Every year’s initiation of new leadership takes place during the annual Christmas dinner. This year’s charity party took place at Wenjin Hotel, with a mix of more than 70 earnest participants for Bethel China, an NGO established in 2003. Bethel’s mission is to help visually impaired children who are in poverty. The festive dinner party included food, wine, and several sensational performances. A few lucky participants were able to take home prizes drawn from our sponsors.

In April, Net Impact partnered with Tsinghua X-Lab, Venture Avenue, Schwarzman College to host a hackathon event. The main theme of the hackathon was to help The First Sound come up with solutions to the challenge of “how to allow more low-income children with hearing issues have greater access to cochlear implants?” The First Sound is a non-profit organization launched by the Chinese Women’s Development Fund, with the goal of helping fund the entire cost of cochlear implants to children below 7 years old from economically disadvantaged families, so they will be able to be able to begin language therapy during their “golden period.” More than 40 students and affiliates participated during the one-and-a-half-day event, not only attending lectures by industry experts, but also conducting intense brainstorming sessions for the task at hand. Finally, Team “Tingjian Hearing” was able to come away with the best solution with their highly practical gamified marketing strategy.

Inaugural Social Innovation Hackathon

By Annabelle Low

The inaugural social innovation hackathon took place on Friday 21- Saturday 22 April 2017. Over 40 aspiring change-makers descended upon Schwarzman College to put together their minds. International crowd from various departments and schools.

Jointly organized by Venture Avenue, Net Impact Tsinghua MBA chapter, Schwarzman College, Tsinghua School of Public Policy and Management, the 1.5-day hackathon set participants the task of helping their beneficiary, First Sound. First Sound is a philanthropic program started by the China Women’s Development Foundation, the largest and most well-established philanthropic foundation in China. The First Sound program provides children under the age of 7 with severe hearing disabilities from low-income families free, high-quality cochlear implant surgeries and recovery support, so that they can enjoy the ability to hear and speak just like other healthy children.

The challenge:

First Sound seeks to help children under the age of 7 who have severe hearing disabilities through providing free cochlear implant surgeries and recovery support. However, the cost is high, at RMB 173,000 per child. Participants are tasked to devise a feasible strategy to allow First Sound help more children receive cochlear implant surgeries.

The winning team would have the chance to inter

The first day comprised panels and workshops.

Panelists:

The second day allowed the participants to focus on refining their ideas and set their strategy in place. 7 teams pitched their ideas to an esteemed panel of judges in a 5 min presentation and 5 mins of Q&A. The judges comprised 7 experienced practitioners from the social sectors:

Judges:

Team Dolphin- charity concert, viral social media campaign, silent discos. Experience what people with hearing disabilities go through. Hire more people

Team Optimize-

Team kai men- Partnering with an established earphone brand to have a portion of the profit go to support first sound

Leveraging on starpower, manufacturing self-assessment hearing kits

Eg.interactive campaigns

Overall judges comments: good observations of the current issues, ideas were specifica and implementable given current campaigns. Some teams did a great job presenting. Some teams have great focus on the competitive edge. Overall, going back to design thinking, most put emphasis on desire to create empathy.

Some assumptions made regarding celebrity. Some conflict of interest issues while working with celebrities. Difficult for companies to design specific products for this.

Somethings corporates look at when assessing companies to support- page views, viewership, number of participants. Could been more specific with operational parts like budget, fundraising goals.

Team get real, kai meng and ting jian with their campaigns. Team ting jian won.

       Finally, at the end of May, Net Impact was able to put together a Distinguished Lecture Series with the School of Public Policy and Management. We were able to invite Mr. Leslie Maasdorp, VP & CFO from the New Development Bank, to lecture on the mission and role that the New Development Bank will play in the fast-changing global environment. Some 80 students participated with many questions, allowing for a lively and friendly exchange with Mr. Maasdorp.

The first half of 2017 can be summed up as a smooth and exciting period for our chapter, we hope that everyone can keep their eyes open for our schedule for the second half of 2017!