2020 Top 10 Outstanding Chinese America Youth name list unveiled
The 13th “Top Ten Outstanding Chinese American Youth Awards” selection hosted by the All America Chinese Youth Federation, the American Chinese Public Diplomacy Association, and the “Los Angeles Post” were officially announced on May 4, 2020.
The theme of this year’s selection is: “Looking forward to the new decade”. It is hoped that the selection will bring upward strength to the Chinese youth in the United States and try the infinite possibilities in the next ten years.
This year, the organizers specially added the “National Outstanding Chinese American Youth Group Award”, which is awarded to “National Young Chinese Medical Workers”; and “CSSA (Chinese Students and Scholars Association of All American Universities)”. The organizer said that the Chinese medical staff working hard to rescue the “COVID19 virus” patients showed their fearless spirit and excellent professional standards; the Chinese Students and Scholars Associations of universities in the United States are organizing international students to support domestic anti-epidemic “, And during the closure of the university campus, the various types of services provided to the students, demonstrated team leadership, and the cohesion of the fraternity.
They are outstanding representatives of the millions of Chinese youth and Chinese international students in the United States. Their efforts to work hard and grow up will certainly be the driving force for inspiring young friends. Their character and achievements show the qualities of contemporary Chinese youth leaders and future social leaders.
The selection of the Top Ten Outstanding Young People Awards in the United States has become a selection activity from the most popular Chinese community in the American-Chinese community during the Asian-Pacific Asian Heritage Month in May each year, showing the outstanding style and brand-new image of the new generation of Chinese.
2020 “Top 10 Outstanding Chinese American Youth Award” awardees:
Qian Wu, artist, graduating from the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University, and the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University with a major in art history. From 2011 to 2016, he studied at the Art Students League of New York. While studying in the United States, Qian Wu taught traditional Chinese culture and art as a volunteer at many organizations, including the United Nations, the Confucian Institute, Chinese American Center for Education and Culture, and more than a dozen schools and colleges in the United States. From 2011 on, Qian Wu has been painting with acrylic and mixed materials on cloth with the aim to express the cultural consciousness of “East Meeting West” and the spiritual essence of ink wash painting, in keeping with the Eastern aesthetic principles. In 2012, Qian Wu was invited to participate, along with Jeff Koons and other famous artists, in a group exhibition sponsored by the Waterkeeper Alliance, which was founded by the Kennedy family. His solo exhibitions include “Attainment through Formlessness— The Solo Exhibition of Qian Wu’s Recent Works” at Xiamen Powerlong Art Center in 2019, “Wandering in the Crossroads—The Exhibition of Qian Wu’s Recent Works” at Elga Wimmer PCC in New York City in 2019, and “The First Solo Exhibition of Qian Wu’s Artworks” at Gallery 456 in New York City in 2016. “The Chivalrous”, a recent artwork of comprehensive materials, was selected to participate in The 13th National Exhibition of Fine Arts – Paintings with Comprehensive Materials Art Exhibition in 2019.
Yong Zhao, the Co-Founder and CEO of junzi kitchen.
Yong was born and raised in Liaoning, northeast of China. He received a Bachelor degree from Yuanpei School at Peking University, and then received a MESc and attended the doctoral program in environmental science at Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.
In 2014, Yong co-founded junzi kitchen and has been leading the team as CEO ever since. Being the mastermind and visionary of junzi kitchen, Yong Zhao is harnessing the tide of quick-service Chinese food with his quickly expanding restaurant concept and leading the omnichannel shift in eating with innovative solutions such as ghost kitchen.
Serviced in assembly-line format, junzi updates the narrative on the Chinese food experience in the United States in hopes of making modern Chinese food accessible to everyone. At its Columbia location alone, junzi serves 4,000 bings and noodle bowls each week to their over 500 daily customers.
Junzi is currently one of the highest rated Chinese restaurants in the U.S, and has been featured in The New York Times, Food & Wine, Fortune Magazine, Yahoo! Finance, Bloomberg, Forbes, Eater, Vogue, and People, and was named one of Fast Casual Magazine’s “Top 20 Fast Casual Brands to Watch in 2019” and “Top 100 Movers & Shakers” (2019 & 2020), and QSR Magazine’s “The 40/40 List for 2019: America’s Hottest Startup Fast Casuals”.
