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Hu Weiwei (entrepreneur)

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In this Chinese name, the family name is Hu.

Hu Weiwei
胡玮炜
Hu in 2023
Born1982 (age 41–42)
Dongyang
NationalityChinese
Alma materZhejiang City College
Occupation(s)Journalist
Businesswoman
Known forCEO of Mobike (2016–2018)

Hu Weiwei (Chinese: 胡玮炜, born 1982) is a Chinese journalist and businesswoman. She is a co-founder of bicycle-sharing company Mobike.

She is also a great inventor. She invented smart dockless (station-free) shared bikes. She founded the bicycle-sharing company Mobike. Mobike provides station-free bikes in cities, which allows citizens to ride the bike to the places without public transportation. Users can unlock a bike by scanning a QR-code on the bike. Her invention solves the “last one kilometer” problem.[1] In major cities of China, although the complex subway system can transport passengers to most places of the city, passengers still need to walk for a few hundred meters or more to reach their jobs or home. Hu’s invention helped citizens to solve this problem at a relatively low cost.

Mobike started its operation in 2016 and grew very fast. In June 2017, Mobike was valued at US$3 billion. Until 2018, Mobike operated in more than 200 cities and 19 countries around the world.

Early experience (Education and career)

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Hu Weiwei was born in Dongyang, Zhejiang province, China. She attended the City College of Zhejiang University. during 2000–2004.[2] Her major is communication. After graduation, she became a journalist focused on business, economics, technology, and automobiles. She has been hired by Daily Economics News (每经网), a Chinese business newspaper, mainly covers the tech news for automobile industry. She also worked for The Beijing News (新京报), which is a stated-owned newspaper.[2] She born a son in 2010. In 2015, she realized that she needs to do something innovative, both benefiting society and building her family with a better financial status. In the meanwhile, she already has more than 10 years’ experience of working with automobile and transportation industry. As a result, she founded Mobike in 2015, a bike sharing company operating smart dockless (station-less) shared bikes.    

Working in Mobike

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In 2014 Hu founded the media platform GeekCar.[3] Through her contacts in the automobile and technology sector, Hu assembled a team in late 2015 to start a bicycle-sharing company and launched Mobike in January 2016.[4] Co-founder Wang Xiaofeng, the general manager for the Shanghai office of Uber also known by his English name Davis Wang, became Mobike's CEO. Unable to purchase bikes from suppliers to the preferred specifications, the company built its own bikes which rolled out from April 2016.[3]

Early in 2017, Hu was one of seven leaders, scholars and entrepreneurs to present to Premier of China Li Keqiang and other political leaders to provide ideas for the annual Government Report.[5]

In early April 2018, it was announced that Mobike had been acquired by Chinese web company Meituan-Dianping for US$2.7 billion,.[6] Wang was reportedly opposed to the takeover and left Mobike at the end of that month, with Hu taking on the role of CEO.[7] Hu left Mobike in December 2018 "for personal reasons".[8] Hu is a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.[9]

Innovation (How Mobike different to others)

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She is known as one of the inventors of dockless bike sharing system. Dai Wei, the cofounder of “Ofo” is also an inventor of dockless bike sharing system. Dai Wei and Hu Weiwei started to develop this system simultaneously, and his company “Ofo” entered the market even a few months prior to Hu Weiwei’s company “Mobike”. However, Mobike the first smart dockless bike sharing system in the world, the first generation Mobikes were far more intelligent than Ofo’s first generation bikes. The reason why Mobike is “smart” it that it has an advanced unlocking process and GPS function. Every mobike has a smart intelligent lock. When a user scans a QR code on the Mobike, the company database authorizes the bike's unique electronic key to the user's phone, which unlocks the bike via Bluetooth. Users then use the app to pay the trip. Along with the fast development of online payment (paying through QR code) in China, people nowadays prefer to pay the trip within mobike’s app.[10] In-app payment makes the transaction very convenient. Compared to the unlocking process of Ofo’s bike, users are provided with a fixed code for a mechanical combination lock after scanning a QR code on the bike. Mobike’s approach avoids the risks of free-rider problems. Traditional mechanical lock has an issue which is when a user forgets to spin the dial of the lock to a random position, the next rider may open the lock easily without scanning the QR code and not paying for the trip. The second innovation of Mobike bike sharing system is the importation GPS function to bikes. Since mobikes are dockless, they can be put in many hidden corners of the cities. GPS function allows users to find nearby bikes in the app.

