PolyU Webinar Series (2) - How does AI reinvent industrialization in HK?

The Institute for Entrepreneurship (IfE), PolyU organized a series of webinar in the theme “Booting Re-industrialization” so as to drive Hong Kong’s reindustrialization.  The second webinar named “How does AI reinvent industrialization in HK?” was held on 14^th Oct 2020.  Mr. Basil Wai (CEO, The Hong Kong Electronic Industries Association) was moderator of this webinar.

The first speaker was Mr. Kingsley Wong (Assistant Government Chief Information Officer (Industry Development), OGCIO) and his topic entitled “Applying latest researches and technologies to innovate government services”.  

Firstly, Mr. Wong introduced some pro-innovation initiative in Government including Procurement and Smart Government Innovation Lab.  For example, technical weighting increased from 30~40% to 50~70%. 

Then he also mentioned how Smart Government Innovation Lab to assist different government department to use innovative technology.  Moreover technology forums were performed to connect government departments with IT sector to facilitate industry involvement. After that he described the innovation competition for all staff from Open invitation to submit proposals, and then to short-list proposals and select the winning teams.

Finally, Mr. Wong briefed different successful cases such as Intelligent road works robot named “Roadbot”, Anti-bot technology to prevent automatically booking for public facilities, GovHK Chatbot named “Bonny”, Complaint and Enquiry Case Information System, Intelligent Search and Automation of Data Verification, etc. The service needs were posted at https://www1.smartlab.gov.hk/en/govt/list.xhtml .

Lastly, Mr. Kingsley Wong showed the recently technology employed during COVID-19 that was home quarantine monitoring electronic wristband and “StayHomeSafe” Mobile App.  At the end, he mentioned the Smart City Blueprint 2.0 would be available later this year.

The second speaker was Mr. Ng Hon Yu, Peter (VP, Enabling Technology Group, ASM Pacific Technology) and his presentation named “Industrialist’ insignths: Smart manufacturing is a way of re-industrialization for the electronic industry in Hong Kong”. 

In the beginning, Mr. Ng said COVID-19 disrupted the global manufacturing operations such as facial mask.  There were four points from McKinsey about next normal below.
1.    Distance is back / Resistance to Globalization
2.    Resilience AND efficiency
3.    The rise of the contact-free economy
4. Changing industry structures, consumer behavior, market positions, and sector attractiveness.

Then Mr. Ng briefed the vision of smart manufacturing in ASM through corporate video and then introduced their autonomous factory approach (i4.0) in three key elements that were Flexible Control & Automation, Connectivity, and Intelligence.

Finally, Mr. Ng stated the essential competence requirements in smart manufacturing.  He also mentioned R&D personnel in full time equivalent ~4.5 population in HK working in I&T industry in 2018. Lastly, Mr. Ng briefed R&D Capabilities especially in local universities, technology infrastructure including HKSTP and Cyberport, etc.

The third speaker was Prof. Cao Jiannong (Chair Professor of Distributed and Mobile Computing, Associate Director of University’s Research Facility in Big Data Analytics, PolyU) and his presentation topic was “How does big data drives re-industrialization?”

Firstly, Prof. Cao discussed reindustrialization via industry 4.0 that big data is the key element in digital transformation. He also discussed Big Data Innovation including optimizing resource utilization through detecting anomalies and predicting events from uncover hidden patterns and correlations.  

After that he discussed some cases such as big data driven airport resource management, demand dispatching for autonomous on-demand services (e.g. GoGoVan), intelligent prediction for the expansion and shrinkage of PCB in production.

Finally, Prof. Cao introduced Big Data Industrialization such as Big Data-driven Intelligent Control of POWERDRY and Non-target Contaminants Detection in Milk Production.  Lastly, he introduced some R&D projects at PolyU.

Panel discussion

The last guest speaker was Dr. Alfred Ng (Executive Director and CTO, Suga International Holdings Limited) and he shared his view on big data in business.  One of his businesses related to big data on pet. And then Mr. Kingsley Wong mentioned government open data policy could help ecosystem.  

Reference:

Re-industrialisation Funding Scheme (RFS) - https://www.itf.gov.hk/en/funding-programmes/facilitating-technology/rfs/index.html

HKSTP AMC - https://amc.hkstp.org/

FHKI - https://www.industryhk.org/en/

20200930: PolyU Webinar Series (1) - Booting Re-industrialization - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2020/09/polyu-webinar-series-1-booting-re.html

20200810: HKPC Webinar - Introduction of Re-industrialisation Funding Scheme - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2020/08/hkpc-webinar-introduction-of-re.html

20191028: CityU Seminar on Hong Kong Reindustrialization - Textiles and Clothing Industry Case (香港再工業化的前景：以香港紡織及服裝工業為例) - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2019/10/cityu-seminar-on-hong-kong.html

20190327: CMATCL & HKSTP Meeting for reindustrialization - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2019/03/matcl-hkstp-meeting-for.html

20180213: FHKI Seminar on Bay Area Soar by Innovation and Industrial Upgrading Opportunities (大灣創新騰飛, 工業升級良機) - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2018/02/fhki-seminar-on-bay-area-soar-by.html