Flowlin

The border between mainland China and Hong Kong is unique in the world. They were once one country and after a century of separation they are one again, but only theoretically. Because in the end the border remains and keep two economies and cultures separate. Hong Kong: it was once the jewel of China, “special” economic activity and a unique player in the whole country. But now, this economical miracle has (as many things in China) been replicated. The city of Hong Kong has found itself surrounded by many other special players of the Guandong province, in particular Shenzhen. But even if the two cities share the status of economical wonders, the resemblance stops there. We had a sense of that by observing their respective inhabitants and their movements. This short text is recollection of what we witnessed with our naive eyes during our brief period on both sides of the border.

A first observation about the migration dynamics can be done at the border itself. We had the chance to cross many times at different hours. On Saturday around noon it’s chaos to put it simply. We could observe two very different tidal wave of people pushing through the border and making the “mainland visitors” and “Hong Kong residents” lanes very crowded. We felt lucky to be in the almost empty “Foreigner/other visitors” lane. And among the massive amount of mainlanders we spotted some carrying empty bags which were probably going to be filled up by goods shopped from Hong Kong, where imported brands are less taxated and cheaper. Crossing in the other direction at 05:30 in the morning was very different. The border is almost empty but the few people we were queuing with were more in a hurry than the Saturday crowd.

Lo Wu border HK-SZ at 5:30 a.m.

As soon as the gate to the mainland opened we saw them dashing and running through the checkpoints. At a specific stop(a less surveilled one perhaps) they would take out big Marlboro boxes and split them among their friends who would continue the checkpoint run and be the first to deliver some cheaper original Marlboro on the market that morning.

But more than the people who move it is impressive to see the difference in the people who stay. In Shenzhen almost none of the permanent citizens is from Shenzhen. The city has grown by 30% every year since a decade and the true “locals” have been submerged by migrants. For us it’s difficult to tell. To our european eyes it is almost impossible to recognize who is from which part of China. But is not at all surprising to meet people that say they come from the near metropolis of Guangzhao and Foshan. They are often “business people” attracted by Shenzhen and its new, fast and dynamic market of opportunities. A student from Shenzhen university told us quite directly: “Shenzhen is the best city in all China if you are young. The other cities are full of old people and everyone thinks with an old mentality. If you are not from Beijing, Beijing’s people will make sure you feel so. If you are not from Shanghai, they will keep their distance. And in Guangzhao they only like who is from Guangzhao. They are old city. Here nobody will judge you if you are an outsider. Everyone is an outsider in Shenzhen.”. But even if we felt his words were true we also felt that westerners remained some real outsider even in the anomalous Shenzhen. There is no real western population there. You can still get some funny looks by children or people that aren’t use to see many white blond guys or girls with curly hair. You can feel your are of second importance in their mind because nobody speak your English language. The well designed city with a relatively good amount of bilingual screens and signs could make you think otherwise. But you can be at the lobby of a luxurious hotel and have trouble finding someone who can understand you clearly. Even when you find an English speaker in town you immediately feel they have never really exercised that language leading to slow conversations and often funny (and sometimes not) incidents. And you know that it’s nothing personal or that they are not lazy. It’s just that almost no westerners lives or visit there, so “English” is not an interesting market for them. What is clearly an interesting market there are building and construction. Many migrates to Shenzhen looking for job opportunity, among which many are from rural areas of the region. That’s something we know happening in almost all the cities of the world and in China it is not different. In order to make room for the new citizens the city needs to expand. Expand its services, factories, infrastructure and housing. This is why most of the rural migrants (mainly from western China) end up as construction workers. And even if they are the blood of the magical growth, sometimes they look as if they are not meant to be part of it. We need to walk away from the main streets to see them. Or sometimes we can get a view inside a construction site looking down from another building.

Workers accomodated in a construction sites seen from above, near Huaqiangbei

It’s one of the toughest lifestyles in China. Their lives are completely bound to the construction yard next (or in) to which they eat and sleep. Once we saw a group of them using empty containers as a makeshift kitchen-house. It’s difficult to say what their real situation is and how much the state takes care of them. Sometimes it looks all normal, clean and well regulated. Other times it can be a bit more weird and you remember some “bad stories” we have often heard about exploited contractors in many countries. We are left wondering.

We pass the border once again. From the mainland down to Hong Kong. We realize that there is one more barrier that separated this two people: language. One of our fellow students is Chinese and lived in mainland China for many years. She was our point of reference in Shenzhen as she speak fluently both English and Mandarin. When we would go around with her we would immediately feel less lost. For this reason it was quite fun to see her completely lost in Hong Kong. She suddenly became like us: a foreigner who cannot understand a word of what is being said around them. Cantonese and Mandarin are very different language indeed. But luckily for us (and for her) English is Hong Kong second language, and a strong 8% of the population is not of Chinese descent. I know it seems nothing but it definitely feels different. It’s enough to give the impression that Hong Kong is a cultural and economical melting pot. If you walk downtown in Yau Tsim Mong district or in Wan Chai on Hong Kong island you really feel and meet other cultures. In the nightlife district of Lan Kwai Fong we saw people from everywhere in the world: Korean, Australian, English, French and so on.

We pass the border once again, from the mainland down to Hong Kong. We realize that there is one more barrier that separated these two sides: language. One of our fellow students is Chinese and lived in mainland China for many years. She was our point of reference in Shenzhen as she speaks both English and Mandarin fluently. When we would go around with her we would immediately feel less lost in Shenzhen. For this reason it was quite fun to see her completely lost in Hong Kong. She suddenly became one of us: a foreigner who cannot understand a word of what is being said around them. Cantonese and Mandarin are very different languages indeed. But luckily for us (and for her) English is Hong Kong’s second language, and a strong 8% of the population is not of Chinese descent. I know it seems nothing but it definitely feels different. It’s enough to give the impression that Hong Kong is a cultural and economical melting pot. If you walk downtown in Yau Tsim Mong district or in Wan Chai on Hong Kong island you really feel and meet other cultures.
In the nightlife district of Lan Kwai Fong we saw people from everywhere in the world: Korean, Australian, English, French and so on.

Blurry view from a Lan Kwai Fong night

It was also interesting to see a fairly good amount of black people in the city. In the Lan Kwai Fong area they run many discotheques or similar businesses. And another place where we can see a grouping of minorities is the area of Tsim Sha Tsui and Yau Ma Tei. There you can find for example the Chungking Mansion where we had the privilege to sleep and roam a bit around to have the “full experience”. The mansion is an enormous complex, stronghold of the Indian minority of Hong Kong (and a sprinkle of Bangladeshis, Africans, Pakistani and others). The entrance to mansion really looks like you are getting into another universe and for a second you feel closer to new Delhi rather than Hong Kong.

One of the many Indian food buffets in Chunking Mansion

It’s really impressive to see how they created this special bazaar and cheap hotel complex that feels so separate from its surroundings. We often heard that indians tend to stick together and create some messy and chaotic indian-like environment in the city where they settle. And the Chungking mansion reminded us of this stereotype.

View from our room, inner courtyard of the Chungking mansion complex

We also understood that the mansion and its inhabitants were not too well seen by the Hong Kongers. A native friend of ours, when he discovered we were sleeping in the mansion, told us in a very colorful way:
“That is a place of sin. You must be very brave to stay there. Many ghosts lives there.” A rapid walk down by the most unsettling stairs and back-alley and we are out of the mansion facing a big commercial park which couldn’t contrast more with the place we just exited. Walking few minutes we realize that other minorities grouped in the Yau Tsim Mong district. We saw a fairly big mosque and passed a few Turkish restaurant. Luckily one of us is originally from Turkey which allowed us to quickly start a conversation with a turkish expatriate.

Turkish restaurant in Tsim Tsa Tsui

View of commonly visited mosque around Tsim Tsa Tsui

The conversation was fun and very colorful. We didn’t know how representative his opinion was but we felt it could have been surely true for others expatriates in the country. It was something around those lines:
“I don’t give a damn about this place and its culture. One of the few merits of Hong Kong is that it is not as bad as China. I’m here because of the business. Which is good businesses, even if it’s getting harder and harder to work here and things are not anymore like when I started.”
He told us that he worked in the export industry finding interesting goods, filling up containers and shipping them to to Turkey to be sold.

It’s difficult to talk about immigration in Hong Kong without talking about the Filipinos. They are more than one hundred thousand and they are by far the largest minority in Hong Kong. Walking downtown on Sunday they are difficult to miss. Inside or under elevated walkways, on large public staircase of a plaza or on benches, they sit together and go about their communal life.

Scene from Filipino community from a Sunday

They mainly take jobs as domestic workers and Sunday is their free day. The reason for their presence is mainly economical. Even with an university degree they would find better financial opportunities in Hong Kong than in the Philippines. Moreover the city seems to have accepted their presence just as one more metabolic process of its economy. To exemplify that, we noticed that they sit on some big pieces of cardboard for comfort. At the end of the day they would leave them behind and some other people would tidily collect them. We wonder if those people were still part of the filipino community, government employees or if a third party was renting them the cardboards to make a profit.

On one side Shenzhen presents a population generated almost fully by migrants. Only very few percent of Shenzhen population accounts for real natives of the city. The rest of the population stems from the huge flow of migrants to the city due to rapid and constant growth over recent decades. Among these migrants very little fraction can be called foreigner, yet most of the migrants are from different parts of China. The city attracts the Chinese migrants thanks to economical growth and the constant flow of migrants increase the demand, provide workforce and thus drive the economy further. Not only border separates the two cities but also composition of Hong Kong inhabitants are much more different than Shenzhen. Unlike Shenzhen, 8 percent of Hong Kongers do not belong to Chinese origins. The migrant population in the city is dominated by Filipinos. Other than Filipinos, Indian community is very appearant in Hong Kong especially in Chunking Mansion and the district around that. Around the same location Bangladeshis, Africans, Pakistani can also easily be observed. Though both cities present a lot of job opportunities and attracts a lot of migrants thanks to that, integration issues of migrants can clearly be seen especially in Hong Kong.

Luca&Berk

The idiom “middle class” has only specific definitions, no outwright meaning is linked with the term even though it is used by most. Actually cities or countries can have their own measure for it that can be based not only on income but also on socio-cultural traits or different goods and services that the group may access. This of course depends on the welfare system, the different types of industries in the region and eventually the variety of cultural behaviours. If we were to define Middle class we would put it as all of the population that is not the 20% poorest or 20% richest. In this essay we are going to try to grasp the notions of how to understand the socio-economic impact of the middle class in Hong Kong and Shenzhen through the study of the housing market in both cities.

The stories of the two cities as well as their population is inextricably linked yet totally different. As the United Kingdom rented the land from China, Hong kong have in modern history been a favoured in terms of economic policy and openness to the western world. It is to no wonder that there were a major contrast between the wealth of the population of Hong Kong and their neighbours in the Guangdong province.

In 1979 Shenzhen, then a fishing village, was declared China’s first special economic zone. Then the city grew rapidly both economically and demographically, at a rate of 30% every year for 30 years, serving as Hong Kong’s productive hinterland. For the population this not only means that wealth is created, eventually increasing the salaries for the middle class, it also pushes towards an evolution of the economy from manufacturing and agriculture to a service economy.

Today however, the roles are changing. Shenzhen has today a comparable number of skyscrapers to Hong Kong, but what about its population? How did the purchasing power evolve? Who is the common man of each city?

As the 3rd most expensive city in the world, where a cup of coffee there cost 6.6$ according to Mercer’s annual cost of living survey, the price of the housing market in Hong Kong is unbelievably high. Actually for most Hongkongers it represents a major obstacle to their indepence. There is today a phenomenon where many knowledge workers have little chances to owning any estate in the City as a they need to pay 10 up to 20% up-front which can represent 10 years of savings for an average bank employee. Unlike the middle class, the poorest have a chance to own their own estate as they have access to subsidised housing, whilst all of the population enjoys subsidized care in hospitals and free basic education. Therefore one can define the part of the population that is not owner of the estate they live in as middle class. This corresponds to a modern definition of the term, that transcends origin, native language or sector of activity to which the subject is connected.

In effect this defined middle class is a surprisingly large group of the Hong Kong population, but how is it in Shenzhen, the neighbouring city in mainland China?

In Shenzhen, the price of the estate has grown into making Shenzhen one of the more expensive cities in China. An average home costing about 55’000 Yuan/sqm almost three times higher than the average of the city Gouangzhou, not far from Shenzhen. China daily even reports that in order to be considered middle class, a person should earn roughly two times the income of the national average.

Like for Hongkongers, the initial investment to buy a house is keeping most from getting their own place as they need to come up with a 70% down payment. Again we can see a pattern where the population can be separated by their ability to afford their household.

This has become a drawback for most companies as their employees are often unable to afford, pushing companies like Huawei to move outside of the central area. This trend is understandable as the prices in Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing rose 41.25 percent, 22.5 percent and 15.47 percent year-on-year in July, Index Academy said.

As history goes, winners and losers arise from societal changes. Shenzhen has experienced the largest growth in the history of the world and it wouldn’t be surprising that the local population, or the middle class of 30-something years ago, may have suffered from this large economical growth. Maybe in the way that they could not keep up with the new industries, the mass migration or other possible sources, but actually this is not true and this is due to the Guangdong model.

SHENZHEN AND THE GUANGDONG MODEL

In some parts of China – and especially in Guangdong Province in southern China – rural communities have retained ownership of much of their land when its use is converted into urban neighbourhoods or industrial zones. In these areas, the rural collectives, rather than disappearing, have converted themselves into property companies and have been re-energised and strengthened as rental income pours into their coffers. The native residents, rather than being relocated, usually remain in the village’s old residential area. As beneficiaries of the profits generated by their village collective, they have become a new propertied class, often living in middle-class comfort on their dividends and rents.