The current status of her innovation

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In 2018, Hu Weiwei resigned as chief executive for “personal issue”.[11] In order to get more capital and keep competitive in bike-sharing industry. Hu Weiwei and her team sold Mobike for US$2.7 billion to Meituan-Dianping (a large Chinese shopping platform) in April 2018. No information indicated how much Hu earned in this transaction, but Hu agreed to stay in the company. She wrote a letter to the employees of Mobike. She wrote that she has completed her mission, and she hopes Mobike has a bright future.  

The development of dockless bikes is also facing some controversy. Since mobikes are dockless, users can end a trip at any places they want. Mobike receives many complaints related to street clutter. In September 2018, Mobike was pulled out from Manchester (UK), one of the reasons is overuse of public space.[12] To address this problem. Mobike and some of its competitors have started to use electric fence technology to make sure users put bikes in places suitable for parking.[13] Users can browse parking spots around their destination in the app, and they can only end a trip and stop being billed when the GPS chip of the bike has detected the bike is in a correct parking area.

Recognition

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The American business magazine Forbes listed Hu and her business partner Xia Yiping as number twenty on its 2017 "40 under 40" list.[14]

Mobike Awarded with UN’s Top Environmental Prize – 2017 Champion of the Earth.[15]

In 2018, Hu Weiwei made the Forbes Asia Emergent Women 25 List.[16]

Mobike won iF Design Award for 4 projects.[17]

Mobike won Red Dot Design Award for its "New Lite" and "Mobike E-bike".[18][19]

References

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  1. ^ "Bike-sharing takes off among youths in major Asian cities: survey". Reuters. 26 September 2017. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
  2. ^ a b "Hu Weiwei Mobike". Executives.Technology. 13 October 2019. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
  3. ^ a b Wang, Xinlei; Ke, Feng (29 June 2018). "Mobike founder Hu Weiwei: A crazy idea that touched millions of lives". Compasslist. Archived from the original on 22 July 2018. Retrieved 22 July 2018.
  4. ^ Lee, Emma (11 April 2017). "3 Chinese journalists who turned into successful tech entrepreneurs". Technode. Retrieved 22 July 2018.
  5. ^ Zhou, Gretchen (6 February 2017). "Bike Tech Entrepreneur Shares Her Vision with China's Highest-Level Leadership". All-China Women's Federation. Retrieved 21 July 2018.
  6. ^ Chong, Zoey (3 April 2018). "This bike sharing company just got bought for $2.7 billion". CNET. Retrieved 22 July 2018.
  7. ^ Borak, Masha (28 April 2018). "Mobike co-founder and CEO Davis Wang resigns, Hu Weiwei takes the handlebars". Technode. Retrieved 22 July 2018.
  8. ^ Yingzhi, Yang; Zhou, Xin (23 December 2018). "Mobike founder Hu Weiwei quits chief executive role at China's leading bike-sharing firm". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 12 March 2019.
  9. ^ "User Profile". AGLN – Aspen Global Leadership Network. Retrieved 7 July 2022.
  10. ^ Yang, Zicheng (2023). "Mobike: to what extent dockless design and digital technology impact mobike". SHS Web of Conferences. 153: 01010. doi:10.1051/shsconf/202315301010. ISSN 2261-2424.
  11. ^ "Mobike co-founder Hu Weiwei to step down as chief executive". South China Morning Post. 23 December 2018. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
  12. ^ "Dockless bikes: Green revolution or public 'parasite'?". Reuters. 1 November 2018. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
  13. ^ Zhang, Yongping; Lin, Diao; Mi, Zhifu (1 January 2019). "Electric fence planning for dockless bike-sharing services" (PDF). Journal of Cleaner Production. 206: 383–393. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.09.215. ISSN 0959-6526. S2CID 158580359.
  14. ^ "Hu Weiwei and Xia Yiping, 35, 36". Forbes. Retrieved 22 July 2018.
  15. ^ 36Kr (7 December 2017). "Mobike Awarded with UN's Top Environmental Prize". Pandaily. Retrieved 7 July 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  16. ^ 杨洋. "Top 8 Chinese women make Forbes Asia list". global.chinadaily.com.cn. Retrieved 7 July 2022.
  17. ^ "iF – Search". ifdesign.com (in German). Retrieved 7 July 2022.
  18. ^ www.red-dot.org http://www.red-dot.org/project/new-lite-23026-23025. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  19. ^ www.red-dot.org http://www.red-dot.org/zh/project/mobike-e-bike-37995. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
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