Non-Chinese speakers can now enjoy takeout！ WKU students build the first Bilingual e-commerce platform in Wenzhou, winning the Young Entrepreneur Award

Normally bread is a necessity of life, but for now, the young generation may believe takeout is a necessity of life. WKU international student George Solomon, who comes from Tanzania, had trouble using apps to order food because he is a non-Chinese speaker. To solve this problem, he worked with his team members and wrote an app named Hamster International which provides abundant bilingual information of catering and entertainment for university students and foreigners in Wenzhou. Recently, the Hams team held its first Product Launch for the Hamster International APP in 2019 in the X-space at WKU.

The Hams team builds the first Bilingual e-commerce platform in Wenzhou

The Hamster International APP was written by WKU international student George Solomon and his teammates. They believe in “Making life easier” by offering “various, multilingual and comprehensive” services. A bilingual e-commerce platform, the Hamster International APP now mainly focus on online order and delivery. This app will be officially uploaded to the App Store and Google Play Store where you can freely download it. (It is available now.)

During the Product Launch, the leader of the Hams team showed the audience a new theme for the APP along with new features. The red and white pages are simple and internationalized. The Hamster International APP has a normal takeout interface and common functions, offering many delicious choices from restaurants in the user’s geographical area. A unique aspect of this app is that it has a column for real-time information including campus news and bus information. The Hams team designed a lovely hamster logo and various giffs attractive to the characteristics of college students. Furthermore, for high-frequency users, the Hamster International APP provides a friendly and convenient interface with points and a membership system.

首席财务官胡琛璇

财务部助理方玉洁

人力资源主管吴璞岩

At the Product Launch, the Hams team announced: “The Hamster International APP is available to WKU students. At present, Utopia and the Dining Hall No.2 have officially entered our platform. We are ready to deliver to you.” Also, the Hamster International APP will be released to Wenzhou Medical University in September.

The aim is to make life easier for foreigners who live in Wenzhou

For a long time, George Solomon had the idea to build a multilingual real-life service platform. The young man from Tanzania has been in Wenzhou for four years, but still, he has lots of troubles living in a foreign language environment. Some popular real-life service applications do not support English, including Meituan, Eleme, and the daily essential app Didi, which disappointed Solomon a lot. However, this did provide him with a new entrepreneurial idea.

“Since more and more foreigners crowded into Wenzhou, why not build a bilingual e-commerce platform to make their life easier?” George’s schoolmates Li Zhen, Hu Chenxuan, and Wu Puyan were all willing to join this project after George shared his idea with them. Meanwhile, he also invited friends from Peking University, Wenzhou Medical University as well as Wenzhou University to join his team.

Being University students and being fluent in English helped them to make the Hamster International APP a hot cake since its inception. It won the Silver Award for International Student Groups in the 4th Zhejiang “Internet +” College Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition in July 2018. In September of the same year, Hamster International stood out from more than 300 other teams in the Wenzhou Longwan District College Students Entrepreneurship Competition. Furthermore, because of the government’s policy encouraging college students to start businesses, the Longwan District Government of Wenzhou provided venture capital of 150,000 RMB for the Hams team.

At present, the new company, Wenzhou Harms Information and Technology Co., Ltd., registered in Longwan District, has become a team of 34 people.

WKU’s diversified University philosophy promotes the growth of the Hams team

The Hams team could not develop rapidly without the support of WKU’s mission to “find different ways for different students.” As George said sincerely, “The Secretary of the Party Committee and the Chairman of the Board of Directors of WKU, Wang Beijiao, is the talent scout for the Hams team.” When the Hams team was first formed, Wang Beijiao recommended the team to the WKU Admissions office and asked for continuous support and assistance, which enabled the Hams team to move to the X-space in WKU. Team members reorganized their work and were then able to develop further. Wang Beijiao said: “Innovative entrepreneurship is risky, but if young students have good ideas and have the courage to try, we university leaders should give them support and provide them with more opportunities.”

At the product launch, Mr. Yang Yixin, the academic vice president for WKU, praised the Hamster International project: “This is the exact outcome that our university wants to see. It is in line with the three principles of WKU students: ICE (innovation, creation, and entrepreneurship). Hamster International APP is for college students and foreign teachers, especially at WKU, an international campus. The experience of Hamster International shows that the exploration of potential, logic and speculative ability should be valued even more. It can be said that it is an attention getter that set off the fire for starting a business! We hope that more students will participate. Don’t think that your GPA is your whole life. Leadership helps more in undertaking tasks and trying to discover potency!”

Mr. Li Songling, the Minister of the China-India Economic and Cultural Exchange Center, was also present. He praised them highly; “The Hamster International Project is full of young people’s energy, simple and clear, and very practical. I am quite impressed by WKU students. ”

Correspondent： Jiang Shumai, Zhuang Jia, Zhang Siyu
Translated by: Sean Xu, Rick Wang.