We could for instance take the example of the Chen village, in the northern reaches of Shenzhen. The area lies 40 minutes from the city centre by fast elevated commuter rail, with a subway-style train arriving every few minutes. A train station deposits passengers in the centre of Longtou, and the tens of thousands of people who rent flats here are able to travel every day to Shenzhen industrial zones to work. Longtou contains a couple of small factory areas where some of the tenants work, but the city government has designated this section of Shenzhen as largely residential.

The Guangdong model shapes a distinct type of urban development. It has had a major impact on urban planning in Guangzhou and Shenzhen and in the creation of industrial zones in the Pearl River delta and beyond. It is has the flavour of the subtle balance of collective land ownership, local communities that remains from past rural village administration and negotiations between higher level and local authorities

In fine, middle class in both Hong Kong and Shenzhen are well defined by the struggle created from the housing market in both cities. With time, the initiative that the government put in place in the Guangdong region have actually limited the disruptive nature of the unfathomable growth of the region for the local population but might leave the migrant workers, coming by the thousands from all over China in the position of never earning their home.

Romain T & Axel N

Sources

http://theasiadialogue.com/2017/06/30/political-economy-of-hong-kong-income-inequality-and-housing-issues/

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2016-11/17/content_27408686.html

http://www.cefc.com.hk/download.php?file=2128e61e33aa2eaf8896e8de5bbb521a&id=100044502 The Guangdong Model of Urbanisation: Collective village land and the making of a new middle class

https://www.scmp.com/comment/article/1523911/hong-kongs-middle-class-priced-out-housing-market

http://epaper.chinadailyasia.com/focus-hk/article-211.html

Monday

Back to work! Monday was a very packed day. We started with a presentation at HKinvest in the morning where we got to understand better the HongKong market which is really different from the one in Shenzhen. Then we visited ModernTerminals, a container-handling and logistics service. It was mindblowing to be able to see all the containers on the port from the top floor!

They brought us also to a nearby building where Panalpina proceeded to organise, stock and send all the packages in the containers. The last event of the day was a pitch at MakerBay, another coworking space in HongKong. It was inspiring also to hear about the project of the people working at MakerBay. So many makers, so many ideas!! After Kevin and Sandra’s pitch, we ended the day in the best way possible with an amazing buffet at the workspace.

On the way back to the campus we decided to have a team meeting to discuss the future of Flowlin. It was an important milestone for us as we needed to agree on common ground. We wish to continue this project and push it as far as we can. We wish to test fully functional prototypes at the end of the year at the Rolex library in order to get precise feedbacks.

Tuesday

The day started around 12:00 with a conference/ pitch session at HKUST were we got to share our ideas with master students. Nathan pitched and the students gave us many feedbacks. 

We left the campus at 5pm to go Brinc, a famous accelerator in HongKong founded by Bay McLaughlin an American entrepreneur. They kindly offered us some pizza and one team after the other, as usual, pitched their project. As it was the last pitch of this trip we could really feel an amelioration compared to one at the beginning of the trip and the end was very emotional. I think we all realised the work we’ve done until now and we can definitely be proud!

Team Flowlin.

One country, two systems does it also count for education? The aim of this article is to highlight the differences and similarities between the education systems of Shenzhen (China) and Hong Kong. Through interviews, we gathered insights about the curriculum, habits and feelings of both systems.

When we were in Shenzhen we discussed the topic from a Chinese perspective with Hailey, a student from Shenzhen Foreign Languages School. On the other hand, we have been able to discover the Hong Kong reality thanks to two students from the HKUST we talked to Gillian and Kevin, both engaged in business studies. Thanks to them, we have been able to test our perspective on both what we experienced in Shenzhen and what we live back in Switzerland.

Studies path

In Shenzhen, the basic course of schooling consists of primary school, where three major subjects Chinese, English and Math are taught. After that middle school, high school and university follow. It seems that in Shenzhen there are no alternatives than following exactly the path described above. Consequently, University is a must. One thing, which is very important to take note of, the education is severe, stressful and very important for your status within society. For example, students pass hours and hours on studying for the GaoKao exam – the entrance test for university. They have to pass six different subjects, wherefore they spend in average around one year to prepare – then failing is unthinkable!
In Hong Kong middle and high school are not really separated from each other as Gillian explained to us. However, my idea of a more dendritic education system was refuted. To get a university degree in Hong Kong is an imperative as well as in mainland China. A very interesting part was their unconsciousness about more practical job apprenticeships. They are unaware how painters or electricians are trained, which I guess is most likely linked to the uniformity of their education system.

Failing to avoid failure

In the previous discussion, we have introduced the education path followed in both Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Although we outlined the importance of achieving a proper university status, failing the entrance test, being the GaoKao in Shenzhen for instance, is still a possibility. What are the options then for students in China and Hong Kong? Both of them, according to the students, commonly find a remedy by moving abroad with their studies. By taking this path, students have the chance to finalize their studies while experiencing less competition. However, substantial financial support is required and families might not have such resources. Students from Hong Kong usually encounter the same option whenever they cannot accomplish their education path at full. However, a common approach in Hong Kong can also be identified in the general tendency to adjoin into their portfolio a series of skills and integrated competencies learned thanks to specialized schools in the area..

Stress Level

As you can imagine a lot of stress lies on your shoulders when you know that your performance at school has direct influence on your social status and your future life. In Shenzhen the source of pressure are mainly the parents as well as the teachers. In Hong Kong, family plays also a major role but the pressure for success at school is also built by the students themselves as they compare regularly their results with their peers.
Hailey from Shenzhen told us that her school recently published a list with the 50 least performing students by sticking the results on the entrance doors. Hailey mentions health issues, like depressions or mental problems due to this high and permanent exposure to stress.

Censorship

The differences between Mainland China and what lies on the other side of the border are well known. While in Shenzhen we have been lost in services like Baidu, WeChat, and so on, in Hong Kong the ecosystem is less surprising and dominated by known Google, Whatsapp, etc. Such differences are not only present in the way we access social media services but are the result of a different perspective on the two realities with respect to expression. When talking with Gillian and Kevin in Hong Kong, we have come to understand that a big flow of international students in the city-county’s universities are mainlanders. According to them, such phenomena are strongly interested in a more “freedom” atmosphere which, incidentally, may lead to a stronger and performing research and education. In Shenzhen, this perspective about having more freedom in Hong Kong is definitely shared as we learned from Hailey. As many applications and websites are blocked for people living in China, they are not aware of things happening for example on Youtube. Hence, gaining worldwide information is hindered. A VPN is the only solution to overcome these boundaries but of course, this way is not at all supported by the government. Hailey highlighted that Shenzhen, as well as Beijing and Shanghai,  are however cities, which are considered as more open since they consist of a lot of young people who bring a lot of new mindsets and concepts to the city.

