Today, I’m leaving the 'Western world' for the first time. I have been across the ocean in the US, but never on other continents— after 25 years it’s about time. With some fellow students, we had the amazing opportunity to develop a prototype for a connected device (smart object/gadget/talking plant/flying giraffe/just kidding) in Hong Kong and Shenzhen (http://chi.camp/). We prepared, planned, and now it’s here. Although not yet, as us girls leave a little bit before (thanks EPFL for the flexible plane dates!) to stretch out our sore keyboard muscles in Thailand before the last sprint.

Looking back, there were probably many things we could have done better during the year, the teamwork, timing, quicker iterations, more testing, etc, but I feel we did a pretty good job nevertheless. Throwing together 5 random people with no fixed idea is a rocky start, and we handled it pretty well. Also a big thanks to our supervisors and coordinators at HEAD and EPFL — we have no complaints. And of course to the team members, who did their best not just for themselves, but for all of us.

All we want now is some extra confidence and energy (about 120%) so we can fully take in and enjoy the crazy ecosystem that is Shenzhen, the pitches, the iterations, no sleep, no English. And we will. Have fun, Team Geneva!