Yi Wang is the co-founder and CEO of Liulishuo (LingoChamp / LAIX), the Shanghai-based company that built one of the world's first AI-powered English teachers. A Princeton PhD and ex-Google product manager, he returned to China in 2011 and shipped an app that climbed to the top of China's App Store within months, eventually serving tens of millions of learners and taking the company public on the NYSE in 2018.
Cindy Mi is the founder and CEO of VIPKid, a Beijing-based edtech unicorn that connects Chinese children aged 4-12 with North American English teachers through live one-on-one video lessons. A high-school dropout turned billionaire builder, she started tutoring English peers at age 15, co-founded an English academy chain at 17, and by 2020 had grown VIPKid to over 800,000 students, 100,000 teachers, and a $4 billion-plus valuation - backed by Tencent, Sequoia, and the late Kobe Bryant.
Kurt Beidler is the Chief Executive Officer of Quizlet, the AI-powered learning platform used by hundreds of millions of students worldwide. Appointed in July 2024, he brings 17 years of Amazon experience scaling subscription businesses - most notably growing Amazon Kids+ into the world's largest youth-focused subscription service and launching Kindle into China. Under his leadership, Quizlet has grown revenue to $139M annually while aggressively integrating AI tools including a native ChatGPT app integration, lecture recording features, and an OpenAI partnership aimed at keeping students' entire study workflow on one platform.
Liam Casey is the Irish founder and CEO of PCH International, the supply chain orchestration company he named after California's Pacific Coast Highway. Built from a Cork dairy farm upbringing and a decade in European fashion, PCH became a billion-dollar operation linking Silicon Valley's most ambitious hardware companies to a network of over 1,200 Chinese factories. Known as 'Mr China' in tech circles, Casey is renowned for carrying three phones, living out of hotels across two continents per week, and never once learning Mandarin — a deliberate vulnerability he credits for building deeper factory relationships than any fluent speaker could.
Eric Rosenblum is a General Partner at Xora Innovation, a Temasek-backed early-stage venture firm investing in AI infrastructure, applied AI, and deep tech. Based in Silicon Valley, he is the firm's first US-based GP, bridging Southeast Asian capital with American innovation. Before Xora, he built Foothill Ventures into a leading deep-tech seed fund and spent his career as an operator at Google, Palantir, and as founder/executive at two acquired startups. A Harvard and MIT Sloan graduate raised in Steubenville, Ohio, he brings a rare combination of big-tech product leadership, China market experience, and hands-on startup scaling to his role as investor.
David Lu is the co-founder and CEO of Clarity Movement Co., a Berkeley-based climate tech company that deploys hyperlocal air quality monitoring networks across 85+ countries. Growing up in smog-choked Shanghai and arriving to California's startling blue skies as a teenager, he turned personal contrast into a global mission. Clarity's tissue-box-sized solar-powered sensors have recorded over 500 million measurements, informed London's low-emission zones, and earned Lu a spot on TIME's 100 Most Influential Climate Leaders of 2025.
Hans Tung is a Managing Partner at Notable Capital (formerly GGV Capital), one of the most decorated venture capitalists in the world with 13 consecutive appearances on the Forbes Midas List - peaking at #3 globally. A Taiwanese immigrant who moved to Los Angeles at 13, Stanford-trained, and one of the first Silicon Valley VCs to relocate full-time to China in 2005, Hans has backed over 16 unicorns including Airbnb, Coinbase, Slack, ByteDance, Xiaomi, and Anthropic across three decades and three waves of technology: internet, mobile/cloud, and now AI.
The Smart #1 is a battery-electric subcompact crossover SUV that marks the complete reinvention of the Smart brand. Developed as the first product of a 50:50 joint venture between Mercedes-Benz Group and Geely Holding, it swaps the iconic two-seater city car formula for a five-door family crossover built on Geely's SEA2 electric platform. With Mercedes designing the exterior and interior, and Geely handling engineering and production in China, the #1 delivers up to 440 km of WLTP range, a 12.8-inch touchscreen with AI voice assistant, and a 0-62 mph time as low as 3.9 seconds in the Brabus variant.
The BYD Atto 3 is a battery electric compact crossover SUV manufactured by BYD Auto, the world's largest electric vehicle company. Launched in China as the Yuan Plus in February 2022 and rolled out globally as the Atto 3, it features BYD's proprietary LFP Blade Battery, a gym-inspired interior designed by former Audi and Alfa Romeo design boss Wolfgang Egger, and has sold over one million units worldwide.
Gilman Louie is a fourth-generation Chinese-American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and national security strategist who built the CIA's venture capital arm In-Q-Tel from scratch, co-founded Alsop Louie Partners, and now leads America's Frontier Fund — a nonprofit deep-tech investment vehicle aimed at securing U.S. technological leadership against China. Before any of that, he was the video game pioneer who brought Tetris to the West and built the Falcon F-16 flight simulator so realistic it trained actual Air National Guard pilots.
Adam Tooze is the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of History at Columbia University, Director of the European Institute, and one of the most widely-read public intellectuals in economics and geopolitics. His newsletter Chartbook on Substack has over 181,000 subscribers and his books - including The Wages of Destruction, Crashed, and Shutdown - have reshaped how historians, economists, and policymakers understand financial crises, the Nazi economy, and global disorder. He popularized the term 'polycrisis' and co-hosts the Foreign Policy podcast Ones and Tooze. Known for his extraordinary output, analytical range, and willingness to publicly revise his views, Tooze is that rare figure who straddles academic history and live economic commentary with equal authority.
Jordan Schneider is the founder and editor-in-chief of ChinaTalk, the premier independent newsletter and podcast covering US-China tech and policy. A Yale-educated historian who earned a master's in economics from Peking University's Yenching Academy, Schneider has built ChinaTalk into a 65,000-subscriber powerhouse with over 1 million podcast downloads in 2025 alone. He is an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and a former 2023-24 AWM Scholar, with bylines in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Wired, and Lawfare. Based in New York and fluent in Chinese, Schneider synthesizes elite policy analysis with accessible storytelling, covering semiconductors, AI development, export controls, and the full sweep of US-China competition.