Internet experts

Forty years ago Chinese academics sent their first online message and since then the internet has changed China beyond recognition. While China’s users explore their new freedoms online, the Chinese government became more sophisticated in controlling those freedoms.

Now Alibaba, Bytedance, Tencent, JC.com and many others dominate as private companies with the ongoing fast developments of the internet in China, and increasingly also abroad. Check in for our experts on the lastest updates.

Alvin Wang Graylin is China President, HTC HTC中国区总裁.

Graylin has written a new book, Our Next Reality – How the AI-Powered Metaverse will Reshape the World, about the pending transformation of society this decade brought on by the convergence of AI and metaverse technologies which will be published by Hachette Book Group in early 2024.

Under his leadership, HTC has been voted as the top VR company in China at the World Conference of VR Industry (WCVRI) three of the last four years, and Graylin has been recognized by media/industry experts as the most influential person in VR/AR in China from 2016-2022.

Graylin first did his research in VR space 30+ years ago under the tutelage of Prof. Tom Furness (The Godfather of VR) at the Human Interface Technology Lab, and specialized in AI/Natural Language Processing while at the University of Washington and MIT.

Graylin has over 28 years of business leadership experience in the tech industry, including 20 years in Greater China.

You can read his recent online activities here.

Ashley Dudarenok is a China marketing expert with 15 years of professional experience in China. Ashley is fluent in Mandarin, Russian, German and English.

Ashley is a China marketing expert, serial entrepreneur, professional speaker, bestselling author, vlogger, podcaster, media contributor and female entrepreneurship spokesperson. She is the founder of several startups, including social media agency Alarice.com.hk and resources & training company ChoZan.co.

Ashley is a member of Alibaba’s Global Influencer Entourage and works directly with a Tencent core founder to conquer Western social media. She runs Asia’s #1 entrepreneurship vlog at www.youtube.com/c/AshleyTalksChina. She’s also the world’s #1 China marketing blogger at AshleyTalks.com.

For Ashley’s recent contributions on China, click here.

Kaiser Kuo is one of the thought leaders when it comes to the internet in China. As an American-Chinese he was formerly director of international communications at the Chinese search engine Baidu and now the host of the Sinica podcast at China-focused media startup SupChina. He has a longstanding reputation as journalist, bridging the gaps in perception between China and the rest of the world.

You can read some of his contributions here.

William Bao Bean is Investment Partner at SOS Ventures and Managing Director Managing Director of Orbit startups.

SOSventures is a US$700m+ evergreen fund known as the “Accelerator VC” with six partners running five global accelerator programs: HAX for hardware in Shenzhen, Indie.bio for biotech in San Francisco and Ireland, Food-X for food in New York and Chinaccelerator for Internet in Shanghai. SOSventures invests in over 140 companies per year and over its 22 years has a net realized IRR of 36% putting it in the top 3% of VCs in the world.

The focus is on Internet, helping companies from China and across Asia attack the global market and companies from across the world enter China and SE Asia.

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