Samstag 27.10.

Vormittag
Der Tag der Paperbike-Challenge war gekommen. Zwar war das KIT-Team, das dem Vorschlag des Sugar-Leitungteams am Vorabend gefolgt war und die Barszene in Hefei erkundet hatte, nicht auf dem Höhepunkt geistiger und körperlicher Fähigkeiten, dennoch bot sich noch ausreichend Zeit um Gedanken und Kräfte zu sammeln. Am Vormittag erhielten wir eine Einführung in die Materie der Teamdynamik & -zusammenarbeit in diversen, interdisziplinären und internationalen Teams. Nach jeder Vorstellung der theoretischen Hintergründe konnten wir die Methoden und Tools in unseren Teams üben und anwenden. Ein weiterer Höhepunkt des Vormittags war der Vortrag des Gründers und CEO von Huami. Er erzählte die Erfolgsgeschichte seines Unternehmens und skizziert die Unterschiede zwischen chinesischen und westlichen Startups.

Nachmittag
Jetzt zu den wichtigen Dingen, die Paperbike-Challenge. Beim Einzug in die Spielarena glänzten die beiden KIT-Teams „Bi-KIT“ und „Cycl-ING“ sammt Fangemeinde unter dem Motto „Candy“ fulminanter und medial aufsehenerregender Teamverkleidung. Im Verlauf der Paperbike-Challenge konnten beide Teams in den Kategorien „Aufbauschnelligkeit“, „Fahrgeschwindigkeit/Beschleunigung“ sowie „Geschicklichkeit“ punkten und sich so eine sehr gute Ausgangsplatzierung für das Battle Royale im Paperbike-Polo sichern. Dabei mussten die einzelnen Teams versuchen möglichst viele Tore zu schießen um so in die nächste Runde voranzuschreiten. Besonders das Team um Zugpferd und Antreiber Patrick und Fahrerin Chiara bewiesen trotz den geringen Konfrontationsängsten der Gegner außerordentliches Spielgeschick und Athletik und konnten so bis ins Halbfinale vordringen. Dort mussten sie sich dann leider nur sehr knapp geschlagen geben. Niemand hatte dieses hervorragende Abschneiden des KIT Teams vorhergesehen und durch die zusätzliche Kostüm-Kreativität, Anfeuer-Lautstärke und Fairness wurden wir Sieger der Herzen!

Abend
Um den gelungenen Tag gebürtig ausklingen zu lassen, ging das gesamte KIT-Team in Begleitung unserer chinesischen Voluntärin traditionell chinesisch Essen. Besondere Highlights waren dabei Entenzungen, 1000-jährige Eier und die schweißtreibenden Peperoni.

Hey thinkers, designers, curious persons or just everyone who got to our diary by accident.

Today, Friday 26 th of October, it is the 3rd day of our Global Kick-Off of the SUGAR Network in Hefei, China.
So, what is our workload and effort like? What’s on this day?

Staying in China for the event is lucky for us, as our team challenge is linked to the Chinese market. We got the opportunity to get to know experts face to face. Having conversations for hours and hours, talking in English and still suffering under the 6-hour time difference, we are running out of energy. No chance, the show must go on. Staying in one hotel with almost all students, short nights, quickly shared room parties, and the pool conquered by bathing hood wearing creatures are just a few impressions.

The international atmosphere increases creativity. Being familiar with your team members is the basis for a successful year together. We used the available time to familiarize with our partner team
from St. Gallen and build up a team spirit for the next months. Light prejudices disappeared quickly after we spent several hours explaining why we applied for this course, what we did in the past and which dreams we have for the future.
In the evening of this sunny Friday with surprisingly good air condition, the university served dinner for all students. Afterwards the big group split up in different activities and we went to a bar with live music and – compared to European prices – cheap drinks. Realizing the size of the emerging market in China, not knowing much about the culture and being overwhelmed by the helpfulness of the local students is just a short sum up of this day.

Hey, on day two it is our turn to give you the most interesting news from the global kickoff of SUGAR: team JaMaMaPa with Janna, Marie, Marius and Patrick.

After a warming up session on day one with some introductions to the Chinese culture, the sugar network and the kickoff event, finally today, the work on our challenges began. It was also our first day at the USTC West Campus. Unfortunately, it was raining, so we could not explore the student’s environment here. We will have to postpone this to another day. But we have already seen the soccer field where the notorious paper bike challenge is going to take place.

Jumping into the event, in the morning, we had the honor to receive a talk by the vice mayor of Hefei in the pleasant conference hall of the USTC. He emphasized that Hefei is an attractive city with a focus on innovative industries and global partners. Falk, a member of the teaching team St. Gallen, gave us a quick overview of the first phase of Design Thinking – the Design Space Exploration. Afterwards, a working session in our team began. At first, we had to clarify some of the key questions which included the collection of some general information about our company, the reason why the company chose Design Thinking for their problem as well as the definition of the challenge. It was difficult to stop our discussions because we were already very enthusiastic about it.

As time in the morning passed quickly, we enjoyed a well-deserved lunch consisting of rice with chicken at noon. The kickoff participants showed its internationality afterwards by doing a Japanese relaxing sports session. With some more information about needfinding and the important stakeholder map for our challenge, we were introduced to the things we have to work on during the whole week. Niels and Gerhard presented some important Dos and Don’ts concerning the contact with executives of our company. At the end of the second working phase of the day, our valued colleagues from the KIT Johanna, Paulina, Bene and Julius presented their work status achieved so far. And what can we say: They nailed it!

Of course, in the evening we wanted to get to know some more culinary delights from China. Having some new things learnt and a full belly we went to bed.