TRY MYSELF: A mother and child try out Fei Jun's Eco Bubble exercise bike on May 11 (LI FANGFANG)

How would you feel if your housing community installed fitness bikes that not only generated electricity to create clean air, but also told you the difference between the indoor and outdoor concentration of PM2.5 in the air when you are excising?

The bike and its accompanying enclosure, called Eco Air-Bubble, was one of the projects showcased during the 2014 Social Innovation Week (SIW) in Beijing on May 9-11.

The ecological prototype consists of three systems: human powered air purification, plant-based air freshening, and an air quality monitoring and visualization system, according to Fei Jun, Founder and Executive Director of Interactive Beijing. For communities to refresh and monitor the air quality themselves is a new idea, Fei said when meeting the press after his speech about social innovation.

Fifteen other entrepreneurs and specialists looking to solve social problems with innovation gathered at the Beijing Theatre to share their stories in the form of presentations in a similar format to the popular TED talks.

Geoff Mulgan (COURTESY OF CINNOVATE)

"Social innovation is really an argument that we need to move the best brains in our society away from just hardware, away from the military, towards the things which matter most for our lives," said guest speaker Geoff Mulgan, Chief Executive of the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts in the United Kingdom, during his speech at the opening ceremony of the event. Mulgan also served as Director of Policy at 10 Downing Street under British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

"We are moving towards an idea that innovation isn't just the job of a few scientists. It's a job for all of us," said Mulgan.

Besides Fei's solution for air pollution, topics covered also included left-behind children whose parents work far away from home, cultural changes in south China's Shenzhen City after the country's reform and opening up began in 1978, and how to help Uyghur farmers in northwest China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region sell their products through the Internet.

The SIW was initiated by Cinnovate, a non-profit organization funded by Intel China. It will help provide access to financial support for the best ideas related to the issues discussed at the event, which included air pollution and poverty.

Other activities of the two-day event involved workshops and exhibitions that audiences could participate in.