A collection of Shi's bamboo designs on display at the just-concluded event in Beijing.[Photo provided to China Daily]

He was born in 1964, and his parents moved from Sichuan to Taiwan in 1949.

At the age of 21, he left Taiwan to study at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and later worked as a designer for the luxury jewelry company, Harry Winston.

In 1996, he won the DeBeers Diamonds International Award-the Oscar of the jewelry industry.

But it was his passion for bamboo and his ingenuity in design that have earned him countless awards and accolades.

He was honored with the Red Dot Design Award, one of the top three design prizes in the world, for four consecutive years from 2009 to 2012 for his work in natural materials like bamboo.

To acknowledge his contribution to bamboo design, the International Bamboo and Rattan Organization included Shi in its 2017 publication, 100 Heroes of China's Bamboo Industry, and invited him to present a keynote speech at the inaugural Global Bamboo and Rattan Congress in Beijing in June 2018.