In the Spanish IESE Business School’s global smart city ranking, Hong Kong was ranked the 10th among 174 cities in the world, and the 3rd in the Asia-Pacific region. The top five in the Asia-Pacific region included Tokyo (4th in the world), Singapore (9th), Seoul (19th) and Taipei (27th).
Over the past year, Hong Kong has experienced social turmoil and the COVID-19 pandemic, with companies and stores closing down and rising unemployment rate, the society is filled with pessimism. However, judging from the latest international rankings, the international society does not share the same pessimistic view on Hong Kong, rather they think that Hong Kong’s performance keeps improving.
Spatial data has great commercial and practical value which Hong Kong has yet to realise. Why doesn’t the government consider making use of the HK$500 million hackathon proposed two years ago by the Chief Executive to encourage real-life application of this data?
A group of university students applied what they have learnt and analysed their selected issues with geographic information system (GlS), and sought solutions. They participated in this year’s Esri Young Scholars Award competition. When you look at their award-winning works, you will admire their broad vision, care for society and creative thinking.
While venture capital funds in the United States raised a strong $21 billion during the first quarter of this year, compared to a total of $51 billion raised for the full year of 2019, a recent National Venture Capital Association report expected a “capital crunch" in the coming months as most VC firms would flee to safer, more liquid assets, like public securities in view of the covid-19 pandemic. In other words, startups will find it more and more difficult in fund raising. Therefore, how to conduct a successful pitch becomes even more critical than before. That’s the reason why the success experience of a recent pitch of an entrepreneur is worth sharing.
Over the years, Science Park and Cyberport have nurtured many unicorns (i.e. privately held startups valued at no less than US$1 billion, and established for less than 10 years), such as SenseTime, WeLab, TNG, GoGoVan and Klook. Some have raised the point that if the three major R&D organisations – Science and Technology Park Corporation (including Science Park and several industrial villages), Cyberport and Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) – were consolidated as one organisation, it would boost Hong Kong’s scientific research power on advanced technologies, e.g. artificial intelligence, internet of things, and big data. They can also complement each other, as Science Park is good at biomedical technology while Cyberport is strong in financial technology (FinTech).
Although the advanced technology research and development capabilities of Hong Kong universities is internationally renowned and generously government-funded, there have been few cases of innovation and technology that has been successfully commercialised.
The Hong Kong government has invested more than HK$100 billion to support innovative technology development and boost the start-up ecosystem in the last five years. However, the Covid-19 epidemic has disrupted the capital chain. A local survey found that nearly 40 per cent of the start-ups interviewed had laid off employees.
The COVID-19 epidemic cast a deep shadow over the global economy, and the situation startups are faced with is tragic. Startup Genome, a consulting firm, interviewed more than 1,000 startups across 50 countries around the world from March to April, it was found that more than 70 percent of the startups interviewed were forced to lay off employees due to the epidemic.
The coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic is raging around the world. The situation is very worrying. However, it also brings many opportunities to change the world. Here are some interesting examples: