“AACYF Cal C 30 under 30” list released, Class of 2020 Elites
“AACYF California Chinese 30 under 30” 2020 list was released by the All America Chinese Youth Federation, LAPOST, Chinese American Institute for Public Diplomacy in Los Angeles on March 18, 2020.
There are 5 categories this year, recipients were selected from crowded candidates. AACYF Cal C 30 under 30 is the only list selecting from Chinese American and Chinese students in California, and it’s the 1st time selection focusing on Chinese American and Chinese students in California, the selection is recognized as the most influential and credible selection for Chinese American start-ups and talented youth elites.
According to organizer: they are most important young entrepreneurs, creative leaders and brightest stars for our Chinese communities’ future.
Art, Culture, Science： （9）
Yixian Deng is a multi-award-winning writer-producer whose films have won Student Academy Award, Best International Film Award at Show Me Shorts, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Award, AT&T Futuristic Film Award and etc. Her works have competed in international festivals in New York, Venice, Berlin and Tokyo. Yixian Deng is also a popular column writer; her column “Chronicle of Infatuation” is rated 9.6 (one of the most popular column of the year) in Douban. In 2019, she associate produced “Deep In the Heart III”, which got into Shanghai International Festival and won the Phenom Films Award. She produced the Hollywood feature “Under the Lantern Lit Sky” in 2019, which is in post-production now.
Violinist Dongfang Ouyang is a tenured member of the LA Opera Orchestra, also is a guest member of Pacific Symphony Orchestra.At 2015, Dongfang completes his undergraduate study at Bard College with a full scholarship, where his mentor was Weigang Li, the founding member of the worldly renowned “Shanghai Quartet”, as well as one of the most prestigious violinist Shmuel Ashkenasi. Two years after he completed his graduate study at USC with a full scholarship, under the tutelage of legendary violinist Glenn Dicterow.He performed in major venues around the world both as a soloist and Concertmaster, including The Great Hall in Moscow, Konzerthaus in Berlin, Carnegie Hall and many others. His performance highlight includes the U.S premiere of the Erkki Melartin violin concerto with originally composed cadenza, under the baton of Leon Botstein with the American Symphony orchestra. Two-time Grammy award composer Joan Tower has praised his cadenza and performance “organic, authentic yet full of imaginations!”. Dongfang’s recently composition for violin solo“Re-praise for motherland” has quickly gained popularity in Chinese classic music lovers. Aside from the stage, Dongfang is keen to popularize western music education with his 20+ years of music experience. In 2017, he established the HI MAESTRO long-distance music education platform and obtained the support of large numbers of well-known American music conservatory professors and prominent musicians of the orchestra. HI MAESTRO allows student worldwide to receive the most authentic, high-levelled music education at their home with an APP. Students greatly improve learning efficiency while reducing the cost through the unique learning method developed by HI MAESTRO. Dongfang Ouyang playing on an 1850 G. Chanot generously on loan from the Maestro Foundation.
USC International Artist Fellow, a native of Chinese-born composer, Guang Yang is an award-winning composer of orchestra, opera, Chinese chamber music, and multidisciplinary projects. Before she moved to United States for her college education at New England Conservatory, she became the first composer who held an evening-length music composition graduation concert in the school history of Shanghai Conservatory Middle and High school. Since then, her music has been performed around the world in China, US, and Europe, and in music festivals such as Music Composition Class at Frebis University Berlin (2012, 2013) Etchings Festival – VCCA-France (2013), Atlantic Music Festival, Maine U.S. (2013), The Walden School Summer Retreat, and Shanghai Contemporary Music Week (2011). Her new project “Opera for Museums” series founded in Los Angeles. It plays an important role in promoting new music, creating new operas, and bring new audience in classical music world. Her recent commissions include music for LA Opera Connects, the White Snake Project, and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. Guang often seek inspirations from the difference and commonality of Chinese music and western music, and a passionate collaborator who tries to express socially-conscious issues in her work. Currently, she is pursuing her doctoral degree in music composition with academic field in theory and analysis, and two minor fields in music industry and instrumental conducting.
