soon as possible. So we have to exchange some ideas. Like for example, in some industries like the FMCG and also the consumer goods, they are facing big challenges in the beginning, especially our alumni working in that industry. But for some Internet industries, they are still going better. So I think that's a condition for our Shanghai alumni now.

Yeah, I guess not just our alumni, but that's probably the story in China for everybody and really around the world. Now I know that you have a deep love for tech and culture. You graduated in 2018 with your Bachelor's in Creative Business and Social Innovation. That's one of my favorite degrees that we do at edhec. Tell me a little bit about how you developed this passion for tech, for design thinking and for innovation.

Yeah. Okay. So it's quite a long story actually.

We've got time. We've got time. Snow.

Yeah. Okay. So in the beginning I was product managing a software company before I joined edec. So I already fall in love with the technology like maybe six years ago. But I still think I'm lack of some knowledge of the business and especially for the innovation side. So I choose to go to edec, achieve the Master's degree in creative Business and social innovation is because I already have experience in technology and technology. If you only have technology, you can make nothing happen since it's just the technology. But you need to combine technology and design, technology and fashion, technology and innovation. So that can make innovations happen very quickly. In my life in edtech, I have learned a lot of creative courses like how to create a product from 0 to 1 and also combine the technology, for example the big data. And also we can use like the blockchain to do some innovations in all industries. So after I graduation, I combine the technology, design and also the business, the three side. So I'm very mixed skills. And also that's why I enter into Accenture to lead the Liquid Studio team. Since the consulting world have changes and also needs a lot of people covering different skills. So that's why I have the passion in those skills. But from design thinking, it's also a basic methodology of the innovation. So I drive some innovations by using design thinking, this tool. So it's quite very passionate about the innovation methodologies. Not only design thinking, but also others like agile, Lean design, Sprint, et cetera. That's all the tools that we can use to drive technology innovations happen. And I think it's very related. For my current job, since I'm in Accenture, I'm doing the technology innovation. My job is to deal with innovation tackles every day. And also we need to find a lot of opportunities in both technology side and business side. Since you need to solve problems that's related to a business problem. But technology can play the big role behind the business. So that's a job conditions and that's also my hobbies. Every day I applied a lot of new technologies like also artificial intelligence and IoT some mixed reality for virtual learning, etc. That's very interesting things and I'm fond of that. And I think that's accumulation from what I learned in edec and I think it's appreciated.

Is there a reason you chose to come to France? I mean, you know, to study at edec? Were you attracted to France or was it the specific degree program at edec? And it wouldn't have mattered where EDH was.

Well, I think I have thought about like find a job in France in the beginning when I joined edec, but that's why I choose to go back to China after graduation from my decades actually because my family issues. So it's maybe a private story, but it's actually if you want to raise a family, you need to take everybody in your family's consideration. So I go back to China mainly because the family issues and I think I still have a connection with France because Accenture is a global company and we have a lot of like business travel and some global projects. We have a lot of French colleagues and also we have some. The Liquid Studio also have branch offices in Sofia, Andipolis and also in Paris. So I think we can collaborate online. It's not a problem now. So even I'm based in Shanghai, but actually I travel every day even though I'm in Beijing. So we're global citizen now. So distance is not a problem. And it's only just your business in Shanghai, but you can also have work in France. It doesn't matter.

I think one of the things that I love so much about the edict community is just how globally minded they are because there are lots of great business schools in the world. And I think one of the things that really helps or really it's not that it helps EDX stand out, but it's just really unique about the community. Right. Is that it's an exceptional school, doing exceptional research, having just incredibly bright and ambitious and game changing students, but who also have this global lens on things. And one of the things that stood out to me in your profile when I was doing your research is that you did mention this love not just of tech but also of culture. Where do you think that started?

