Hong Kong, 21 February 2019 – Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation announced the completion of their “Smart Airport Accelerator” programme under its Global Acceleration Academy (GAA). Smart airport and travel technologies and solutions from participating start-ups were showcased at yesterday’s Demo Day as the programme finale.
With the support of the Airport Authority Hong Kong (Airport Authority), 11 start-ups from the Smart Airport Accelerator programme were given the valuable opportunity to conduct proof-of-concept implementations of their innovations in a real-life airport environment. The three-month accelerator programme launched last October was designed to drive the development and deployment of smart airport and travel technologies, and provide local and overseas start-ups with market gap analyses and in-depth knowledge about their target industries.
Showcase of latest innovations
Five start-ups had the opportunity to showcase their creations to travel industry experts and investors on the Demo Day. Their solutions were designed to tackle business challenges faced by the tourism industry, enhance tourists’ experiences and potentially improve the efficiency of airport operations. The solutions focused on smart transportation, automation technologies, autonomous vehicles, gait analysis technology for security authentication and the application of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons for indoor navigation.
George Tee, Chief Technology Officer of HKSTP, said, “As the main force in driving innovation and technology (I&T) development in Hong Kong, our GAA initiative actively partner global leaders from various sectors to encourage the application of technologies in their industries. The acceleration programmes provide participating start-ups with business skillsets, and a better understanding of regional and international market trends. We are delighted to see that our collaboration with the Airport Authority has helped spur the creation of a wide array of smart airport and tourism technologies. We believe that these technologies will have tremendous business potential in both Hong Kong and overseas markets.”
“HKSTP is fully committed to accelerating the growth of Hong Kong’s start-ups by making the best use of the government’s I&T funding to expand the scale of GAA. We will step up our collaborations with third-party incubation programmes and accelerators, and enhance the participation from more overseas start-ups. We believe these initiatives will help make Hong Kong’s I&T ecosystem ever more vibrant and create more opportunities for the start-up community.”
Promoting I&T through market insight report
At the event, GAA’s first-ever market insight report was also released. Named “Spotlight – Travel”, the report analysed the potential of implementing I&T solutions to empower the tourism industry and improve the travel experience for tourists. A range of innovative technologies and solutions designed by start-ups were introduced in the report. Industry advisors for the project included Airport Authority Hong Kong, Cathay Pacific Airways, Hong Kong Disneyland, KKday, KPMG, Regal Hotels International, ROLLOGO and Euromonitor International.
HKSTP will continue to release similar reports for different sectors in the future to share market trends, connect industry players with start-ups and solution providers, and showcase the latest innovations from HKSTP’s park companies.
The five participating start-ups on Demo Day were:
