Yesterday I attended the launch event of D4D, Design for the Disadvantaged. The mission of D4D is to leverage design and innovation talent via a user-centered approach to improve the quality of life, productivity and self-improvement of disadvantaged groups in China, states their website. In other words, to design for the other 90%.

I think that the impressive team of founders have created a great opportunity for anyone interested in research and design to contribute to a better place. By offering three workshops to get involved - user research, architecture design and product design - the threshold for new volunteers is quite low. So while I haven’t been involved in anything like this before, the event truly got me thinking and made me sign-up as a volunteer for the user research workshop.

While discussing this with others I came to realize that being in China at this point of time is a great opportunity to engage in any kind of research. The major changes happening in China today provide a great chance to research the impact of these changes on peoples daily lives. Now is the time to just get out on the street and talk to to people, providing interesting insights on how today’s China is affecting the life of the other 90%. And how it can be improved.

A week ago I posted about receiving the keys to the new office. Thinking about the amount of stuff that has been done in this past week in terms of setting up the agency, it rather feels like a month ago. Things are moving extremely fast. Since refurbishment will be done by tomorrow, I expect to enter the office in a couple of days when all furniture will be in place. For now, some photos of the construction work :

I just received the keys of the brand new Shanghai office of Energize! I’ve been looking through the windows on a daily basis for two weeks, so it’s extremely exciting that I’m now able to enter the place! While opening the door for the first time the magic words ‘Open Sesame’ came to mind, but that must be since Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is next door. Anyway, refurbishment will start tomorrow, taking care of the floor, walls, ceiling, lights, cables and so on. Will post some pics while they progress!

Just found myself a new place to call home. After going through ridiculous little effort - it was the first apartment I looked at - I felt like the luckiest person around. The apartment is located in French Concession,  is shared with 2 graphic designers (a French girl and a Chinese guy), is only ¥2600 (about €260) per month, and has a stunning view from the balcony. What else could I wish for? So after doing some IKEA shopping, which surprisingly sells exactly the same stuff as back home (including Swedish meatballs!), I guess I’m all settled. Some pictures of the view (it’s on the 22nd floor), living room and my room below:

I don’t plan to make this website a travel blog of any sort. Anything but. I rather share some fascinating stuff that I come across while living in Shanghai. But to start off this first post contradicting my plans for this blog, this is a quick picture round-up of past week in Beijing. Besides more serious meetings, this great week was mainly about catching up with some old friends :-)