Quality Alchemist (品質煉金術師): CityU Digital Business Innovation Festival 2018

I received invitation from CUBIC for Opening Ceremony and the forums of the CityU Digital Business Innovation Festival organized by the MBA Programme of College of Business. Opening Ceremony with theme named “Bridging Education, Technology, and Business” was held on 23^rd Jan 2018. The progression of our society bases around the three key areas of Education, Business and Technology. Before the ceremony, I met friends of CityU Eminence Society – Dr. David Chung and Dr. Wilson Chan and we took a photo for memory.

Dr. Ray Cheung (Director, CityU Apps Lab, CityU) was also here.

I also took a photo with Mr. Clement Lam (Associate Director, KTO, CityU) for memory.

Prof. Way Kuo arrived and signed on the board of SHARP Forum. SHARP Forum is a thought-provoking platform where thriving business executives, prominent government officials, prestigious scholars, inspiring entrepreneurs, influential celebrities, and renowned experts are invited to:

Spread inciting ideas, insightful perspectives, and inspirational experiences;

Stretch boundaries of novel concepts, evolving issues, and cutting-edge solutions.

Before the ceremony, a music performance and cocktail were provided.

Many student technology and business innovation projects were demonstrated.

The Theme and Objective of the festival were introduced by MCs. MC briefed that 138 team entries across Asian countries and 48 shortlisted teams enter the second phase of 2018 App Innovation Contest. Moreover, 15 teams joined App Idea Poster Competition.

In the beginning, Prof. Houmin Yan (Dean, College of Business, CityU) gave an opening address. He asked us to look into One Health, Digital Society and Smart City and said technology is much related to business education.

Then Prof. Kevin Chiang (MBA Director, CityU) presented certificates to supporting organizations. Dr. Ray Cheung represented CityU Apps Lab to receive the certificate.

Group photo was taken.

Prof. Way Kuo (President and Distinguished University Professor, CityU) was the first keynote speaker. He shared his view on Technology and Innovation to us. It is nothing new and existing many years he said. Then he told us the challenge today was not big data but small data. If you analyzed big data right, you can got the solution. He shared he worked in Bell Lab. His boss asked him to point a line in one point! All new product starts from one point and innovation one starts with no point!

Finally, Prof. Way Kuo asked “Why you need degree / MBA / EMBA?” He used basketball as example that degree like your height. The talk you have, you are advantage but not necessary condition for winning a game. It needs effective integrated your skills together so as to win a game. Lastly, he said we didn’t be slave of technology. Digital society is only a tool and we need to use human intelligence to innovation.

The second keynote speaker was Dr. Witman Hung (Principal Liaison Officer for Hong Kong, The Shenzhen Qianhai Authority) and he shared that he got MBA in 1995 and worked in AT&T. He learnt IT that transferred Data to Information and then made it intelligence. Today it is more convenience using Google to get information. He said technology was good or bad, it didn’t matter because it stayed here. Let’s machine to do the low level job and digital society is an intelligence era.

The third keynote speaker was Mr. Wilson Wong (Director of Advisory, Deloitte) and his topic was “Blockchain – Benefits and Risks”. Firstly, he discussed “savings on blockchains” in three points.

i) The banking sector could achieve a 10% headcount reduction.

ii) A 30% decrease in transaction monitoring with the use of blockchain technology

iii) The overall operational savings could amount to $2.5B.

After that Mr. Wong briefed the risk management framework for blockchain with four levels that were Business objective, Core processes/supporting functions, Risk consideration and Operating model components.

Lastly, he mentioned four tiers of talent need that were “Evolving Business Models”, “Shaping the Value-added Worker”, “Adapting the Organization to the Technology” and “Adopting the Technology”. He concluded the digital supply network met the future of work would be “customer and personal service knowledge, communication skills, critical thinking skills, and the ability to listen are among the most prized skills for the workforce.”

The fourth keynote speaker was Mr. Barry Chan (Partner, Financial Services Sector Leader, IBM Global Business Services) and his presentation named “Digital Reinvention^TM – Get Ready Now”. He shared the trend from Organization-centered economy to Individual-centered economy and finally to Everyone-to-everyone economy (E2E). He said specifically for banking, E2E economy mandated building frictionless platforms requiring enterprise wide reinvention.

Mr. Barry Chan said new technologies created more transparent value chains and new types of ecosystems emerged, displacing traditional industries. Then he introduced the Digital Bank Model from community ecosystem to partner ecosystem.

Finally, Mr. Chan concluded that digitally reinvented enterprises were more than the sum of their parts but enabled deeper, more compelling experiences. Ultimately, it became an Orchestration ecosystem.

Mr. Herman Lam (CEO, Hong Kong Cyberport Management Company Ltd.) asked all guest to stand up for releasing before start his talk. He said one of their unicorns “GoGoVan” had found a good mentor and investor.

Finally, he shared three important things.

i) Cloud computing and big data

ii) Mobility (mobile technology, smart city)

iii) People like sharing and “Do it yourself mentality” (culture shift).

Lastly, He encouraged MBA students to equip themselves and became more and more entrepreneurs. (The incubatee in the poster in the 3^rd of right was CityU graduate!)

Dr. David Chung Wai-keung (Under Secretary, Innovation and Technology Bureau, HKSARG) was the last keynote speaker. In the beginning, Dr. David Chung asked a question “Do you think innovation to be inborn or learnt?” It is the million dollar question. That related the behavior and skill set. Then Dr. Chung said Innovation and Technology is the key drive of our economy and HK is not alone. We needed to strength our capability in terms of research and development (R&D) which not only in SME but also tradition industry. Then he introduced different policy in ITB to help innovation and technology development such as co-investment funding, R&D funding for employing postdoc graduates and better living funding for NGO, etc.