Meet the digital innovators strengthening rural communities, promoting sustainable agriculture, and bringing food from farm to table in China today.
Travel live with us to Guangdong to explore the rise of one of the most important sustainable agriculture movements on the planet. Young Chinese social entrepreneurs are working with organic farmers to deliver healthy food to urbanites looking for healthy lifestyle and food safety. You will meet the idealistic business owners and also talk with a farmer, who will share how his life has changed and cook us a dish with his freshly harvested veggies.
Speakers’ Bios
Dorinda (Dinda) Elliott is SVP, Director of Programs, at the China Institute. Before joining China Institute, Elliott worked as editorial and communications director at the Paulson Institute, which promotes U.S.-China relations and sustainable growth in both countries. Elliott worked as a journalist for some 30 years, with a deep background in China. Elliott was Newsweek Bureau Chief in Beijing, Moscow, and Hong Kong, then Asia Editor. As Editor-in-Chief of Asiaweek from 2000-2001, she relaunched the magazine with a new focus on China and business. Elliott was later an Assistant Managing Editor at Time magazine, then Global Affairs Editor at Condé Nast Traveler, where she wrote about China, global issues, and corporate social responsibility. Elliott graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in East Asian Studies. She is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, and speaks rusty Russian and French. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., with her husband Adi Ignatius. They have three sons.
Matilda Ho is a serial entrepreneur and investor driving to create more sustainable food systems. She is founder and managing director of Bits x Bites, China’s pioneer food tech venture capital firm investing in startups tackling global food system challenges. Matilda also founded Yimishiji, a farm-to-table grocery e-commerce platform that has engineered food education and transparency into the entire supply chain and customer experience.
Fred Young, based in Shanghai, is the founder and CEO of Rainbow of Hope Horizons, which links organic farmers with urban customers. Formerly an English teacher and real-estate consultant, Fred spends most of his time promoting a vision of eco-communities that enrich both urban and rural lifestyles, and teaching about farming, community organizing, and NGO management. In the future, Fred hopes to spend more time working with the farm community. The first youth of his village to attend university, Fred retired from the corporate world in 2008 and returned to his hometown in West Hunan, giving back to his community by creating an organic farming business and the Rainbow of Hope program
Zhang Mei is the founder and CEO of WildChina. Under her leadership, WildChina flourished from a small Hutong operation into an award-winning business. Mei’s own expertise has led her to win a number of personal awards, including Travel and Leisure’s A-List of Top Travel Advisors, Condé Nast Traveler’s Top Travel Specialist, and Wendy Perrin’s #WOW List of Travel Experts. Mei is an Aspen Institute China Fellow and currently serves as a member of Harvard Business School’s Alumni Board.
WildChina is an award-winning travel company that specializes in high-end cultural and experiential journeys. Whether we’re in China’s sprawling megacities or villages where street names hardly exist, we go off the beaten path to get to the real stories. We push the boundaries of travel, crossing cultural borders to discover the China that lives amid the aromatic sizzle of street-side woks, in bustling city markets and far-flung mountain villages, and most of all, in the hearts of the people along the way. Our journeys are fully customizable and cover Mainland China, Tibet, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and neighboring countries in South East Asia. Learn more online.