Cindy Li, Founder of C&M Music Group, Chinese musician, music manager, inheritor of Chinese traditional music culture. Cindy had bachelor degree of Music Management from China Conservatory, and master degree of Music Industry Leadership from Northeastern University. After moving to San Francisco Bay Area, Cindy founded C&M Music Group in 2017 together with her best friend and music partner Mandy. On one hand, she focuses on the development and innovation of Chinese traditional music—her unique and stylish music creations and performances show to the audience the charm of traditional Chinese culture. On the other hand, Cindy pays great attention to the inheritance and broadcast of Chinese traditional music. She gave music lessons to students and has been invited to give lectures on Chinese traditional culture to schools, cultural society, charities, senior communities, art related forum, museums, and other organizations. In the past 4 year, C&M Music Group has performed on numerous stages across the Bay Area and partnered with multiple entities/organizations. The group has been widely praised by not only people from the music field but also local media and their partners in the Bay Area.
Shincy Lu，Born and raised in Guangzhou, China, Shincy Lu graduated from University of California, Los Angeles and later received an MFA degree in producing from the prestigious American Film Institute Conservatory. Shincy is among the pioneering force of the younger Chinese independent filmmakers to connect the independent arthouse markets across the world. Her works have premiered and won awards across the globe in festivals and exhibitions, such as Berlinale, Toronto International Film Festival, Singapore International Film Festival, LA Shorts, Woodstock Film Festival, Girona Film Festival, Chinese Youth Film Festival and many more.
Shincy is now the executive producer for Monday Pictures in Los Angeles and YiLu Pictures in Guangzhou, China.
Yue Hou graduated from Marshall school of Business, University of Southern California (USC), founded M.A.D Dance in 2017, the first professional street dance studio for Chinese community in California. The business model and vision she created has soon brought popularity in the dance studio market in Los Angeles. It was what she established that generated the confidence for others to drive the dance training market for Chinese Community to the the next stage.
Yue started to learn dancing in 2007 and found her great passion in it. What she was into was not just about dancing itself, she is keen to promote this culture to more young people and to encourage them to find their own passion. She founded the first dance crew in her high school in 2008 in Guangdong. After she went to college, as the leader in her college dance crew, Fire Step, she founded the big scale showcase that covered over 10 universities in Shanghai. This showcase continiously to influence over 10,000 college students every year. In 2012, she joined Unipower, a dance crew that consisted of all the qualified dancers from Universities and Colleges in Shanghai and was founded by Caster, the most famous dance studio in China.
After graduation, she worked in renown agency like Webershanwick, Publicis Groupe and tech medias like ifanr. In 2017, Yue was accepted by USC to further study Marketing. Out of her acute observation of the market in Los Angeles and her passion for dancing, she founded M.A.D Dance. Always wanting to be a Slash, she is currently working in CHIHUO, the most famous foodie media platform in the Chinese community.
Mengzhen Yang（Independent artist ）has traveled to the United States and South Korea to study and create art in a multicultural background. Mainly works of oil painting exhibition in WTC (World Trade Center) 2019s.Artsy information entry artist. Renmin university of China (2011Drop), gwangju, Korea (2015Drop), Cleveland KSU, USA.
Xi Wang, Front-End Chief programmer for Vocal Warrior(A Voice- controlled fighting game which featured from the Appstore for over 2,
Zheyu Lu has a wealth of experience in mobile Internet developing management. During the bachelor period, Zheyu took a part in some advanced program with Microsoft, and was a member in computer image and vision lab doing some research program related with Center for Natural Hazards Research. Zheyu published some papers in IEEE as well.
Fangzhou Long, Fangzhou has worked for Happy Element, a top Chinese game dev company, participated in the development of many commercial projects. During his master’s degree, he worked as a developer at the University of Southern California’s Interactive Lab and managed the development of multiple Unreal 4 game engine-based game projects.
Landi Gu, Graduated from Illinois Institute of Technology in 2017. Join and cofound the company in 2015.Created an industrial adaptation from the latest NLP research which leads to several successful applications. Optimized workflow for virtual assistant development that increased both its efficiency and effectiveness.
Social Entrepreneurs （3 ）
Yuwei Zhang is co-founder of MAZE Partners,Inc. Ms. Zhang is a member of Harvard SEED for Social Innovation and the Co-founder of One Dollar Project Funds. She has been working with children for almost five years and is trying to explore all the possibilities intersecting social innovation, education, mental health, and arts. She has represented Chinese-American and International students to speak up at the United States, SSWR, NAFSA, and other top rated universities to advocate for their mental wellbeing.
Milawen Ding, graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Nonprofit Management, also serves as the Admission Representative and School Ambassador of Columbia University School of Professional Studies Admission Office.
