HKSTP joins hands with Hysan Development to host Last-mile Testing Programme Cohort 1 Demo Day
Four start-up graduates showcase their smart city-driven solutions Revealing their fruits of this unique B2B incubation journey
Photo 1: Hysan Development joins hands with HKSTP to host Last-mile Testing Programme Cohort 1 Demo Day.
(From Left) Mr. Eugene Hsia, Chief Corporate Development Officer of HKSTP, Hon Elizabeth Quat, BBS, JP, Legislative Council Member and Mr. Ricky Lui, Executive Director & Chief Operating Officer of Hysan Development.
Photo 2: Four start-up graduates from the Last-mile Testing Programme Cohort 1 showcase their smart city-driven solutions and reveal their fruits of this unique B2B incubation journey.
(From Left) Mr. Simon Tsang, Chief Technology Officer of SOCIF, Mr. Leo Wong, Co-Founder of imBee, Dr. Crystal Fok, Head of STP Platform of HKSTP, Mr. Eugene Hsia, Chief Corporate Development Officer of HKSTP, Mr. Ricky Lui, Executive Director & Chief Operating Officer of Hysan Development, Ms. Julie Wong, General Manager, Sustainability of Hysan Development, Mr. Nigel Ko, Chief Innovation Officer of Xtra Sensing and Ms. Jackie Wong, Head of Business Development of Chain.
Photo 3: Mr. Ricky Lui, Executive Director & Chief Operating Officer of Hysan Development Company Limited, says at the Demo Day that the Community Lab and The Last-mile Testing Programme offer the perfect environment for start-ups to learn, and eventually blossom under a shared vision of making our city a better, smarter and efficient place to live.
Photo 4: Mr. Eugene Hsia, Chief Corporate Development Officer of HKSTP says at the Demo Day that HKSTP is excited to see the positive outcomes from this partnership. It has further inspired many other leading enterprises to work with HKSTP in transforming the future of Hong Kong.
(Hong Kong, 16 January 2023) – The Community Lab, established by Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (“HKSTP”) and Hysan Development Company Limited (“Hysan”) in May 2022, aims to nurture up-and-coming start-ups and integrate their solutions into the community, empowering the Hong Kong Smart City Blueprint. As the backbone of The Community Lab, the Last-mile Testing Programme (“LMTP”) welcomes the conclusion of its first cohort today with a successful Demo Day. Four shortlisted start-ups nominated by HKSTP, including SOCIF Limited (“SOCIF”), imBee Limited (“imBee”), XTRA Sensing Limited (“Xtra Sensing”) and Chain Technology Development Co. Ltd (“Chain”), showcased their trial experience and results to government officials and industry leaders.
Adhering to the core values of Smart Living, Smart Economy, Smart Mobility and Smart Sustainability, the partnership, between Hysan, a leading property group and HKSTP, the city’s largest Innovation & Technology (I&T) flagship, aims to build a solid foundation for the I&T ecosystem to manifest start-up potential and business opportunities and empower the Smart City Blueprint of Hong Kong. As a business incubator in one of Asia’s largest technology innovation ecosystems, HKSTP functions as an innovation powerhouse with its tremendous pool of start-ups; whilst Hysan, with its extensive real estate and retail assets in the Lee Gardens Area, provides an unparalleled testing ground and a wide-ranging audience for HKSTP’s tech ventures to test-drive their concepts authentically in the heart of Hong Kong.
LMTP offers a platform for the start-ups to test-drive their Proof-of-Concepts (“PoC”) in an authentic and complex community environment, along with the domain knowledge in real estate provided by Hysan’s mentors. After months of acceleration and mentoring, the 4 start-ups in the first cohort of LMTP have tested and finetuned their PoCs in a real-life testing ground. They took LMTP as a strong booster to prove their solutions are marketable and even explored new business opportunities for further development. Some PoCs may continue or extend the scope to be commercial projects with Hysan. Please refer to the Appendix for the details and results of the PoCs.
Ricky Lui, Executive Director & Chief Operating Officer, Hysan Development Company Limited, said, “We are glad to share a common vision with HKSTP which is to use innovation and technology to benefit Hong Kong and the region. Hysan and its founding family have been curating the Lee Gardens community for 100 years. This precinct is now a most vibrant one mixing the traditional with the cutting edge. The Community Lab and The Last-mile Testing Programme offer the perfect environment for start-ups to learn, to be exposed to real-life applications, to make improvements throughout the last mile and eventually to blossom under a shared vision of making our city a better, smarter and efficient place to live.”
Eugene Hsia, Chief Corporate Development Officer of HKSTP, said, “Solution testing is an essential step before any real-world adoption. Throughout this first cohort, Hysan worked very closely with us and our park companies. Their executive management and operational teams spent many hours collaborating with each of our park companies, ensuring that their solutions are optimized for real world usages. We are excited to see the positive outcomes from this partnership. It has further inspired many other leading enterprises to work with us in transforming the future of Hong Kong. We can’t wait to share more success stories in the near future.”
Recruitment of the second cohort of LMTP, focusing on solutions in Smart Sustainability and Smart Living, has been completed in mid-October. Eighty innovative solutions have been received and are under-going assessment by The Community Lab. The selection result is estimated to be announced in the 1st quarter of this year. The Community Lab will also host a diversified range of events, including workshops and TechTalks for the public, enabling the community’s stakeholders to embrace technology in daily lives.
Appendix: Last-mile Testing Programme Cohort One – List of start-ups, solutions, and benefits to community
- SOCIF – Making Hop on Hop off Minibuses a Breeze
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PoC tested: During LMTP, SOCIF not only tested the accuracy of its AI technology in using real-time queuing data in the Lee Gardens area, one of Hong Kong’s busiest communities, it also integrated the available transport open data onto a web app to enhance users’ journey planning experience. |
Community benefits: With SOCIF’s solutions, real-time information was obtained to better analyse transportation infrastructure around the site and to offer a smarter mobility experience via real-time travel recommendations. With this data, Hysan was able to expand management services from infrastructure-focused to a sustainable ecosystem for the entire neighbourhood. |
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Company background: SOCIF is a smart mobility start-up that devises solutions to innovate the transit experience. Getting people moving is an important factor in the development of smart cities, and SOCIF uses edge computing to improve the customer experience journey with passenger counting solutions, estimated time of arrival (ETA) functions, and real-time fleet efficiency analyses. |
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- imBee – A one-stop instant messaging solution for Mass Marketing
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PoC tested: The original PoC proposed is to have imBee’s customer chat management platform integrated into Hysan’s Lee Gardens Club App, enhancing the customer experience journey.
With imBee’s strong mass marketing function, Hysan’s Marketing professionals shared advice and helped imBee to expand its business from B2C to B2B. During the LMTP, imBee has helped Hysan’s Marketing team blast 2 event campaigns successfully to tenants, broadcasted campaign announcements with PDF detail notices to 290 tenants’ shopfront staffs. |
Community’s benefits: The traditional way of blasting event campaigns to tenants is to distribute physical notices shop by shop, with high cost in time and resources.
With imBee’s solutions, the distribution process is now paperless and more efficient. Tenants’ frontline staff also came with positive feedback that the information is timely with the use of instant messaging. |
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Company background: imBee is a SaaS for collaborative inbox and customer conversational engagement. It centralises instant messaging channels into one team inbox. Certified with ISO 27001, imBee improves customer engagement and business communication efficiency by using team collaborative tools to optimize workflow and governance. |
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- Xtra Sensing – “Machine Doctors” aimed to slash Commercial Maintenance Costs
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PoC tested: Xtra Sensing deployed its technology to predict potential cooling tower motor failures in Lee Gardens 3 via vibration sensors so to save energy costs and to enhance operation efficiency. With the data set, Xtra Sensing provided remote and wireless condition monitoring of 3 sets of motors and fans for Lee Gardens’ cooling towers. |
Community benefit: Thanks to Xtra Sensing’s technology, unexpected breakdowns and damages could now be avoided while operations can now run smoothly and resources in money, time and labour can be saved. In the long run, the sensors can offer data for intra- and intercomparisons so to conduct insights in means to improve effectiveness and efficiency. |
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Company background: Xtra Sensing is the company behind XpiderWeb, a non-destructive testing and predictive maintenance concept for commercial businesses. As a “machine doctor,” XpiderWeb is an IoT solution that functions as a monitoring system to assess the health of rotating machinery—think cooling fans, air handling units, conveyor belts, wind turbines, and much more. |
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- Chain Technology – The Future of Smart City Management
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PoC tested: Chain Technology deployed a building inspection robot around the old, tenement structures in Lee Gardens community to conduct an AI inspection for defects so to offer a better visualisation of the neighbourhood via a hybrid reality modelling in their web-based analytical platform. |
Community benefit: The compact building inspection robot is a safe, space-saving and sustainable method to conduct inspections in short, contained periods. With Hysan’s team further adjustment in its business model, Chain has now developed more flexible options to cater to different market needs. |
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Company background: Chain has long been devoted to delivering innovative digital solutions to fuel the advancement of smart cities. Its portfolio of cutting-edge modelling technology and data visualisation services has brought great advantages to the architecture, construction, engineering, and property management industries in accelerating the decision-making process and facilitating the overall sustainable development. |
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