HKIE Forum on Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Development

The Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE) organized the Forum named “HKIE Forum on Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Development” on 30^th Jan 2018. The forum aimed to keep our members updated of the Administration’s policy on the development of innovation and technology in Hong Kong and to have a better understanding of how the Hong Kong engineering professionals can get involved in the development.  Before the seminar, I took a photo with HKIE President and Vice President, as well as, my friends for memory.

(Left: I, Ir. Dr. Samuel Fung (EngD), Ir. Thomas KC Chan (President), Ir. Dr. Yuen Pak Leung (Vice President), and Ir. Prof. Philip Chan (Stanford/CAG Postdoc Advisor))

In the beginning, Ir. Thomas KC Chan (President, HKIE) gave a welcome speech and introduced the background of guest speaker to us.

Dr. David Chung (Under Secretary for Innovation and Technology, ITB) was the guest speaker and his topic was “Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Development”.  Firstly, David briefed the 4^th Industrial Revolution that disrupted every business, government and people in every country.  

Then he briefed many innovation drivers for Industry 4.0 including Advanced Robots, Additive Manufacturing, Horizontal/Vertical Integration, AR, Cloud Computing and Cyber Security, Simulation, Industrial Internet, Big Data and Analytics, etc.  And then he compared the economy on largest listed companies from 2006 and 2016.  It was found that the old grants were Exxon Mobil, GE, Microsoft and Citigroup in 2006.  However, only Microsoft ranked in to top 3 in 2016. Most new grants were innovative companies including Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, etc.

After that Dr. David Chung introduced top companies investing in AI by different industries including Software & IT, Financial Services, Manufacturing, Automotive, Healthcare, Telecommunications, Retail, Semiconductors, internet, etc.  He said AI and IoT were two significant technologies which could enhance the core competitiveness.  

For future of industries, David quoted PWC article “The future of Industries: Bringing down the walls” that included “Automotive to Smart Mobility”, “Wearable technology to Healthcare and Pharma R&D”, “Smart home and Smart City Infrastructure” and “Product manufacturing to value-add services and industrial internal platforms”.  He used GE as example to explain that GE built a platform collected all users and suppliers to provide total solution.  David also alerted us about the truth about the Internet.  He then mentioned the manufacturing revolution (See the following diagram).  Based on global manufacturing ranking, the sequence was predicted as USA, China, Germany and Japan in 2020.  USA was number because they owned huge IP right.  Germany manufacturing industries would share IP and co-invest on IP (also Japan).

After overview the innovation and technology worldwide, Dr. David Chung discussed about Hong Kong Economic Transformation from “Manufacturing Hub” to “De-Industrialization” and then to “Service Economic”.  In near future, we needed “Re-Industrialization”.  

“What’s the Re-Industrialization?” many people would question.  David quoted Jay Lee & LW Scott’s Concept of “re-industrialization”.  He said Existing Knowledge and Know Value like six sigma and lean in region 1.  We would like to enable the path in the region 2 “Discovery of new knowledge” such as new business model; and the path in the region 3 “Innovation and Technology Development” so as to enhance the region 4 “Creation of new standard, platform and value”.   Then David shared Apple’s value-added strategy as example that Apple created a platform controlled the upstream and downstream.  

Finally, Dr. David Chung suggested the road to re-industrialization as follows:

-          Reverse the “de-industrialization” trend; high value jobs and services at risk

-          Free up and release human capitals for higher value added tasks

-          Upgrade existing industries using I&T

-          Create new advanced manufacturing industries, to achieve 3-5% GDP

ITB had four focus sectors and they were Healthy Ageing/Biotech, AI and Robotics, Smart City and Fintech. 

Lastly, David briefed the Innovation and Technology related session in 2017 Policy Address.  He mentioned the first two items benefit for SME using 2 level tax systems and created more R&D jobs for young technology talent such as PhD.  At the end, David said government decided to give land resource “Lok Ma Chau’s loop” for Innovation and Technology development and they would try to attract world class companies into the region like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc. 

Q&A Session

Ir. Dr. Samuel Fung asked how government supported agricultural industries such as fish and vegetable symbiosis system using AI.  David said it could be included as Food Innovation.  Then I asked if any specific policy for startups such as Startupindia and SPRING Singapore.  David replied that they had provided different support included finance.  However, the problem was how to scale up startups and do number of startup reached critical mass.  HKEx was looking at Startup and their IPO. 

Finally, a HKIE member asked about AI.  David suggested everyone learnt some program and AI.  Actually, Hong Kong had a lot of AI expert.  

At the end, Ir. Thomas KC Chan (President, HKIE) and Ir. Dr. Yuen Pak Leung (Vice President, HKIE) took a photo with Dr. David Chung.

CityU EngD (EM) cohort had taken a photo with Ir. Thomas KC Chan (President, HKIE) for memory.  Ir. Dr. Yuen Pak Leung and Dr. David Chung were also cohorts of CityU EngD (EM).

Reference:

HKIE – http://www.hkie.org.hk/en/

CityU EngD (EM) - http://www.cityu.edu.hk/seem/prg-engd.htm