Milawen Ding is the co-author of “Career Planning and Professional Development” which is intended for use by high school and middle school students who are starting to get serious about the decisions they will need to make after graduation. Milawen is also the initiator of Growth GPS ·Youth Leadership Project, which promotes mutual understanding between China and U.S. through the educational exchange of outstanding scholars, professionals and students. Growth GPS ·Youth Leadership Project has programs that take learning into the real world to help students develop essential skills, attracted over 1000 attendees; existing programs include Connect@Wake, Rainbow Toilet Initiative etc.
When working at American Red Cross, Milawen Ding supported cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship of significant corporate and foundation partners that gift over $7 million annually. She took the lead of 2019 New York “Sound The Alarms” Campaign with attendees of over 300 staff and corporate partners. The reason for this campaign is simple: smoke alarms save lives. Home fires claim seven lives every day but having working smoke alarms can cut the risk of death by half. By the end of 2019, American Red Cross has installed 100,000 smoke alarms and raised over $15 million.
Zi Wang, joined in Chinese Union since 2016; Chinese Union Committee Member, Chief Administrative Officer, President of Chinese Union Headquarter (2018-2019); Graduated from University of California, San Diego with academic honor.
Entertainment, Fashion, Media（5）
Sirui Shao, a financial journalist covering mergers and acquisitions and currently based in Hong Kong. Prior to that, she covers Canadian capital market from New York. While being a journalist, she is also a book author and published her first book in April 2019 that called <Hundreds Aspects of IVY League students>. The book tells stories of 28 interesting IVY alumni stories who broke the stereotype of traditional IVY League students, her diaries when pursing her master degree at Columbia Journalism School and some of her living experiences during the past eight years in the US. The book had generated great awareness in China and the States. Besides, she is also the co-founder of China Media Academy, a millennials organization to help Chinese college students understand media industry better. She is always creative and ready for discover new lands.
Jingjing Xu, UVA Deans’ List, UVA Intermediate Honors, UVA Yee Family American Dream Scholarship, UVA Sky Alland Finalist Scholarship, UVA Procter & Gamble CEO Challenge (1st Place), UVA Berkeley Research Group Case Competition (1st Place), UVA Business Ethics Society Case Competition (1st Place)
Ziteng Zhang is the co-founder & CMO of WeBridge Consulting、president of Indiana University Alumni Association Beijing Chapter and the global head of communications of Ruyi Group. During 2015-2016, he was the president of Indiana University Chinese Students and Scholars Association. In 2016, Ziteng Zhang joined College Daily as marketing director. In 2017, he started Webridge Consulting in New York, the company focuses on overseas integrated marketing and public relation management of Chinese companies. Webridge Consulting has formed partnerships with many established brands such as Alipay, Bosden, Haier, Guangzhou Automobile Group, etc. The “Macy’s Back To School Brand case” Ziteng Zhang was in charge of won the “Best Digital Marketing Campaign” by PR Awards Asia（which was hosted by PRWeek）.In 2019, Ziteng Zhang was appointed as the global head of communications of Ruyi Group, he was in charge of the international public relation management of the brand matrix of Ruyi Group, including Sandro, Maje, Cerruti 1881 and other fashion brands.
WeBridge Consulting is a one-stop marketing management company driven by international communication. Based in New York and Beijing, WeBridge Consulting pursues the mission of “We Bridge Brands with the World” by acting as one doorway to the globalization. Devoting to localize international brands, and internationalize local brands, WeBridge Consulting provides professional services including brand management, digital marketing, public relations, innovative Ads design, media agent, event management and international communication for global businesses and institutions.
Yaxuan Chen. I am a person who is not afraid of competition. 5 years ago, I quit my university in Shanghai, China and came to the US to pursue a higher goal. Started from Santa Monica College, I ended up transferring to UC Berkeley with 3.94 GPA. Studying in UC Berkeley is hard, but I still devoted much time in the clubs which I was interested in such as Tiny Chinese Drama Club and Soccer Club. Besides film, I learned history, art, anthropology, etc because I think a person should enrich the knowledge in different areas. Since graduating from UC Berkeley one semester ahead of time, I have been working in the film and entertainment industry for more than one year in Los Angeles. In 2019, I produced more than 10 projects including reality shows, commercials, online promo videos, short films etc. After meeting my friend who graduated from USC Cinema school, we founded Musche Studio, a studio focuses on commercial videos.