I think started from my childhood. You know, in the beginning France is not my favorite country when I was a child. Because in China we have heard about a lot of stories like in Netherlands, because Netherlands is full of the freedom and also they have a great reputation. When I was a child, maybe Maybe more than 20 years ago, my father have told me a lot of something about the Netherlands. But why I choose France is because the unique culture is when I change my mind in my university life. I think that's attractive point for France. And also I think every country have this unique culture. And also the people in the same places share some interesting things. I can share a story with you. You know, people in the north especially for example in France, they still have something like the difference between the north and the south. But it's the same situation in China and also it's the same situation in other countries. That's because the areas we have different food choices and also even the accent of the languages. This all shape the local culture. Even in one country there are a lot of cultures happen. But the most attractive point for me is that diversified culture will make innovations happen. So have a strong connection with the innovations. For example, for example, a city like Montreal. In Montreal, in the city you have a lot of people leaving this side and at least the people can speak like it's trilingual languages. It's very normal. So somebody considers a cultural conflict. But in my side, it's a very unique combination of the local culture. And the people here are very open to accepting new ideas. So why I studied culture in very fond of the different cultures in the world. Because I think when one culture meet another culture, they will create a lot of innovation ideas. And that's the most passionate thing for me. So even, I mean, based in Shanghai, I do a lot of business consulting services now. I still sometimes persuade my clients to create a very diversified environment. Not only the culture but also the backgrounds, something like that. Like you have the different backgrounds in design, you have backgrounds in technical. The diversity environment will create the big innovations happen. So that's my belief. And also that's why I fall in love with the different cultures. And when I stayed in adaca, because ADHAC is an international school assignment project, we have students from different countries and also all of them can find their own places in this school and even after their graduation they can all find their places. I think that's a difference why EDECH is so unique for me and also why I love this Atom sphere.

Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. I don't know if you've ever heard our. I'm hoping I get his title correct. I think his title is the Associate Dean for International Relations. Do you know Richard Perrin by any chance? You might not. I mean, you know, because he doesn't have a student facing role at all. But I work with him quite a bit and he gave a little bit of a speech or a presentation is the right word for it at the EDEC alumni day that we do in Paris once a year a couple of years ago. And he really outlined the school's strategy for international development when it comes to the student experience. And one of the things that I thought was really different about EDX strategy is it doesn't have the strategy of opening campuses in lots of different locations, which is one of the strategies that a lot of schools do. Like if you look like nyu, it has a campus in London, a campus in Paris, a campus in Dubai. That's how it's expanding.

It's also in Shanghai.

And the point he made, and I'm massively paraphrasing here, so I don't want him to listen to this and say that I butchered his words. So we were going back a couple of years ago. But what I understood the point he made was, you know, we can build a campus and we can send our students to that campus. But let's say we have a campus in Shanghai and it's an EDEC campus in Shanghai. Are they really having and experience of Chinese culture? If we just take them from EDHEC campus in France to EDHEC campus in Shanghai with EDEC professors and all of our system instead of having that approach. The strategy that he's leading is to have a lot of very well recognized exchange programs with top tier schools and programs around the world. So that when we exchange, when our students exchange there and when students from those schools exchange exchange with us, they really are getting a very deep and very meaningful cultural experience in market. And I think that's, you know, it's really, it's an innovative way to approach actually like intercultural exchange on an education level.

Yeah, I really agree with you actually. I think for example, you have some campus in other areas. I think it's just the locations, it's not a campus actually. Since people can only enjoy the atmosphere in a very centralized area. And if you want to make your students engaged in a project, you need to gather them in the same place. And also I think that's the charming point for EDEC is because ADEC chooses strategy. I think not that very ambitious for like I want to be the top one. Not. Not that. But focus on. People need to find their own place. I really appreciate this point because a lot of people, not every person like to be the top one in all areas. But people want to find a very suitable place for them. That's important thing. So I agree with the strategy and I think the strategy can be better with the experience. But now because we have COVID 19 so people can't meet with each other. But I think the edec. I also heard about the EDEC online after graduation. So because we think online courses just. They're facing. A teacher can tell you something. But actually we can also build online courses, very interactive and also create some way to face the COVID 19 influences and also created some interactive workshop and also some courses for EDEC online. Maybe we can extend this strategy to online. That's also a good point.

Yeah, absolutely. I think the EDHEC online is doing some just incredible work actually. And it's difficult to explain just how wonderful and meaningful the experience can be of kind of online education when it's done right. Because I think we have so many examples of just somebody setting up a camera and talking at a camera for two hours. And obviously that's not super interactive or really interesting actually. And that's what a lot of schools have had to do when they had to just quickly adapt. At least here. I don't know what it's been like in China, but teachers were never taught how to teach over a camera and so they just set up zoom calls. But our faculty are going into. There's been just a huge amount of design work that's gone into the courses to make sure that they can mirror the in person experience as much as possible. Or maybe that's the wrong way to put it, not mirror the in person experience, but deliver the same value, which includes things like developing relationships with your peers and learning from your peers, et cetera. I'm really excited about where that's going also because it allows us to provide education to people that might not be able to travel, might not have the resources to be able to travel to France or can't travel because of something like COVID 19.