Our feelings

Having to explore a topic such as the education system in the two realities of Shenzhen and Hong Kong, was an incredible opportunity. We have been able to get in touch with two unique contexts and see how they can relate to each other on multiple aspects. However, we felt intrigued by the different approaches one could have caught during each interview. Hailey was an incredibly smart girl, but while discussing the topic with us, we had the clear feeling that she sees several deficiencies within the Chinese education system but was still conservative by enunciating them. On the other hand, the discussion with the HKUST students was far more willing to engage in the conversation. They have been very open and expressive regarding all our questions. Could this divergence in the approach be more related to others factor such as language instead? For sure it could be the case and our limited amount of interview won’t be proving it. However, while taking interviews a strong focus should always be external to the context itself, in order to catch transversal pieces of information from the body language to the speaking attitude.

Morning at the Skytop with InvestHK

After a packed weekend full of cultural experiences we were ready to start a new week of the CHIC. Pitches and interesting visits here we come!
The day started strong with three presentations at InvestHK which is located very centrally near Admiralty station. The presentations got us to understand the startup ecosystem in Hong Kong and what the city has to offer for emerging businesses. The speeches were very insightful towards the amount of investment in Fintech and R&D efforts in general around the area.

This feeling increased when the Science and Technology Park (HKSTP) presentation got our attention to the efforts of Hong Kong to become predominant in the area in terms of high-end research.

Earth, Air and Water: The great Hong Kong Cargo Logistics

Right after lunch we also visited the Modern Terminals facility which is a maritime logistics complex. It is a key platform for import and export in Hong Kong. We had the chance to overview 90-hectare facility as well as hearing presentations.

To further understand the sector, we visited Panalpina an air cargo company available in six continents. It was very interesting to be able to compare in one afternoon both air and sea cargo companies.

Split Into Two: Dimsum Lab + MakerBay

For the last visit of the day, the teams were divided into two to visit different maker spaces. Flowlin, Guido and Seeki went to Makerbay while Toygether and Core took the way to Dimsum Lab. Makerbay is located near Tsuen Wan station and it is socially responsible and eco-friendly makerspace. They are especially interested in projects that merge social issues with maker spirit. Even though the Makerbay had only moved to their current location only two weeks ago, we could still sense potential and the energy of the place and the staff. We felt very welcomed as local makers shared their ideas with us over a delicious meal. Meanwhile two other teams presented their projects and exchanged ideas at Dimsum Lab. Different than MakerBay, Dimsum Lab was composed of hobbyist makers. The discussions were both open and very interdisciplinary which led to interesting comments and new ideas

Departure from Shenzhen and arrival at HKUST

Saturday, we had to transfer from Shenzhen to Hong Kong. For this, we had the meet up at 10am in the lobby of the hotel. For some people it was difficult because of Friday night 😉 To leave the Marco Polo hotel, we had two minibuses for 30 people and luggages. It was a bit tight but nonetheless funny anyway. After waiting at the two customs, one for leaving China, and one to enter in Hong Kong, we took the subway. The subway doesn’t serve the university directly so we finished the journey by bus. We arrived just before noon so we just dropped our luggage and went to lunch inside the campus. The rest of the weekend was free so every team did different things.

The campus is quite big and just in front of the ocean. The beachfront didn’t seem that hospitable, so a team tried to go to the swimming pool on campus, however the pool access is not easy as we do not own a student card from HKUST.

Journey to Lantau Island: Big Buddha and Po Lin Monastery

The CORE Team split a bit. One of them had to get a rest so he just slept the whole afternoon. Another one went to a trip around the Hong Kong city. The four others played cards in the common room. For the evening, they met all of them to the Manakamana Nepali Restaurant, an indian restaurant in the center if the city. As they were five taking a taxi would be too expensive and no Uber was okay to come to HKUST so they decided to move using the public transportation. The restaurant was quite good as all the indian restaurants they tried before and came back to the university at 10pm and finished the evening with a small informal meeting in of the room.

Sunday, they decided to visit the Big Buddha. They left in the morning the university for an one hour and a half of travel to the other side of the island. We had to take a cable car for 210HK$ but was worth it. At the top of the hill they observed the big statue, a monastery, and an abandoned village that looked like a scene from an apocalypse movie and then they ate in a really good vegetarian restaurant. On the way back, we stopped in the center of the city and we fell in the street where was the beer festival.

Hiking at dragon’s back

Another part of the CHIC group took the opportunity of the free Sunday to hike around Hong Kong beautiful nature. We left HKUST at 7 am and went to the Dragon’s back. The start of the hiking was on one side of the mountain then it is necessary to go up to the summit which is at 285m of altitude then to go down on the other flank of the mountain. The arrival of the walk arrives on a small village where one can get food and water and, more importantly, on the “ big wave” beach to refresh oneself. However the waves were not so big … the beach was beautiful though.

In the middle of the afternoon, the group that went on the hike took a little rest after this intense trip in preparation for the last week of the CHIC. But also to train for the next and last pitches at Brinc.io, maker-spaces and HKUST.

Boat trip to the trio beach

A third group of CHIC students (who get up after midday…=))went to the port and bought boat tickets to go swimming at Trio Beach which is located on the Sai Kung district. The trip was very short. They were many asiatic tourists, so they decided to go a bit further where there were fewer people. They then bath in the ocean.. Then they walked along they the rocks and some of them did a quick nap on a small raft.

Dear CHIC community,

Yesterday we transferred to Hong-Kong. It was a very long and tiring journey, because first one need to pass the Chinese customs, pass many security checks and then Hong-Kong customs.

We will now spend 5 days in Hong Kong so the free Sunday that allows us to rest a little after this hard week of work in Shenzhen at X.Factory.

We sleep at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) The campus of the university is at the edge of the ocean, however the rooms are less comfortable than in Shenzhen.

On Friday, the day before leaving for Hong Kong we had to opportunity to visit the Huawei Campus in Shenzhen. We were welcomed by  David Harmon. He is Vice-President for Global Public Affairs at Huawei Technologies. We then had the privilege to visit the assembly line of the latest smartphone Huawei P20. At the end of the day, we also visited a company that manufactures PCBs. It was not located in Shenzhen, however in a more rural area, outside the city.

Finally, we presented at the MS7 the respective progress of our projects and made a demo our functioning prototype.

Dear CHIC community,

On wednesday only a day after the assembly of the main PCB of our device, we received the second PCB for the backlight. On the same day components are soldered on that PCB for observing the functionality and how the light really diffuses through the device. In the meantime casing of the object is adjusted for the compatilibity with the user inputs like USB charger. Having done a significant progress in the project, there was an important step at the same day: pitching the project at x.factory in front of the maker community. Sandra and I pitched the project and received constructive feedbacks on some of the potential aspects to improve on. The relief of completing the pitch did not prevent us from trying the second PCB. With this test we saw  light coming through back side of the device for the first time!!

Moreover all participants visited Tencent where we learned more about the company and gained more insights of use of their products by chinese people. After that visit we went back to x.factory to prepare the prototype for the demo session for the last day of our stay in Shenzhen.

Stay tuned and wait for the milestone 7 for more details on our prototype!

After getting some components in Huaqiangbei, we went back to work on Monday. We were supposed to get the PCB in the morning, but there was another delay and we only finish assembling it on Tuesday at noon. In the meantime, we could still move forward and advance the Bluetooth communication and the design of the second PCB for the lighting.

Amandine and I went back to Huanqiangbei to get some magnets, but came back with a bunch of gadgets. Finding strong magnets was harder than planned and we didn’t have the time to neither order, nor search for much longer on the spot.

On Tuesday evening, we took part in the Sino-Swiss event with all CHIC teams and pitched our project to a crowd of makers and entrepreneurs who all had ties to both China and Switzerland. We had the chance to experience first-hand the importance of mastering the technical aspects of the slides and sound. It was a very good learning experience to pitch in front of a hundred person with a clumsy technical setup.

I am happy to write to you because the last three days have been the time for us to discover in depth the famous Huaqianbei electronics market. 

Huaqianbei (华强北) might be the biggest consumer electronics shopping in the world. A long and modern street unveiled as we got out of the Huaqian metro station. On each side, markets and towers rise above the street. Each is specialized on only one specific type of electronics components (LED, IC, wearable electronics …) and are filled with small electronics shops. 

As the prototyping of Flowlin is advancing towards having a functional prototype we needed to buy the components that are going to fit on the PCB that we sent to the factory on Friday and that we will receive on Monday.

With a list of components to buy, we decided to start with the lights (LED) and most of the pictures are therefore related to this first encounter. 

I’m going to walk you through the negotiation process for this first components by making a small recipe that any beginner to the HQB market can follow to your own risk.

1. Find the right mall on the street, you can count a little while for that depending on the component. If you need to walk to the end of the street count 15 minutes.

2. Find the right floor inside the mall, this might be tricky as experience showed that people are not willing to help you if you are not interested in their components; otherwise, they act candidly about components outside of their expertise. This can really take a while, you should count at least to spend 15 minutes going through different kinds of elevators. Here you will also need to memorise where you are going because sometimes finding back to your group can become a nightmare, or at least feeling like the adulthood equivalent of children losing their parents in the shopping center.

   

3. Find a friendly looking booth and start asking questions. You might want to check the brands that are on display or the products displayed, in this case, the light hanging from the ceiling because most often then not, all of the stock is on display. If you are not successful at doing this then go back to step 1 because you are in the wrong building.

   

4. Get your best traduction app going because things are going to get tough in terms of communication. Make sure to be extremely clear about what you want because you might just start buying components with the wrong specs because the seller said « yes, yes » when looking at your reference.

5. Once you have successfully found the part you need and made sure that everything is in order you ask for the price for different amounts. Make sure that the seller understands that you would like to « try the part before mass production » so that you don’t get the tourist rate. 

6. Finally you can shake hands and go away with the goods or eventually you will learn that you will need to come back in an hour or a couple of minutes to let the vendor get the components somewhere around the corner (maybe buying it to some of his friends? going to his secret «stock » or going « to the factory »)

Once you have your part you can repeat the process for all of the other parts that you need.

Some extra steps might include:

• Ask for the data-sheet and footprint for the components that you bought and receive a hand-written data-sheet in Chinese (we experienced this one pretty positively).
• Realise that the electronics you bought was fake and get back to the vendor to find someone else at the shop which doesn’t know what you are talking about.
• Talking with your co-workers to realize that your negotiation skills are not as good as theirs because you paid twice the price but they believe they might have bought fake components, and maybe you did too and become the double-looser of the day.

 Even if looking around and negotiating can be both long and tedious, the definitive upside of this technique is that in only one day’s work you can get all of the pieces that you need. As the market closed at 6 we needed to come back the day after to get some more parts and we spent a long day hunting down increasingly rare components. One positive side effect of the negotiation is that you will add vendors on WeChat and you will be able to experience the app as a social media (if you are a foreigner). 

All in all this experience was extremely positive for us, fun, unexpected and sometimes slightly scary we feel that without the CHIC we would not have been to experience the thrilling sport of component hunting in the most intense environment. 

Jet lag is getting better every day but we have a lot of work remaining and consequently the nights are short. During our second day at the coworking space of x.factory our engineers progressed on the final PCB design, which will be smaller than the previous one. Furthermore, some PCB corrections have been undertaken on the first PCB version. Our industrial designer was looking for purchasing the right colour for the casing but it turned out that this “easy task” is far more difficult than expected here in China. Even after several tries and specific article number ordering the intended color was still not delivered. We learn everyday to adapt ourselves to the Chinese circumstances. We also had the chance to present quickly our project to a Chinese businessman who has know-how in large scale production. He affirmed that the problem of getting distracted during work is big problem here in China.

Today, we had our first pitch in front of HAX accelerator, the world’s first and largest hardware accelerator, as they describe themselves. They invest in startups, who are selected through competitive selection, and help them to bring the product to the market, to develop their business and to raise money. For us it was a huge opportunity to train our presentation skills and to promote the product the first time in front of a CHIC external audience. During the next days, other pitch opportunities will follow.
Another exciting event of today was the visit of Huaqiangbei, a well-known district in China for the purchase of electronic components. Our team spent a lot of time searching the right LEDs, which we finally found at a good price.

Dear CHIC Community,                                                                                                                                                                      

Since setting the team name as Chircle at the end of ideation week-end, we have been searching for a more suitable name for the team and our product. We wanted the name to better represent our vision for the project and unify around a brand identity. Apart from Chircle we tried using the names “Inoff, Timeo, Focus Booster” throughout our CHIC journey. Eventually, we converged onto the one that we presented on MS5 last thursday: Flowlin! It represents the state of flow which refers to a mental state of focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of an activity. In addition to the new name and branding evolving around the same ideas as our name, we presented the logo of our product.   

The pricing strategy was one of the things we shared during the milestone. The current cost of the prototype taking all the materials, manufacturing and 3D printing into account was also shown. Even more importantly, the perceived value survey conducted by Sandra led to our current target price for Flowlin: 50 CHF! Moreover, Amandine presented her latest design for our object. It tackles the problem of fixation and portability in a very gentle way. A magnet which is integrated inside the casing is clipped to the top surface of the object and that enables the object stick to the computer or to any other surface. Also the object can stay on the desk and create light thanks to its round flat bottom surface.

On the software side we are working on connecting different pieces of the puzzle that we have built over the last year. There is the bluetooth communication that has to work both on the microcontroller and the computer side, the chrome extension that has to function on other browsers, and a main application in development that is going to connect everything. It is nice to see that all of the efforts that we made until now can build up to something!

It was very exciting to share the current state of the firmware development through two demos. One of the demos was capacitive touch sensor implementation on small PCBs  and what we can control with touching. While the other one was demonstrating the way to toggle the car mode on the iPhone to turn off notifications! We presented in MS5 the new version of the PCB design, which is currently being manufactured in SeeedStudio. Some components from the first version are removed to reduce complexity while keeping functionality of this first version. Yet, some are added to increase value and functionality to the PCB. We are looking forward to receive it soon to assemble the components and to test if the PCB works as intended!

