TEDxNYUShanghai Presents "On the Flip Side"

On April 17, TEDxNYUShanghai presented "On the Flip Side," the first in-person conference to take place on campus since the COVID-19 pandemic. Inspired by the lyrics of Chinese singer Lexie Liu’s hit 佳人 (Jiaren), this year’s conference explored how moments of crisis - from global pandemics to the failure of personal relationships - can become moments of opportunity to see things from a new perspective.

Yin Jie, Associate Professor at the School of Philosophy and Center for Biomedical Ethics at Fudan University, spoke about the close links between the distribution of healthcare resources and social injustice in times of coronavirus. “Justice is one of the core values that contribute to human well-being,” Yin told listeners, encouraging them to look beyond simple statistics like vaccine delivery numbers.

NYU Shanghai Assistant Professor Faculty Fellow of Business Analytics Grace Haaf explained how her research into how people weigh potential financial gains against risks helped her make one of the toughest choices in her own life - getting divorced. “Our hard decisions are what make us, us,” Haaf told the audience.

Speakers delivered their talks before a full house of 100 audience members, the first in-person audience to be able to attend a TEDxNYUShanghai event since before the COVID-19 pandemic began. According to conference organizers, one audience member even came from as far as Beijing to view the event live.

“Let’s un-choreograph our lives and give ourselves permission to follow our hearts,” NYU Shanghai Associate Arts Professor of Dance Aly Rose advised listeners. Rose’s talk, “Experiencing Unity: How Dance Taught Me Oneness,” told the story of her choice to turn away from her family’s expectations and take a huge risk by studying traditional ethnic minority dance in rural China.

Wildlife conservation activist Zoe Huang shared a humorous moment onstage with listeners. Huang has worked closely with major Chinese companies operating in Africa to deliver wildlife conservation education to over 160,000 Chinese workers on the continent. “If China is a problem [in illegal wildlife trade], China should also be the solution,” Huang told the audience.NYU Shanghai Assistant Professor of Urban Science and Policy Guan Chenghe showed the TEDxNYUShanghai audience how allowing other ac

NYU Shanghai Assistant Professor of Urban Science and Policy Guan Chenghe showed the TEDxNYUShanghai audience how allowing other academic disciplines to play direct roles in urban planning policy can help make cities more efficient and equitable in this important juncture in world history. “This is the right time to think about our urban future,” Guan told listeners.

Students got to meet and engage in person with TEDxNYUShanghai speakers during a “Tea Break” in the campus cafe.

TEDxNYUShanghai club members Jade Zhou ’23 (left) and Year Cao ’23 (right) congratulate each other on a job well done! “I’m so proud of the commitment our team showed this year,” said TEDxNYUShanghai President Scofield Zou. “We hoped this conference could kick start the campus’s recovery from all-online and mixed-mode, and we are so happy for all the support that we received from different departments of the school to make this happen.”