Yong also founded NYC Chinese Hospitality Alliance Tea Talk (CHATT). CHATT is a community of Chinese food restaurateurs, chefs, suppliers, investors, and professionals. NYC CHATT hosts bi-monthly events dedicated to celebrating Chinese food heritage, cultivating industry leadership and forecasting market trends, aiming to enrich and expand the narrative of Chinese food in America.
Xiao Huang, a graduate of University of Pennsylvania and scholar of the Swedish Government Institute for Asia Leadership Management Program, has become a serial entrepreneur in mobile technology by founding ecommerce content community network named Xberts and social ecommerce marketplace called PriceDrop, with a combined number of 5 Million users internationally. His startup was merged with a leading social ecommerce player company GlowRoad and now has achieved over 12 Million users.
As a technology advocate, Xiao has co-hosted the 5th SVIEF Smart Technology Forum and awarded the US congressional recognition of Sino-US Business Exchange Promotion from the U.S. congresswoman Judy Chu. He has also been honored as the Forbes Asia 30 Under 30, AACFY 30 Under 30 and Dragon100 Global Chinese Leader.
Wang Yi, founder and CEO of Qi Wu, born in July 1991, master of Illinois University of Technology, has more than 10 years of experience in AI product development, resigned after two years in the core departments of the world ’s top 500 companies, went to the United States to study and start a business, and pursue a master ’s degree in computer science. At the same time, a R & D team of more than 100 people was formed from 0 to 1, and the domestic business was launched in May 2017. In 3 years, Yi helped the company negotiate cooperation with more than 200 industry giants, completed 5 rounds of financing and tens of millions of government for Qi Wu, the latest round of financing exceeded 50 million rmb. In the 2018 All-American Chinese (AACYF 30U30), Forbes, APEC, Hurun Report, and Pioneer State under 30 elite list. Qi Wu focuses on the research and development of smart dialogue operating systems, focusing on the field of smart vehicles and smart homes. At present, it has reached strategic cooperation with more than 30 mainstream auto manufacturers and home furnishing giants such as Hisense, Haier, and Midea. It is expected that there will be more than 50 million units in 2020 The device is connected to Qiwu Voice OS. The company was awarded the TOP10 (Chinese Academy of Sciences & Chinese Academy of Sciences) of 2019 Disruptive Innovation List, and the TOP50 of the 2019 Artificial Intelligence Industry Unicorn.
Tiantian Zhang is the co-founder of Vigo Technologies, a Silicon Valley-based hardware company behind Vue Smart Glasses. Vue raised $4M for its product launch, including $2.2M on Kickstarter, making it the highest grossing eyewear crowdfunding campaign of all time. Prior to Vigo Technologies, she founded Three Fellows, a video media company that portrayed the lives of Chinese students in the US that garnered tens of millions of views online.
Tiantian holds a masters degree in Product Design from the University of Pennsylvania. Her work has won accolades including CES Innovation Awards as well IDEA and DIA design awards. She holds multiple patents within China and the US. She has been recognized on prestigious lists including Forbes 30 Under 30 2017, AACYF Under 30 2018, and was selected by the city as a Shenzhen Young Pioneering Entrepreneur for 2019. She has been invited to speak at world-renowned events, including as a panelist for the New York City Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), TEDx and the Forbes Under 30 Forum.
Tiantian is also passionate about advocating for women in technology, and was interviewed by China Daily to share her opinions on her own experiences. She was also invited to be the only female keynote speaker at Hack Osaka in Japan. In her spare time, she is active in startup and alumni events where she serves as a mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs.
Kelvin Liu is the Co-founder and CEO of Illume Research technology company. He is a visiting researcher at Stanford University and a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge. Illume Research focuses on innovative education and scientific thinking cultivation. It is an international education and technology company providing courses, teachers, platform, technology, and management system along with other comprehensive solutions. He led the team to create the first innovative PBL curriculum system and won the national patent. He was selected to AACYF “30 Under 30” in 2019 and APEC VOF “Future Innovator”, and Forbes’ “30 Under 30” Asia and China list of “game-changers under 30 transforming the world.” He hopes to get more young people to think scientifically, to think like scientists and enlighten students, helping them to develop critical thinking, research skills, and innovation capabilities. Illume Research has collaborated with over 300 high schools in China. It is committed to providing an elite international education that will help guide students in their future roles as professionals, researchers, and world leaders.