Good luck to all CHIC participants for final touches to their projects before China!!

Stay tuned!

Team Flowlin

P.S. Please don’t forget to have  a  look at our landing page: https://chi.camp/projects/chircle/

Dear CHIC community,

Just a quick message before the final Milestone presentation (in Switzerland!) and before leaving for China!

We finally implemented the first technical prototype: We have integrated a new bluetooth module which will connect to iPhones and will toggle the Do Not Disturb Mode While Driving feature integrated in iOS. We developed as well our own capacitive sensing ring area that will be used to detect user interactions.  

For now, the capacitive sensing ring is constituted of 6 electrodes and 6 LEDs. It can detect short touch and long touch, but also gestures such as clockwise rotation. The next step is to merge all features that were developed separately to present them together during the final presentation of the semester.

One more thing, we finally ordered the PCB at Seeedstudio. We will receive it very soon, but we will not have it on time for the presentation. However, we will manage to assemble and test it before taking our flight.

Stay tuned!

Your CHIRCLE – Team

Dear CHIC Community

Our trip to China is getting closer and we have to get some major pending work done.
Berk is currently working on the final touch of our PCB design. Amandine is testing different shapes of the device and different types of material, which are able to diffuse light. Axel and Nathan are both in charge of developing the software, from where main control functions can be set and adapted. One important task is the programming and the other one is to create an user interface which is in accordance with user interaction guidelines. Kevin is progressing on the coding of the microprocessor. Furthermore, he makes sure that all functionalities like Bluetooth connection, touch sensors etc. are properly working. Finally, my current work consists of researching adequate sales or even renting options for our business model.
Isn’t it amazing to see how our different backgrounds now converge towards a shared common goal – that is exactly the huge value offered by CHIC.

The image illustrates new outcomes when an industrial designer (Amandine) works together with a firmware engineer (Kevin). The picture is taken through a hole of a PCB.

Never stop to try out something new!

Your CHIRCLE – Team

Dear CHIC community!

In order to move forward more quickly, we’ve decided to start focusing less on getting feedback from users of our early prototypes, but to start more concretely building our product. We’ve been able to try many of the aspects of our products with external people (a big thanks to all of them!) and while there’s still a lot to learn from user tests, we now feel like we have a good idea of what the product should be. This is why we’re now going to spend more time on actually shaping and building the final product.

Among our latest advancement, Kevin managed to implement his idea of making iPhones believe they’re connected to a Bluetooth car to automatically turn on the Do Not Disturb mode, a setting available since iOS 11. The drawback is that to do that, we need to use another older non-BLE Bluetooth chip, which would consume a lot of energy and add another component to our PCB.

For the milestone last week, we had settled on a name for our product: Timeo, but we’re now revisiting this choice, mostly because of its latin meaning. Indeed, the word “timeo” means “I fear” in the original language of Rome. That’s a bummer and we wish there was only the ancient Greek signification: “Honoring the Gods”.

Stay tuned,
Your Chircle Team

Dear CHIC community!

The Milestone 4 is now behind us!

We were able to present a 3D printed mockup of our product, a first digital mockup of the PCB and a new direction for the branding. We could share the many feedbacks we gathered with the 6 different tests and surveys we had done so far. Also, sharing the video of our new Chrome extension: Focus booster, helped people understand better the physicality of the work profiles.

If you are interested in trying our Focus Booster, do not hesitate to download the Chrome Extension Nathan developed: Focus Booster

And please let us know about your experience with it, we keep improving thanks to the feedbacks we get!

We are now happy to reveal for you the current status of our product:

It’s a friendly connected device that will help diminish physical and digital distractions at work. No more popping notifications or emails while you are trying to finish an important task. No more interruptions from your colleagues at work.

By placing the object either on the back surface of your computer screen or simply on your desk, the soft diffused light signal will indicate your coworkers about your current status in order for them to respect your working flow. The object being connected via Bluetooth to your computer, the only action needed will be to set the duration during which you wish not to be distracted. The software will take care of the rest in order for you to be more efficient at work.

In order to improve efficiently our device and prepare for the next Milestone we still have many steps to work on:

• Test the light (intensity, colour, shape, etc) and thanks to Kevin who did a functioning mockup of three connected LEDs I will be able to start doing so.
• Lessen the parameters the user will have to set on the Chrome extension
• Try our device at a professional open-space such as the one at Logitech entreprise or Rolex library
• Improve the compatibility with cross platform port with Electron
• Develop the bluetooth solution to block the phones
• Test and optimize the PCB for integrating into the object

Until then we’ll keep you updated so stay tuned for more information!

Your CHIRCLE Team

Dear CHIC community!

As the next Milestones arrives on May 4th the past week challenged us to take some decisions and further initiatives.

The conundrum we have been facing since the beginning of the semester can be summarized as one question which was invariably asked at every meeting: ‘So, guys, are we having the object on the desk or the screen?’.

The answer is not a straightforward one as one could imagine because changing the position of the object changes the way that the user interacts with the object hence changing the customer journey map, the potential clients and further underlying assumptions.

We have been trying to use the design approach to answer this question but sometimes it felt difficult to take in the feedback. Whether the problem was the sparsity of subjects for each prototype or that we didn’t agree with some of the comments, it was only for the last generation of prototypes that we could eventually decide on the position of the object.

In the end, we have come to the conclusion that… Come to see us at the next milestone to find out!

Moreover we have some nice engineering on the backburner. Kevin, who is currently navigating through the possibilities for enabling the connection between the device and the computer found a small hack that could turn out to be a nice feature for the product. Influencing the parameters of the settings of an iPhone is close to impossible, Apple isn’t famous for opening their systems and this has been a reason why we weren’t necessarily planning a mobile app. BUT if a ‘car’ connects via bluetooth to your iPhone, then the ‘car’ can actually trigger a setting change! This is a good news for us, if we are able to make the iPhone believe that our product is indeed, a car.

Last but not least, we are trying to push the mechanical conception of the object further in order to have an almost-ready-to-produce concept very soon.Furtermore we have the opportunity to conduct some experiments in professional open spaces, namely the library of the Rolex Learning Center, and we’ll take that up as soon as we can give them a more advanced prototype.

Stay tuned for more!

Your CHIRCLE – Team

Dear CHIC community,

We have the pleasure to announce you that on 17th of April 2018, we conducted our first public survey at the Internef building!

We contacted the libraries in our respectives universities and asked them if we could borrow the precious time of their student for our survey!

So far, our Team has developed a script for mac OS users and a Google extension for the Chrome web browser that restrict the users access to a list of predefined websites. This helped us to test on the field what people would think of the most important feature of our product! We received a lot of feedback and new ideas, however now we need to process it and share the results with all the team members during the next meeting.

It was a really interesting experience: For the first time we had to explain quickly to people our project idea and convince them in a short time to test our software with their own computer. It went very well, however sometimes we felt a little guilty, because we were almost hacking people’s computer.