Yeah. I think for online courses there are still a lot of problems and something we can do better for the experience side. Since people always want to have a face to face communication. Maybe it's better for our engagement and online side. Maybe lack of some experiences and some experience for the students. But it's a problem that I'm also confused. Actually I have thought about these problems for a long time since February. Because I think in the beginning people at home and we can have like online courses. Of course you can learn skills and knowledge. But you know, lack of some communications and especially if you want to do a presentation and a pitch in front of a professors. Lack of the human touch. I think I'm not. I'm not sure how to say. But just the problem. Maybe we can communicate on this side. I've had. I have a dream. Maybe the dream is like we can totally change the experience from offline to online. But it's the same experience. I think it's quite difficult. But I'm looking forward to that. Especially when people in educational industries can sort about some ways to make this happen. Maybe the mixed reality technology can help. You know, now we are currently doing a project that is used to mixed reality for learning. People can use some device devices and also you can see some people's guests in a virtual meeting room. You can also use a PowerPoint. You can also hear everybody's voice, see everybody's face online. The technology already can make this happen. But one thing we missed is the emotional changes exchanges. If we can solve like something like this, maybe it will be a very interesting topic to design for attack online.

Yeah, I mean with Accenture's Liquid Studio. Do you work at all with education?

That's a pity. We haven't had some experience since education industry in China. I think the market is not very huge to. To raise like a consulting firm. So we have. We didn't have any clients in the educational industry. But now I know a lot of Internet companies. For example Alibaba and Tencent. In China we have created some new business. Some business are related to education and we are now to doing some cooperations with them. So maybe educational, not only educational industry but also some other industries have crossed this knowledge into educational side. So I think it's also another way for innovation. You know, in China there are a lot of courses online platform. The biggest platform is actually created by Tencent.

Is it really? I mean obviously Tencent has Been in the news here quite a bit but just because of the TikTok Trump stuff. Yeah, but. But I was interested to learn what else TikTok does actually. Excuse me, what else Tencent does because obviously it extends beyond just TikTok.

Yeah, TikTok is now on the top is because you know, for Tencenters they have a platform, very official platform for some qualified courses. And for example, if I'm a teacher from agency or from a school, I can also upload by my own for some courses. But courses should be qualified by the by a special department they can have like a validation of their courses. So intention platform is not like TikTok. You have some short videos intention platform it all have some different learning courses from universities, schools, agencies, persons and even from some enterprises they have enterprise like Huawei, they have enterprise universities. So some courses can be uploaded to the platform. So in Chinese we call it's like Tencent courses platform. The platform is so big and I know a lot of people when they want to learn like, for example IELTS and also they want to take some exams and also they can take some test in the Tencent platform. So that's a new business for Internet company, not from educational side. So it's quite a mix. So I think maybe in the future all the industries can mix with Internet industry. So why not?

Yeah, why not? So I know that you're also involved in the TEDx community, is that right?

Yeah.

Yes, tell me about that.

Yeah, it's quite interesting because everybody I think knows TED is a TED Talk and a lot of people listen to the 18 minutes TED talk, very enjoy the talk and TEDx is like local TED license and we need to get license from TED officially and we can use this license to hold TEDx events in local areas. For example, you have TEDX London and also TedX Paris and TedX Shanghai and even you can create TedX in a university or in a company. TedX, Tencent, TedX, NYU. So it's a quite local community and we created some local TEDx events to gathering some people from technology and also startups and also some other industries. The TD means technology, entertainment and design. So you have a lot of topics to share. The ideas were spreading in the TEDx events. I was a TEDx organizer and now I hold a TEDX license in Shanghai area. But maybe you're confused. I have doing a lot of things but that's my way to manage my time actually because I think in weekdays I work for salary but for weekends I work for my own. So Some telex events are hold in the weekends and people can enjoy the very relaxed atmosphere, can talk with the peers in the same industry and share some ideas. It's quite relaxed. So some people choose to have a holiday vacation in weekend but from my side I choose to organize the TEDx event instead. So that's all personal choices. And Also I think TedX platform because in China there are hundreds of TedX so we have a local TedX community and the people in this community are also very interesting because they have a lot of crazy ideas since TEDx the slogan of TEDx is ideas were spreading so they share ideas every day. So as you can see, a lot of things I am doing is actually have one same is just innovation. So technology is also a way for innovation and design thinking, etc. Methodology is also a way to make innovations happen. So all things around innovation and every time I find a new idea and I can create quick prototypes and to realize it's quite fascinating and also I'm very passionate about this point. If we can build innovation. So TedX and also my community like Dennis Spring China and my job in exchange is all doing things in innovation. I think that's my personal vision, maybe in my life.

