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Xcubed · Future Generations

Send them where the future is being built.

A hosted innovation journey into China's Greater Bay Area for families and young people. Inside the labs, factories and campuses building robots, driverless cars and passenger drones. A young person comes home with a direction, not a souvenir.

Winter departureChristmas 202627 Dec 2026 to 3 Jan 2027 · 8 days
Spring departureEaster 20273 to 10 Apr 2027 · 8 days
Fully hosted on the ground Small groups, limited places Visas, insurance and logistics handled
Watch

A message from one generation to the next.

Filmed across Shenzhen and the Greater Bay Area, where robots walk, cars drive themselves, and the future is already normal.

Produced with Novula, on the ground in the Greater Bay Area.

Start here

Who is coming?

One method, shaped around who is travelling. Pick the group closest to yours and we will point you to the right next step.

A private journey, built around your family

Your group, your dates, your pace. Parents and children see the frontier together, framed before you go and made sense of when you return. No sightseeing trip with a lab visit added on.

Best for  families with curious teenagers who want to inspire the next generation.

Your next step
Register for a departure, then a short call to shape it.
Register interest →

Grandparents, parents and children, together

A trip with something for every age in the room. The pace and the mix are built around three generations travelling as one group, not a standard tour they all have to fit into.

Best for  wider families marking a milestone with a shared experience.

Your next step
Tell us the ages in the group and we shape the balance.
Register interest →

A hosted, mentored week for your students

A cohort of 10 to 40 students, mentored by people from the companies and labs we work with, ending in a project they have designed, built and shipped. Run in region, or brought to your city.

Best for  educators and programme leaders after an experience students remember.

Your next step
A call to scope the cohort, dates and safeguarding.
Talk to us about a cohort →

Join a small international cohort

A formative week among peers from around the world, with the structure and care a young person travelling without family needs. Mornings in a lab or studio, afternoons in the field.

Best for  students ready for a wider world and a global network.

Your next step
Register for the Christmas or Easter departure.
Join a departure →

Postgraduates, young founders and gap year students

A hosted week for 18 to 30s travelling solo. Mornings in a lab or studio, afternoons in the field, with the structure and care a young person travelling without family needs. You come home with a written next move, not a souvenir.

Best for  18 to 30s choosing a field, building a venture, or taking a year out with direction.

Your next step
See the Frontier Cohort and register for an Easter or Summer 2027 departure.
See the Frontier Cohort →
The same access. A different room.

We design every journey around the outcome, not the itinerary.

A leader→comes home with a decision.
A young person→comes home with a direction.

The access we open for boards, we open for families. We frame the theme before you go, open the right rooms while you are there, and help you make sense of it when you return.

The destination

One ecosystem the rest of the world cannot copy.

China's Greater Bay Area packs Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Guangzhou into a two hour radius. Robots that walk, cars that drive themselves, aircraft that carry passengers with no pilot. A week here shows more than a year of reading about it.

~70%
of the world's electric vehicles are built in China
Source: Novula, 2026
~30%
of global manufacturing output
Source: Novula, 2026
30M+
visa-free entries to China in 2025. The door is open.
Source: Novula, 2026
A selection of the companies and hubs our programmes take you inside
DronesDJI
Flying taxisEHang
RobotaxisPony.ai
HumanoidsUBTECH
Electric carsXPENG
GenomicsBGI
PlatformsTencent
CamerasInsta360
3D printingBambu Lab
Service robotsPudu
Two departures

Pick the holiday. We shape the rest.

Both run 8 days across the Greater Bay Area, fully hosted, framed before you go and made sense of when you return. Dates are indicative and confirmed with your family before you commit.

❆ Winter departure

Christmas and New Year

27 December 2026 to 3 January 2027
8 daysGreater Bay AreaFamily or small cohort

Robots, flying cars and the year's turn. See out the year where next year is already being built. Humanoids on the factory floor, a pilotless aircraft, a robotaxi from the hotel.

Limited places per departure
Register for Christmas →
✿ Spring departure

Easter break

3 to 10 April 2027
8 daysGreater Bay AreaFamily or small cohort

AI, life sciences and what comes next. A spring break with a direction attached. Applied AI, robotics and the genomics labs rewriting the cost of medicine, with a hands-on build day.

Limited places per departure
Register for Easter →
Guide price
On enquiry per traveller

Priced per person and scoped to the group, length and departure. Flights are additional. We confirm a full quote after a short call. Innovation tours also run to the United States and India on request.

No pressure

Three steps, at your pace.

