ASTRI – HPE Conference on Big Data and Analytics for Smart City

ASTRI and HP Enterprise (HPE) co-organized the Conference named “Big Data and Analytics for Smart City” on 18 March 2016 in Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks.  HP predicted that Big Data’s value could be unleashed for business users by condensing it and intelligently presenting only what was relevant and contextual to the problem at hand.  Before the conference, a group photo was taken.

In the beginning, Mr. MY Wong (Chairman of the Board, ASTRI) gave a welcome speech.  He expected the Big Data Analytics could transform City to Smart City.

Then Mr. Allen Yeung (Government CIO) gave an opening remark.  He said AlphaGo story last week demonstrated how AI employed Big Data Analytics.  And he also used Hong Kong Observatory and Hong Kong Airport as example to explain how Big Data cooperation to create values.  Finally, he asked us to think what City would look like after 5 to 10 years.

The first speaker was Ms. Cally Chan (Managing Direcor, Hong Kong & Macao, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)) and her topic named “Accelerating Possibilities”.  Firstly, she introduced ASTRI – HPE Information Technology Research Centre which established in Dec 2013 and its aim to promote New Technology Adoption and Big Data Analytic.

Then she briefed the trend of Big Data and identified the technology and skills gap.  Ms. Chan used Hong Kong International Airport and Singapore Changi Airport as example to explain the tourist density data used for Wifi coverage design.  She concluded “Today is the beginning. We are looking forward for more collaborative effort with different parties to create success for Smarter Hong Kong, Smarter Living.”  

The second speaker was Mr. Jason Tan (Director of HPE Labs Singapore) and his topic was “Bamboo – Single Platform of Big Data Analytics”.  He briefed the evolving world of data such as Data as Service and Data as Business.  However, he also pointed out three challenges below.

-          Access to Multiple Data Sources

-          Limited Data Scientist

-          High Barrier to Entry

Then Mr. Tan introduced Bamboo which linked the intelligence in One Platform included Resources Management, Orchestrate Analtyics Jobs, Visualize Results and Collaborate.

Prof. Helen Meng (Professor & Chairman, SEEM Dept., & Director of Big Data Decision Analytics Research Center, CUHK) was the last speaker and her presentation entitled “Big Data Decision Analytics @ CUHK”. 

Firstly, Prof. Meng briefed the Big Data’s 4V – Volume, Veriety, Veracity and Velocity.  She said “Smart City is Big Data for Citizens’ Wellbeing.”

And then Prof. Meng introduced six illustrations in CUHK below.

1 – Visual Analytics for Global Trends in Cancer Incidence

2 – Monitoring Lifestyle Modification using Wearable Health Devices

3 – Back to the Future: Sense-and-Respond Public Transit for Historic Urban Centres

4 – Catchup

5 – Digital Learning

6 – The Water-Energy-Food Nexus

Finally, she concluded that Big Data Analytics afforded a new paradigm for addressing transdisciplinary grand challenges and provided some illustrations of CUHK’s efforts in Big Data Decision Analytics. 

At the end, Dr. Frank Tong (CEO, ASTRI) gave a closing remark.

Reference:

HKSTPC - http://www.hkstp.org/  

ASTRI - http://www.astri.org/main/