Innovations are happening at a surprising rate nowadays, so be prepared to face new challenges, and at the same time, learn to take advantage of whatever technological development might bring. A bright future lies ahead. 

On 27th November, 2017, Mr. John Loong, an alumnus of Li Po Chun United World College of Hong Kong, now the Founder and CEO of BISOU GROUP and several other start-up companies, was invited to UWC Changshu China as a guest speaker at Global Issues Forum (GIF). 

Mr. John Loong speaking at GIF 

In his presentation, he talked about "New Retail”, a term coined by Founder and Chairman of Alibaba Mr. Jack Ma in a letter to Alibaba’s shareholders in October last year. Ma said, “Pure E-commerce will be reduced to a traditional business and replaced by the concept of New Retail-the integration of online, offline, logistics and data across a single value chain.” To date, most of the commentary on the impact of the Internet on retail marketing has been anecdotal, offering exaggerated speculative forecasts of its future potential. One view contends that the Internet will become a major new retail format, replacing the traditional dominance of fixed location stores.   

Characteristics of New Retail

John first introduced his company to the community. He founded BISOU GROUP, an incubator that works with FMCG businesses from scratch and provides them with technology and financial investments to make them even more successful. He also introduced the vision of his company-to enhance standards of living by using Artificial Intelligence, robotics and big data to help human beings increase efficiency and focus on high value-adding tasks, starting with owned brands in fun food and beverages.

He captivated the audience with a highly engaging presentation. Throughout the talk he gave a range of advice for making a business successful.  His formula for increasing sales, which was “Sales= Traffic x conversion rate x average transaction price” was exceptionally popular among the audience.  As he suggested, “when you invest in a brand, don’t assume that you’re going to start earning money on the first day.” This valuable piece of advice was noted by all aspiring entrepreneurs.

During the session, John brought up an interesting and intriguing question. He asked the community for possible solutions to deal with the unemployment that would be caused by the use of AI. He asked this question as the local government that one of his subsidiaries is based in was concerned about how the labor market would be affected if Robotics were used in place of bartenders and baristas. There were a lot of responses to his question. The answer which stuck out, was given by a DP2 student from Romania. He argued that the use of AI and robotics would increase people’s standard of living. Humans and machines will each specialize in what they are good at. By this he meant that the use of new technology could relieve humans from mundane jobs such as bartending that could easily be performed by any robot. Instead, humans will be more focused on finding the answers to the questions of the universe. Thus, they will get re-employed in the jobs that they are meant to do.

Students interacting with John and sharing their views on AI 

Indeed, as technology, especially robotics, evolves at such an amazing pace, it raises serious questions as to whether robots will replace human labor in many industries and cause unemployment rate to rise drastically. Whatever the view might be, the world must be ready to embrace a new future while adapting to new developments as quickly as it could possibly can. What we have to do is to keep an open mind and stay positive to whatever change the future might bring, even if it might prove to be unsatisfactory to some.

John encouraging students to be prepared for new challenges

 John encouraging students to be prepared for  new challenges 

While talking with one of the members of the GIF team, John said that he was happy to be back in a UWC. He further added that the ethical implications of AI technologies should be discussed in TOK classes. He joked that he would be a perfect candidate for TOK coordinator. Overall, this GIF was described as insightful and thought provoking by the members of the community. The efforts of Mr. John were highly appreciated.

Innovations are happening at a surprising rate nowadays, so be prepared to face new challenges, and at the same time, learn to take advantage of whatever technological development might bring. A bright future lies ahead.

Written by: Jing Wang & Neha Ahmed, DP1, GIF Team

Photo by: Zihua Yao, Pre-DP, Member of Media Group