As we have been working together for a long time now, Axel suggested doing a team outing at the Cully Festival last weekend, this has gone well and it is a good predictor for our joint trip to China this summer.

Speaking of summer, it is approaching more and more. And that means that we have less and less time to finalize our first prototype and fix our indecisions. Indeed we are presently at two weeks from the next milestone and six weeks from the end of the university semester. And other deadlines are coming, especially the exams …

Stay tuned!

Your CHIRCLE – Team

Dear CHIC Community,

Last friday, as a team, we had the chance to share the evolution of the project since the kick-off weekend. We have shared new design mockups, wireframes for the app as well as two main prototypes, we have developed within this timeframe. One with display and microcontroller and the other one with phone and cardboard stand. In addition, we shared key results from the surveys and the prototype testings we conducted.

Having presented our development, we took some time during our weekly meeting to reflect on the advancement of the project. We raised some questions like “How accurately test results represent the user desires?”, “How can we better validate our value proposition assumptions?”. Discussing these topics led us to the idea of organizing more experiments with new prototypes during the upcoming weeks.

In the meantime we are working on developing our hardware prototype, exploration of design and branding possibilities and getting started with the PCB design.

Empowered with the feedbacks from potential users, we will continue our journey towards creation of the “portable, easily visible and distraction-free” product.

Stay tuned!

Your CHIRCLE – Team

This week we applied the so called “get out of the building approach” mentioned by Steve Blank in his article about positive outcomes of applying the Lean method.

“You create opportunities by asking for them” – Shakti Gawain

Like the above maxim states, sometimes you have to go out of your comfort zone and just ask. That’s what we did on last Thursday. Amandine, our Industrial Designer and I met spontaneously to discover Gotham the recently opened co-working space in Lausanne. We simply asked if it would be possible to get a view on the office space. Our goal was to get a clear view on potential application scenarios of our prototype. Gotham hosts several companies from a solo woman worker to a team of 8 employees. The mix of open space, relaxing zones and more private glass offices was interesting and fascinating at the same time. However, we realized that this co-working space doesn’t fit for our imagined use case because the small size companies interact only between themselves and are not interacting with other employees from different companies. We consequently think that interactions within a larger scale of office space are more interesting for the use of our product.

We went on and asked two other companies around the corner for getting insight in their office space. On the second try we were successful and got insight in a open space working environment of a large insurance company. This workspace was much more appropriate for a potential application of our product. From the discussion with one of the team leaders we got further feedback, which we have to take into consideration for further improving our prototype.

Overall it was a very exciting experience!

Your CHIRCLE – Team

While reflecting about the best way to organize blocking behaviors of our product, I tried to categorize sources of distractions. I came up with this classification which is now helping us to reason about the features of our product and compare competitors.

Active triggers are sudden changes, crafted to get your attention. For example: notifications (visual, tactile, sound) or in-person interruptions
Passive triggers are expected prompts that encourage you to do something. For example: an App icon on your homescreen or a bookmark pinned to your browser interface, that are constantly reminding you to check out what’s new.
Internal triggers are more subtle and malign. This is when your mind thinks of something on its own and feels the urge to do it without any external reason. This happens especially when we’re bored or tired. They’re the triggers formed by the “hooks” described in Nir Eyal’s Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. As they come from our own will, they can be harder to fight off.

A recurring problem with products in the fight against distraction is that they tend to intervene after these triggers. They simply block the app we’re trying to access, leaving us no choice, but to deal with the urge to see whatever shiny website full of gloriously new and mysterious content. While it’s a good exercise for your mind to be forced to resist these temptations, we think that preventing some triggers to happen in the first place can greatly help with distractions. For example I moved my bookmarks of news website from my Chrome bookmark bar to an unattractive folder and effortlessly transitioned from checking them 2-3 times a day to 2-3 times a week without even trying!

So users can already affect their distraction level by taking simple actions on their digital environment and anti-distractions products should assist them in those tasks. However, when it comes to fighting internal triggers, except by blocking access to the object of the temptations, what can a product do to help? Our research on competitors shows that they tend to do it in three main ways:

Timers help the user to maintain a rhythm and apply some amount of psychological pressure that limits the frequency and intensity of internal triggers.
Trackers gather data on your behavior and give you insights to help you act on it.
Motivational products use storytelling and/or gamification to encourage you to achieve your goals. The remarkably successful Forest app has shown that this might be a very effective aspect for a lot of users.

Overall, the keyword here seems to be “goal”. These three features help the user clarify his or her goal, remember it and increase its perceived importance.

Photo by William Iven

In order to prepare the Kick off week-end our team tried to meet although some of the members had enjoyed their free time away from School in their home country.

In order to work on the project we had to dust off some parts of the project that had been waiting since the intense end of the first semester followed by Christmas and the exam period of respectively ECAL, UNIL and EPFL.

Actually, we had done some “Solution interviews” after Christmas and we could use a lot of the feedback that the potential customers had given us but we hadn’t really gone through all of the content before preparing for the Kick Off. Our designer managed to make a maquette and our engineers investigated different solutions to the problems we thought that we would face. With these new inputs, we made the slide deck that would introduce our concept product to the other teams and supervisors.

First of all, the weekend gave us an occasion to get updated the other team’s projects as well as meeting the Geneva and Fribourg Teams. But this was a small feat compared to the excellent feedback that specialists in several domains provided us on our project, giving us the opportunity to discuss with them features, perspectives and future challenges for the project.

After their insight and team reflections on the project we formulated our Main Valuable Product (MVP) such as: “A versatile device that reduces distractions and signals your physical availability”

Not bad? Well in fact, the device as we thought it now will activate a software that will block Urls, domains and apps on the computer while showing to your coworkers that your are unavailable and for how long.

We now have a clearer view of our intentions with the projects and we have many trails to follow to improve the current concept product

One of the main question remains for the following weeks: We still discuss different options to optimize the visibility of the timer, both for the costumer and his/her coworker

We have to chose wisely and quickly because the selected design will influence the way of using the device (scenario). This will eventually radically change the technical requirements and the size and shape of the object.

Our team decided to test both options we had to face by doing quickly two prototypes to test our MVP assumptions. With the feedback we will receive, we will be able to select, adapt and improve the proposed design accordingly. Those steps are really important because they will help the team to create a strong, coherent and sellable product. Finally as Alex W. said during the weekend, our objective is to make something people want.

As we all are on holidays some of the team members couldn’t come to this meeting. Kevin managed to be present via Skype which is also a great way for communication!

Sandra started with a very important feedback, the one of our first prototype “WORKING” (image on the last blog post). By using it at her office with 2 of her coworkers she realised things that should be resolved or taken into consideration:

• As the object is pretty flat it is not visible to everyone
• She realised people needed to know when there coworkers are available or can be interrupted.

With this information we understood that our object should be more visible and also need to have a sort of timer, which keeps the user and the others informed about the remaining time of the user’s concentration/ working mode. We are also still discussing whether we should imagine the object for a B2B or B2C context. But for such a decision we need the entire team and also more information. Therefore, we set a few interviews, which should help us to decide. 

