A Year in a Decade of...

As 2019 ends, many reflects on the highs and lows of the past 12 months. Recently, I came across this statement about 2019 ‘may be the worst of the last 10 years and may be the best of the next 10 years…’ from economic and political point of views. However, 2019 has been a remarkable year for my team in Asia – it’s the 10th year we brought Shell Eco-Marathon, a program encouraging young talents to create the most fuel-efficient cars, to Asia. And, we have achieved many firsts.

The debut of Shell Eco-Marathon Asia was in 2010 at the Sepang International Circuit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We returned to Sepang this April for the 10th Shell Eco-Marathon Asia, when we had over 100 student teams from 18 countries. Innovation and creativity did not just take place on the track by the amazing student teams, as the organizer, we keep challenging ourselves – we staged the 1st night race.

We also brought back the alumni of Shell Eco-Marathon Asia to mark its 10th anniversary and return to KL.

In the last week of August, we launched the 1st Shell Eco-marathon Challenger event for university students in China where 22 student teams from across China enjoyed 4 days of competition of who travel the furthest with the one liter of petrol equivalent. The competition went beyond track, key opinion leaders were sponsors of the various student teams and they started an on-line voting for the favorite team. A comic story about Shell Eco-marathon went viral, achieving 300 million views within a week on Weibo.

This is truly a remarkable achievement for the first ever Shell Eco-marathon in China, thanks to the leadership and collaboration by everyone.

Two and half month later in mid-November, we hosted Shell Eco-Marathon Challenger for Indian students for the second year at the purpose-built track at Shell Technology Center Bengaluru– making it the 1st ever Shell Eco-Marathon event on a Shell site. The track was paved with Shell Bitumen Freshair, a low-emission product that was created at this very technology center of Shell.

We made all these events a festival of ‘Make the Future’ where we brought in thought leaders to debate about energy transition related issues, including mobility and we invited more young talents to show their creativity and innovation.

The winners of NXplorer, Shell’s flagship STEM program that encourages middle school students to come up with solutions to the water-food-energy challenges, demonstrated brilliant ideas at both KL and Bengaluru.

So, a year in a decade of Shell Eco-Marathon in Asia, we had many firsts – 1st night race at the 10th regional Shell Eco-Marathon, 1st Shell Eco-Marathon Challenger in China, 1st ever Shell Eco-Marathon event at a Shell site - the Shell Technology Center Bengaluru. And it is the 1st time we had three Shell Eco-Marathon events in Asia within a year!

Two weeks before the year ends, we received the 2019 Shell Brand Excellence Award as the winner of the Best Brand Experience category, in recognition of our Make the Future China 2018, signed by our CEO Ben van Beurden. What a a high note to end 2019, a year my team and I are all so proud of!

2020 will be the 35th year of Shell Eco-Marathon since its inauguration, and a year we’d like to do better to make the future!

 (Photos credits to Shell Eco-Marathon and some by Shell colleagues)