That's amazing. And do you think, and I know we touched upon the. You said it was a bit personal before, but do you think that you will stay in China? Do you think you'll build the rest of your career there?

Good question. Absolutely. And I talked with my family, with my wife every month maybe about this topic.

I don't want to cause any marital fights.

I have some, I have some ideas actually because I've said now I think our generation is a global citizen. So I think the vision of a person when he was born, she was born, she has a vision. It's like to realize a dream to find a place to live, to find a person to love. So I think in my life I would change some locations. Maybe I enjoy like maybe several years in one place and several years in another place. But it depends on I can risk myself and risk my family. So not sure actually for this question. I think because now I'm based in Shanghai and I also have some pressure from the family side and also from the life, from the job. But I think in the future I may change a place to live. Maybe not on Earth to on Mars. Maybe so many years can change. So now my answer is now I'm based in Shanghai, but who knows, three years later I moved to other places. But whatever I live, I think I will enjoy the multicultural things and I will enjoy the life in every places.

Well, Snow, you know, the whole reason we decided to do this podcast series is because we know that there are large communities around the world of EDHEC alumni who are in various degrees of lockdown still. Right. And we've been thinking hard and feeling hard about how we can best facilitate connection and community in this time when people feel a little bit removed, potentially, from the communities they've relied upon and depending on where they are, have limited scope. And everybody's been behind a screen a lot. And we've been, of course, doing webinars like everybody, but we wanted to do something else that wasn't behind a screen. And I just feel that, in fact, I've written it down. I mean, you've really just exemplified that so beautifully when you said everybody has a vision of their life to find a place to live, to find a person to love. And that is exactly the spirit. Right. We have this beautiful community of people around the world, but. But we're all really the same, looking for the same thing. And I just really want to thank you for your time today. I really want to thank you for being so open. This is exactly the spirit of what we're trying to achieve.

Yeah. It's also a great experience to talk with you and share some feelings and also some stories now, especially in a COVID 19 environment. And also wish we have a very strong community and also more interactions between countries. It's quite a good way for the alumni when they graduate and when they, for example, change their locations, they can find a better job and also find a PE very quickly. That's all the experience for a person's life, I think.

Yeah, absolutely. If people want to learn more about Sprint China Community Group or Liquid Studio or just about you, where should they go?

We have a lot of ways to find them because for example, in China we have the WeChat official account, so you can search. And also for TEDx is a global community, so you can just type tedx tedx.com and also find a TEDX program. And especially for Accenture, Liquid Studio, other things can be very transparent and everything can be searched online. But if you want to know some details, just can reach me from LinkedIn, from Facebook, from WeChat, anywhere. I use a lot of tools, so you can always find me, I think.

Okay, Snow, thank you so much. Have a wonderful. I think it's evening in China. I really appreciate your time and I hope that we get to meet in person one day.

Yeah, thanks Cassindra.

Thank you very much. Bye bye. Impact around the World is an initiative of the pioneering EDHEC Delegations team and EDHEC Alumni. A huge thank you to my fellow country managers Patricia in California, cece in China, Nilesh in India, and Joyce in Singapore for helping to make these interviews happen. We're committed to building a community beyond the classroom for you, our 46,000 alumni in over 125 countries. Follow us on Twitter @EDech alumni or visit the alumni website at alumni. Edec. Edu to find out more about how you can connect with the EDHEC community close to you and around the world. Thanks for listening.