HKSTP Hailed “Best of the Best” at 2016 International Business Innovation Association Awards Dinner

(Hong Kong, 28 April 2016) - Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (“HKSTP”) has won the Randall M. Whaley Incubator of the Year award, the highest commendation in the annual Incubator Awards hosted by the International Business Innovation Association (“InBIA”), the world-leading organisation for advancing business incubation and entrepreneurship.

HKSTP was honoured when its name was announced as the top winner during InBIA’s Member Recognition and Awards Dinner held on Monday, April 18, 2016. It was also one of the two Dinah Adkins Incubator of the Year award winners, which were also announced during the event. 

HKSTP started this journey by submitting its programme for consideration for the InBIA's 2016 Technology/IT Incubator of the Year. In March, it was selected as winner in that category, putting it among the other category winners as contenders for the two Dinah Adkins awards – Technology Incubator of the Year and Non-Technology Incubator of the Year.  The two Dinah Adkins winners then competed for the ultimate honour – the Randall M. Whaley Incubator of the Year award. These coveted “best-of-the-best” international recognitions add to HKSTP’s list of accolades, affirming its commitment to supporting technology start-ups in Hong Kong and show that the innovation and technology ecosystem in Hong Kong is well appreciated in the international community.

Allen Ma, CEO of HKSTP, said, “These InBIA-bestowed honours provide validation of the work and achievements of HKSTP as a world-class incubator. Our mission has been to create an environment that facilitates the advancement of the innovation and technology ecosystem in Hong Kong. The awards also tell us that we have done a good job bracing start-ups in their strive to innovate and become globally competitive. HKSTP sees the recognition as encouragement, as well as a reminder to keep perfecting itself as an incubator of start-ups, and facilitator of the city’s growth and technological development.”

InBIA’s annual Incubation Awards honours incubation programmes, graduates and other stakeholders in the global entrepreneurial ecosystem that exemplify the best of the industry they serve. The Randall M. Whaley Incubator of the Year award recognises the year’s most outstanding incubation programme.

An incubation model delivering success to all stakeholders in the ecosystem

HKSTP’s incubation model is guided by three Cs – Connect, Collaborate and Catalyse. It plays the super-connecter role between Hong Kong’s thriving technology community and other stakeholders in the start-up ecosystem. HKSTP maintains a close relationship with the Government and businesses, schools and research institutes, allowing it to foster collaboration between industries and create opportunities for local innovations to be applied and adopted.

By offering a facilitating and inspiring environment in the Science Park and its three industrial estates complemented by a comprehensive suite of professional valued-added services, HKSTP also serves as a catalyst of growth and development of local innovation. And, it enables technology transfer by closely working with local and overseas universities, technology transfer centres and research institutions in a regular basis, helping its incubatees turn their R&D projects into marketable products that can benefit mankind. At the same time, HKSTP also strives to help technopreneurs and universities’ R&D talents from overseas to come to Hong Kong by offering an array of well-rounded soft-landing services including connecting them with different stakeholders in the local innovation and technology ecosystem.

HKSTP has been active in establishing partnerships with a number of renowned venture capitalists and corporate ventures, and it also collaborates with leading financial corporations such as JP Morgan and Citibank so as to strengthen the service offering of its incubation programmes.  By providing start-ups with direct access to domain experts, HKSTP helps start-ups attract investments and accelerates commercialisation of their R&D achievements; and for investors, they have access to high potential technology start-ups that own promising innovative technologies.

HKSTP offers three Incubation Programmes, namely Incu-Tech, Incu-App and Incu-Bio, to nurture start-ups that focus on developing technology for healthy aging, smart city and robotics, the three key strategic areas identified by HKSTP as the most beneficial to Hong Kong’s reindustrialisation. Since the programmes’ inception, HKSTP has incubated 402 start-ups, many of whom have become local success stories having won international accolades or expanded overseas. In the year 2015-2016, the incubatees in the programmes had attracted HK$307.8 million in investment and won over 60 industry awards or international start-up competitions, including the Aliyun+ Cloud Computing Competition, The Economist: Tiger’s Lair - Entrepreneurship Challenge, Red Herring Top 100 Asia List, the Asian Association of Business Incubation (AABI) Award as well as The Best Wearable Mobile Technology Award of the Global Mobile Awards (Glomo Awards) 2016 at GSMA Mobile World Congress, to name but a few. By constantly encouraging its incubatees to participate in or taking them to international competitions and exhibitions, HKSTP helps them raise their global profile and strike deals with business partners.