M3SSIAH, producer and DJ from Shanghai China. With an electronic visionary at core, M3SSIAH seamlessly blends new-age music with traditional Chinese music to create a trailblazing sound. In 2016, he took this sound into the studio with French producer Sonny Zamolo and together released “Tao” under the French label Monochrome. The record hit Top 30 on Beatport and led to a record deal from top Chinese label “ModernSky” at age 21. Since then, his releases have received high praises from the industry appearing multiple times on Billboard China, praised as the next prodigy in China. He also collaborated with some of the hottest rappers in China including Tizzy T and Young Jack.
After producing multiple hit records and performing on the biggest stages in China such as Strawberry Festival, Club OneThird and Club Beehive, M3SSIAH wanted to further his craft and take his art to a higher level. In 2019, he moved to LA to attend Icon Collective, the production school that has educated some of the best artists including Nghtmre and Slander. He stated that, “I just want to become the best artist and person I can, so I can make a positive impact on the world.” During his time in Los Angeles, M3SSIAH met Grammy and Oscar award-winning composer, Nathan Wang. After seeing M3SSIAH’s work ethic, Nathan brought M3SSIAH to participate in writing the trailer music for Jackie Chan’s movie, “Vanguard” and “Detective Chinatown 3” successfully breaking into the cinematic scene.
Finance, Investment：（1）
Sheldon Xia is the founder and CEO at BitMart, a global leading digital asset trading platform. Sheldon graduated from Stevens Institute of Technology with a master’s degree in computer science. He is an early blockchain technology engineer and worked as a Software Engineer at Dasouche, a Series E financing company specializing in providing a new financial platform for automobile retails. Prior to founding BitMart, Sheldon has launched Dscoin forked from Litecoin and has engaged in founding Dscoin.org in 2013, one of the first batch of virtual currency trading platforms. In 2017, Sheldon founded BitMart after his rejecting the offer from Amazon in the states as a software developer. Sheldon holds the copyright of the trading system.
E-commerce （1）
Jacob Sun, a founder & CEO of Sunstidy Inc, who has 4 years of entrepreneurship in the United States, graduated from ELAC (East Los Angeles College) and University of California, Irvine (University of California, Irvine), served as president and executive vice-chairman of CSSA (Chinese Students and Scholars Association). He has been commended by the Chinese and American governments and Los Angeles City Councillors for promoting cross-cultural communication between China and the United State. On November 1, 2017, on behalf of Chinese students studying in the United States, he appeared on the big screen of Times Square in New York, US. He has attended various high-end forums including the China-US Summit in California and the Wharton Forum as a guest.
Mr.Sun won a lot of awards in many big innovation & entrepreneurship competitions across the world. For example, He won Best Popularity Award at the 2017 Hong Kong International Entrepreneurs Festival and Silver Award at The 9th Chinese Baby Care Industry Development & Venture Capital Summit. In addition, Mr.Sun was nominated in Hurun China Under the 30s To Watch 2019.
Siwen Su, a co-founder, and COO of Suntisfy Inc studied at Beijing Institute of Technology, ELAC (East Los Angeles College) and UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles). She was the president of the Student Union at Beijing Institute of Technology and was the Executive Vice president of the CSSA (Chinese Students and Scholars Association) at UCLA. She has been worked as a regional manager at T-mobile in the United States, and then joined Apeiron.io as a software engineer after graduation. She is familiar with the US toy market, with rich experience in market targeting and deep knowledge in the US e-commerce market. Lately, she co-founded Suntisfy INC with Mr. Sun and who in charge of the branch office in the United States. She has a strong sense of business, excellent logic skills, and leadership skills which have earned her a lot of reputation in California.
Education, Service Provider：（11）
Gaoxian Ge, co-founder of USWOO
Kuanze (Mark) MA, serial entrepreneur and alumni of Northwestern University, is the founding partner of AceBeta Company, an international business talent focused human resource and career education consulting and technology company.
AceBeta built an international elite university recruiting and job hunting platform – “Valyou Expanse”. Valyou Expanse unites the global top 30 universities’, business schools’ and law schools’ alumni and student organizations, and covers the global industry leading corporations’ talent network. Through Valyou Expanse network, AceBeta is able to provide precise, efficient, and strategic solutions for both companies and talents.
AceBeta has helped global leading companies, such as Huawei, international investment corporations, and leading startups through providing them strategic organizational restructuring consulting and/or headhunting services. Meanwhile, AceBeta has helped many professionals and students receive career opportunities from global leading companies such as Google and McKinsey.