Xiangkun (Elvis) Cao (https://www.elviscao.com/) is a Ph.D. Candidate in Mechanical Engineering at Cornell University. He graduated with an M.Eng. (thesis) in Materials Engineering from McGill (2016) with joint training by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2015-2016). Elvis is an honoree by three 30 under 30 lists, including Forbes’ 30 under 30 in Energy (2019), EarthX 30 Under 30 (2019), and AACYF 30 Under 30 (2019). He co-founded Greemonia, a start-up for carbon-free “green” ammonia production. Greemonia is a winner in the Chunhui Cup, as well as one of the six finalist teams in the Net Zero Carbon Startup Prize by BP Ventures.
During his Ph.D. study at Cornell, Elvis focused on developing scalable photoreactors for solar fuel production. The design won the “Create the Future” Design Contest International Grand Prize (2017), was included in World Economic Forum’s White Book on “Global Innovations from the Energy Sector 2010-2020,” and was a finalist (10 in the world) for the $20M NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE (2019), a global competition to develop breakthrough technologies for CO2 conversion. His research was widely reported by Forbes, the New York Times, Hart Energy Publishing, etc.
Elvis was selected to attend the 70th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Lindau, Germany (2020), was featured as a Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) Commitment-Maker by the Clinton Foundation (2020), and was named a Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum (2019). He won numerous awards, including MKS Instruments Research Excellence Award by SPIE (2020), First Place Award in the TCAM Poster/Pitch Competition by the Atkinson Center (2018), Young Champions of the Earth North America Finalist by UNEP (2019), Local Pathways Fellow by UN SDSN- Youth (2018-2019), Future Energy Leader (11 in the world) by BP plc (2019), Student Energy Leader by ARPA-E (2019), and INK Fellow (21 in the world) by the Ixoraa Knowledge Foundation (2019). He was an invited speaker at IoT, Data, and the New Last Mile by TTI/Vanguard in Berkeley, CA (2019), was featured by SPARK – Energy Re-Imagined to speak at the Carbon Capture Stream in London, UK (2020), and was selected as an INK Fellow to talk about solar fuels in Jaisalmer, India (2019).
Kehan Dong Rodeirck, founding team member, Investor & operator of MiraclePlus, Previously Known as Y Combinator China, DNA of Y Combinator (the world’s preeminent accelerator) and adaptively localized to capture entrepreneurship opportunities in China. I was in charge of recruiting thousands of companies to deliver their applications and participate in the investment of 50 companies.
Rodeirck Dong was a student university of California in Santa Cruz, he dropped off his school in order to focus on his startup when he was in senior year.
In the same year of 2015, Rodeirck Dong had Founded the Inner Journeys, a boutique online travel agencies and the lifestyle media platform, the programs of the company are spread all over the world more than 24 countries. Inner Journeys collaborate an online TV show with Tencent once, it earns 1B+ views. In 2018, Inner Journeys became Forbes China 30U30 company.
Roderick Dong also is the Founder and Chairman of The Code of Love, an international NGO, that committed to educational equity, to cultivate caring youth to provide help for poor children. Since its inception in 2011, The Code of Love has more than 2000 volunteers giving nearly 100,000 times of lectures, and raised more than a million donations with its partners.
Xinchen Duan, MD, a student at Harvard Medical School who majors in Master of Medical Science in Clinical Investigation, is the student researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital co-leading several clinical trials about cancer-targeted therapy in the digestive system. He is the founder and CEO of Dreture Healthtech, a company focused on AI-empowered Clinical trial contract research organization. Dreture Healthtech helps pharma-companies and hospitals to optimize their clinical trial design and to accelerate the whole procedure of FDA registration. Xinchen is also the founding partner of Innoplanet, a platform committed to uniting the power of the industry’s top companies to create global influential innovation. by the founder of Eudaimonia Behavior, he uses psychology to improve everyone’s life experience; As External Chair of Harvard China Health Club, he committed to breaking through the barriers between China and the US health industry and academia, deducting industry elites and academic leaders to have a continuing interaction; the Medical and investment consultant of Global Alliance for Medical Innovation; the invited reviewers for medical SCI magazines.