This is a big decision. Take it in stages. Each step is small, and none of them commits you.

Step 1 · Look

See the week

Read the sample itinerary and the brochure. Get a clear picture of where your group goes and what they come home with.

See a sample week
Step 2 · Talk

Join an info session

A short online session with our team and a family who has already been. Ask anything, including the questions you would not put in a form.

Request the next session
Step 3 · Hold

Register for a departure

Reserve a place for Christmas or Easter with a refundable hold. Places are limited, and registering does not commit you to travel.

Register interest
Safety and safeguarding

The questions a parent asks first.

Sending a young person abroad is a matter of trust. Here is how we hold it. Every figure below is set and confirmed in writing before you commit.

1

Hosted end to end

A small group with an Xcubed lead and Novula's team on the ground across the Greater Bay Area, from arrival to departure.

2

Supervision

A ratio of one adult to five students, with named leads responsible for the group throughout.

3

Safeguarding

UK trip leads are Enhanced DBS checked, with equivalent vetting for our team in China, a named safeguarding lead on every departure, and a clear conduct and contact policy.

4

Insurance and medical

Comprehensive travel and medical insurance arranged for the group, with 24 hour support and a plan for medical needs on the ground.

5

Visas and logistics

We handle visa guidance, coordinate flights, and use vetted accommodation and ground transport throughout the week.

6

If something goes wrong

A named contact for parents, a 24 hour line during the trip, and a clear escalation route. You always know who to call.

A sample week

Eight days in the Greater Bay Area.

A representative week, drawn from our July 2026 tour. Your itinerary is shaped around your group and the theme you choose, so the running order changes. The kind of access does not.

1Arrive

Land in Shenzhen

Settle in, meet the group, and set the theme for the week. An evening briefing on what to look for and why it matters.

2Robotics

Machines that walk and work

Humanoid robots on the factory floor, and the service robots already working in restaurants and hospitals. Then drones and flight.

UBTECHPuduDJI
3Mobility

The car that drives itself

Inside an electric vehicle maker, then a ride across the city in a driverless robotaxi. What autonomy feels like when it is normal.

XPENGPony.ai
4Flight

The passenger drone

Stand under a pilotless aircraft built to carry people, and meet the low-altitude economy China is building first. A hands-on session with the group.

EHang
5Life sciences

The falling cost of medicine

Inside genomics, where the cost of reading a genome fell faster than the cost of computing. What that means for the next generation of care.

BGI
6Make

Build something real

A mentored day in a makerspace. The students design, build and ship a small project of their own, with 3D printing and the tools the frontier runs on.

Bambu LabInsta360
7Open

Room for the unplanned

Time for the city, the culture and the people. On the July tour, a typhoon rewrote this day and it became the best one. We leave room for that.

8Home

Come home with a direction

A debrief on what each person is taking home, and the journey back. The trip ends. What it started does not.

Representative only. Company visits are confirmed per departure and shaped around your group.

Proof on the ground

We have run this already.

Our first cohort ran the full Greater Bay Area on the Workforce 2035 Tech Tour, 25 July to 1 August 2026. Here is what they took home.

Seeing is believing. The flying car brought my daughter's drawing to life.

Jenni · Founder, Workforce 2035 · 2026

Twenty years in AI, and one week here still made me feel like a kid. An idea in the morning, a working prototype by evening.

Samani · CEO, AI Parity · 2026

This city has been engineered to allow serendipity.

Milena · GBA Innovation Tour · 2026

The people behind it

Built by people who belong in the room.

The relationships that open doors for boards open them for families. Decades inside the health, technology and finance ecosystems of China, the US and India.

Co-founder and CEO

Jenni Pignatelli

Strategist and entrepreneur, 25 years advising on leadership and transformation across Shell, BP, Booz Allen Hamilton and Deloitte.

Co-founder, Data, Analytics and AI

Samani Lamabadusuriya

Senior data and AI executive, 20 years building analytics capability across international healthcare, insurance and customer-led organisations.

Co-founder, China access

Jason Chan

Founder and CEO of Novula, the bridge between China and the world, with direct relationships across its technology and manufacturing base.

Programme access delivered with Novula, hosted on the ground across the Greater Bay Area, based in Shenzhen.

Xcubed
Register interest

Hold a place for Christmas or Easter.

Tell us who is coming and what you hope they take away. We follow up with the full itinerary, a guide price and a short call. Registering does not commit you to travel.

Limited places per departure · early registration advised

Download the brochure

No payment is taken now. Prefer email? Reach us at info@xcubed.world