Before AceBeta, Mark has built three startups in Beijing, Hong Kong and Chicago, including one non-profit K12 education organization, which has provided over 35000 person-time services since 2012; one finance education company, which generated over 3 million RMB revenue in its first year; and one intelligent hardware technology startup, which was invested and incubated by Northwestern University.
Regarding social responsibilities and roles, Mark is a board member of Northwestern University Club of Beijing, a Northwestern Alumni Council, and a strategy advisor of Hexin Youth Development Center.
Kuanze (Mark) MA aims to create lasting impactful values to the society.
Zibo Zhou, A graduate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaig, Zibo is the Executive Director & President of ONPS Abroad. ONPS Abroad is currently one of the most powerful international summer projects provider in Greater China. During his time at ONPS, Zibo helps collaborate with scholars from the Ivy League and resources in business and art industry in the endeavor to develop diversity academic programs for youth talents both in China and abroad. Zibo also leads the four core programs at ONPS, which provides students around the world studying experiences in China, research opportunities with pioneer professionals in all field and cross-cultural and integrated industry experiences. Zibo’s unique and mature project management skills have not only influenced colleagues in Beijing, Qingdao, Taipei, Boston, and Los Angeles, but also inspired student partners in more than 200 universities worldwide. With his vision and entrepreneurship, Zibo advocates the innovative learning plus industry model which allows young students to make better-informed career decisions through their study programs in China and academic projects with elite business consultants. Every year, about 300,000 overseas students from the United States, Canada, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan receive quality education services and immerse themselves with cross-cultural and trans-industrial experiences at ONPS.
Ran Yang, completed undergraduate at University of Miami, Florida. During graduate school at Columbia University, New York, she was awarded scholarship for scientific research in the field of human brain mapping. After graduation in clinical psychology, she worked as clinical researcher at New York Presbyterian-Columbia University Medical Center. She published scientific articles in various peer reviewed journals and presented them in both national as well as international conferences.
Jerry Sun is the founder of Wall Street Tequila, graduated from Middlebury College. Wall Street Tequila is a full-service career coaching organization that works together with students along every stage of their knowledge base and career development. Since its establishment in 2014, Wall Street Tequila has helped over 7,000 students worldwide to achieve their career goals and trainees earn more than RMB 30 billion in annual offers. The number of trainees with an annual salary of one million has reached more than 2,000.
Delysia(Yiwei) Song, the co-founder of I-intern Career Consulting Group, devoted herself in human resources consulting and career coaching advisory services. She has helped thousands of students to achieve their goals at early stage of their career path and assisted hundreds of companies in their talent incubation. She has experience in campus recruiting collaborated with Alibaba and Google which gives her broader and more prospective view in human resources development. I-intern Career Consulting Group is invested by CRCM, over the past three years, I-intern has become a reputed company in career coaching industry and known as one of the most trustworthy companies amongst Chinese oversea students. I-intern’s goal is to create a global platform that closes the gap between academic education and real-world practice, and provide an effective solution for campus recruiting.
James Li graduated from the University of Washington with a strong background in communication and sales fields. While obtaining his master’s degree at Boston University in Business Analytics, he established his own company WeProtect to provide legal, consoling therapy, security guard and American constitution tutorial services for Chinese International students, new immigrants and Chinese business owners in the United States.
10 years ago, Li’s first foothold in East Oakland, CA where are fulfilled by criminal condition shows him how vulnerable a race could be if this community lacks the legal power. From those years of him studying in the States, he developed a strong faith in his country and a solid mission to provide care and safeguard services for his own people – Chinese. During those years, he saw and experienced many injustice and discrimination against his own race group which triggers him to act up and protect his people. Coming from a big heart, profit was not the No.1 mission for his company—WeProtect. Instead, the mission is to provide legal, consoling and direct security services to ensure the Chinese could live and thrive staunchly and equally in the U.S. Ultimately, his goal is to express the spirit of fighting any harmful situation for Chinese and pass that on through the provided service for his customers. During the last year of his company, WeProtect consulted the case involves a total of 11 million dollars in a legal dispute, with half of the amount being free consulting. Cases were from 27 states and covered more than 30 different practice areas.
“We represent the future of the Chinese community, and we protect the international students and business owners ’ any kind of rights. The cliché stereotype on Chinese being shy and laid back is about to change, and the change is each of us.” — James Li
Jianan You, co-founder of Cal-Student net
Xinran Liu
Hewen Jiang
