2021年6月22日星期二

PolyU Tech Salon 2021 Webinar - How is FashTECH disrupting the industry landscape

PolyU Tech Salon 2021 Webinar named “How is FashTECH disrupting the industry landscape” was held by Institute for Entrepreneurship on 22nd Jun 2021.  Topics included creating innovative enterprises, research focused on fashion technology and smart wearable technology, advanced fibrous materials and industry insight sharing. 


The first speaker was Mr. Peter Mok (Director, Institute for Entrepreneurship, PolyU) and his topic entitled “Partnering for Success and Sustainability”.  His talk included corporate innovation trends, Hong Kong Innovation Scene, Opportunities for Textile Industry and Modes of Knowledge Transfer, etc.


Firstly, he explained what Corporate Innovation (CI) is. It is the ability to transfer from new idea to solution and create business result. Then he briefed the three key findings of CI that included: i) Key to Survival, ii) First Mover Wins the Competition and iii) Top-down Innovation Culture.


Then Mr. Peter Mok stated the obstacles of corporate innovation that was Hard and Slow.  He also mentioned the six models of Corporate Innovation and they were R&D, Corporate VC or M&A, Internal Incubator, Technology Partnership, Open Accelerator and Adoption of Innovations.


After that he introduced Hong Kong innovation scene and discussed the approved I&T fund project in 2019. The following diagram showed different government support funding from 1999 to 2020.


Finally, Mr. Peter Mok discussed the opportunities for textile industry and two key directions were Sustainability and Digitization. Lastly he introduced four modes of knowledge transfer in PolyU including Collaborative Research, Technology Licensing, Consultancy and Spin-offs & Startups. 


The second speaker was Mr. Tenny Lam (Co-Founder & CEO, Grand Rise Technology Limited) and he studied MBA in PolyU.  He cooperated with PolyU professor to form Grand Rise Technology since 2019.


And then Mr. Tenny Lam shared his experience such as how to cooperate with professor, corporate innovation, etc.  He said if your goal is long term innovation.  The partnership with university is a good way to achieve this goal. 


The third speaker was Prof. Jintu Fan (Head, Institute for Entrepreneurship, PolyU) and his presentation named “PolyU Fashion Technology”.  His talk related PolyU Fashion Technology Research Focus and Research on Personal Thermal Management.


In the beginning, Prof. Fan introduced the Institute of Textiles and Clothing and they had three directions included Fashion Business, Fashion & Textile Design and Technology.

After that Prof. Fan discussed the clothing for personal thermal management and human thermoregulation. The challenges were to ensure breathability and to avoid bulkiness and weight, as well as cooling in clothing especially in hot weather like Hong Kong.  Some instrumentation were introduced.


Finally Prof. Fan demonstrated some experience to show skin-like fabric.  In the inclined test, it was observed that the fabric can avoid wetting from top side and water can transport from back to top side!


The forth speaker was Prof. Zijian Zheng (Professor, Institute of Textiles and Clothing (Fashion & Textiles Technology – Chemistry), PolyU) and his topic was “Smart Wearable Technology”.  Firstly, Prof. Zheng mentioned the definition of Smart Wearable. Smart can sense and react to the environment conditions or stimuli; have control, communication, storage and actuation capabilities. Wearabel can be incorporated into clothing or worn on the body as accessories or implants.


The development history and forecasting wearable technology was showed.  We expected it smarter and smarter.


After that Prof. Zheng briefed the desirable wearable devices and its materials properties expected to be lightweight, flexible, biocompatible, etc. Then he introduced the electronic textiles to develop materials and processing that enable new wearable devices.  He named it conductive textiles.


Lastly, Prof. Zheng introduced the three dimension of materials properties for future stretchable electronics and they were Permeability, Stretchability and Conductivity. 


The last speaker was Dr. Fei Bin (Associate Professor, Institute of Textiles and Clothing (Fashion & Textiles Design), PolyU) and his presentation named “Advanced Fibrous Materials & Technology”. In the beginning, he briefed the development trend of advanced fibrous material from natural fiber to chemical fiber to functional fibers and then to smart fibers.


There are five types of advanced fibers for textiles and Dr. Bin focused on the first two types in this talk and they were temperature regulating fibers and moisture control fibers.


The first type is temperature regulating fibers. Dr. Bin briefed the commercial products such as Thermolite®, Outlast® and Celliant® and then he introduced his cooling fiber named IcypetTM.


The second type is moisture control fibers.  He also introduced GelisTM which is water absorbent fiber in his lab. And his next step is to construct functional yarns and textiles for surgical/cosmetic application (e.g. wound dressing, surgical suture, sanitary napkin).

Reference:

PolyU Institute for Entrepreneurship - https://www.polyu.edu.hk/ife/corp/en/index.php

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