Alternatives of this object for a desk

This is it for now, we will keep you updated and we wish the best to all the other students for this stressful exam period!

Your Chircle Team

The days before Christmas are always stressful. This year in addition to present purchases and school deadlines we also want to progress within the CHIC project. Amandine, our product designer, created our first prototype to test the use of an interactive office organizer.
The idea is simple: You would like to work and focus on a task – the term “WORKING” on a red surface indicates that very well to your coworkers. If being interrupted doesn’t bother your just turn around the object. Now we have to test if workers make use of the product, how they behave and what they need additionally.

During the last meeting we reviewed some feedback related to milestone 1 and worked on common ground regarding the product we are considering. We all have the same attitude that discussion and consensus are the foundations of a successful team work. Probably a reason why we so far harmonized very well together. 🙂

We wish you a wonderful Christmas!

Your CHIRCLE – Team

Last Tuesday we decided to turn our weekly meeting into a less formal meeting. Instead of our regular meeting routine, we had a game night to celebrate Milestone 1. Taking a little break as a team turned out to be a great idea after a very busy milestone week. It did not mean to us just as a fun night, but it was simultaneously a good opportunity to share more personal moments, which greatly helps CHIRCLE to strengthen the team bonding!

Not only we had fun cooking together and playing some games, but also we took some time to debrief about our first milestone. In the nice house atmosphere every member of the team gave feedback on each other for individual performance during the pitching.

With the energy of our best team building event yet, Chircle is ready to tackle the new challenges and improve our concept product, InOff!

Stay tuned!

Your CHIRCLE – Team

With the milestone coming up, many things came through for team CHIRCLE this week.

The “Problem exploration” Milestone happened on the 1st of December and the three teams participating (Chircle, NaPac and Fluid) presented their concept product to the supervisors of the CHIC program.

Even though we brainstormed multiple times and in different ways, we have had some difficulties settling for an idea. Maybe we were afraid to make a gadget, maybe we were conscious about the opportunity of being part of a team with the right set of skills and wanted to make the most of it. Time was not on our side anymore and we agreed on making a device that would tackle the issue of interruptions and distractions from work.

“InOff”, is the name of the baby. It lies on your desk and prevents you from getting interrupted physically and digitally when flipped over. One can tune the settings to filter out unnecessary informations to your likings and when activated it becomes a soft desk-lamp telling your colleagues not to come and bother you if they don’t have to. Pretty cool? Wait you haven’t seen the visual yet!

All in all, it felt nice to present the concept and get some feedback as well as being able to hear the other teams, who also worked hard on their project, present their ideas.

The hard work on the project have given some inertia to the team and as a bi-effect, given us time to get to know each other better.

We will decide what directions we are going to explore next in our coming weekly meeting. Stay Tuned!

Your CHIRCLE team

On Tuesday, we all met at the EPFL Rolex Center to discuss the survey and let all team members present fresh ideas for the project. Our brainstorm session yielded a glass wall full of sticky notes and two Value Proposition canvas for our main product ideas. Many thanks to Sandra, our businesswoman, for organizing it!

After having explored different aspects of our starting point “Wellness @ Work” – from break times to emails – we converged again on two possible products:

• A connected e-ink smart calendar, with collaboration and tranquility at its core values.
• An “instant deconnection box”, whose goal is to increase focus and reduce stress, by making it easy to prevent digital and physical interruptions at work through a tangible device.

We’re now deepening our knowledge of these two potential devices by researching and interviewing potential customers. If you would like to participate to our survey, you can do it here : https://goo.gl/forms/wyBNqdmDuPmPj9g83 Thank you !

We will keep you up to-date!

Your CHIRCLE team

Dear CHIC Community,

This week we had a kind of animated week with two special events:

On Monday, we had the chance to take part in a pitching workshop led by Benedict Stalder. He shared with us some advices and experiences to give a successful speech and then we had to apply it during a short exercise session. The workshop was really interesting and fun and I hope our team will keep a bit of that wisdom for the upcoming speeches and pitches.

On Tuesday, we invited our mentors (who participated in the previous CHIC edition) to our meeting at Sandra’s place and we were very happy that they joined us. I think we all wanted to ask them a lot of questions about their project, but it was not the topic of this meeting so we had to focus on advancing our own. They intervened a few times to give us their opinion and their tips. It was very useful to have an experienced feedback from our predecessors, who went through the same process.

We each presented new ideas and the landscape of existing solutions in our field. We did not come up with a conclusion yet so we decided to make another iteration of the process for the next meeting and we have prepared the field investigation. We keep in mind that we have only two weeks left for the first milestone presentation.

At the end of the meeting we finally had dinner together, for some of us the wait was almost unbearable as I saw some of the Chircle members taking some food on the dish before time, and for sure not myself. 🙂

We continue to take a step closer towards the project, however we are now also one step closer from the MS1…!

We will keep you in touch!

Your CHIRCLE – Team

Hello CHIC community!

Yesterday evening we finally had the chance to proceed with our first meeting! After a great dinner together, where each one of us contributed in bringing various food and drinks, we officially started our first Chircle meeting.

Starting with explaining our values and position for this project helped to get a broader idea of everyone’s expectations. We agreed on the following common objective: we wish to push our work towards finding solutions for a healthier environment at work (considering also nowadays’ alternative ways of working).

We therefore set checklists for the following meetings which will take place from now on every Tuesday evening. For the following weeks we will concentrate our energy on visiting companies and interviewing people to get real-world data about workspaces and the way they function. This will therefore help us to start our project with a more realistic point of view.

Finally, I can say that the group cohesion at the end of the meeting was very energetic and motivating. We all left with the feeling of having made one more step towards the project. Although there are many more steps awaiting for us…

We will keep you in touch!

Your CHIRCLE – Team

After our first weekend during the ideation workshop, all participants of the CHIC-2017-2018 edition have finally had a proper introduction. The workshop has given us the opportunity to get to know each other better, despite our different backgrounds, and get a glance at the many differences, but also many strengths in the personalities. By the end of the weekend we composed a heterogeneous team in terms of character: the responsible Axel, Berk the relator, the disciplined Amandine, the positive Sandra, Kevin the achiever but also Nathan who is always focused.

The CHIRCLE Team is set and we will work on the topic of Wellness at Work. We would like to focus on the reduction of stress, productivity at work, work-life balance and connectivity in social contexts.

The initial ideas, on which we will build to shape what will become the main focus of the CHIC minor for the coming year for us, were developed by Axel and Nathan are the following ones:

Axel focused on time management and had the idea to create a connected, portable, low power calendar. Adaptations are done quickly and can easily be shared to friends and family. Nathan’s concept is based on health and focus at work by reducing information overload. His suggested device can dynamically regulate smartphone use in certain environments.

We will deploy full commitment to make the right information available at the right time.

We will keep you updated!
Your CHIRCLE – Team