Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation fosters great talent

The world is facing increasingly complicated challenges and threats on many different fronts. Take the food we consume every day as an example: we see steroids injected into pork, and cooking oil recycled from leftovers in restaurant kitchens. These have rocked the public’s confidence in goods whose safety was taken for granted. With new food products entering our diet at a creative and rapid clip, scientists and regulators are struggling to catch up with solutions.

In response, one Hong Kong start-up, incubated by the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP), is dishing up a cutting-edge method of improving food safety by sharply speeding up tests. Vitargent Biotechnology uses fish embryos to identify up to 1,000 toxins in one go, instead of the five to 10 detected at a time by traditional testing methods.

Leaping through the valley of death is a matter that
requires support

The start-up’s toxin detection work recently scooped the Grand Prix at the International Exhibition of Inventions in Geneva, where its solution was recognised as an innovative answer to the impending danger threatening us all – imagine a scenario where your daily consumption of estrogen is high enough to turn you infertile.

In 2010, Vitargent enrolled into our Incubation Programme and set up its operations at Hong Kong Science Park, the city’s leading research and commercialisation facility managed by HKSTP. Yet the core technology of its solution was a research breakthrough made by a professor at the City University of Hong Kong some 10 years ago. Rather than becoming a well-read academic paper, the scientific discovery found its way to commercialisation four years ago when a graduate of the university brought his R&D and business proposition to HKSTP. Through HKSTP’s incubation programme, Vitargent was able to complete its product development and move on to the early stage of business development in Hong Kong Science Park before it graduated from the programme last year.

Nerve centre
The New Economy has recognised Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation as the Most Innovative Technology Hub in the Asia-Pacific region. Established in May 2001, HKSTP has boosted the development of the city into a regional hub for innovation and growth.

As a nerve centre accelerating the crystallisation of R&D projects into solutions and products that add social and economic value to the planet, HKSTP draws its inspiration from science itself.

Consider the traditional composition of an ecosystem: a home where living organisms and non-living components interact as a functioning system. At Hong Kong Science Park, over 11,000 research and business specialists join hands to build a dynamic ecosystem, encompassing all that are needed to give wings to research and technology application.

In the world of innovation, it is always an individual’s insight and research endeavour that sparks an uncharted future. Yet leaping through the valley of death is a matter that requires support from different sectors in the value chain. HKSTP sees that enabling the right ties to be built between different parties within and outside Hong Kong Science Park is of utmost importance. Our ecosystem stretches from nurturing first-class research development and productisation at one end, to linking start-ups with angel investors and venture capital firms, as well as connecting growing enterprises with industrial users and buyers, at the other.

Take Vitargent’s case for instance: we connected them with mentors, angel investors and food manufacturing leaders in Hong Kong, and the company has just sealed a deal for Series A funding with California-based venture capital firm WI Harper Group, positioning the start-up for global commercial lift-off.

High-calibre commercialisation requires a well-structured back office: the delivery of legal, IP protection, financing, telecommunications and marketing. The availability of internationally recognised drug testing and approval facilities, the presence of a strong pool of academic and research experts in life sciences, as well as the provision of state-of-the-art R&D infrastructure required to usher through ideas from conception to commercialisation, are a prerequisite for progress.

Scientific pioneers and other firms gain uncluttered, yet considerable, access to China – Asia’s largest market. Combine the strengths of Hong Kong’s technically savvy population, low taxes, strong legal system and free access to the world’s second largest economy, and you have a persuasive combination for anchoring your R&D projects in Hong Kong Science Park.

Well-known semi-conductor and system solutions company Infineon Technologies chose Hong Kong as a neat and convenient springboard into the China market. Infineon has teamed up with HKSTP and the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute. This three-way partnership is providing Infineon, a world leader in semi-conductors, with technical support, a shorter time to market and access to the fast-growing Chinese economy.

Scania, one of the world’s leading international manufacturers of heavy trucks and buses for heavy transport applications, as well as industrial and marine engines, anchored its first development centre in Asia at Hong Kong Science Park to further test and develop its Euro 6 engines so as to ensure optimal functioning in the Asian climate and terrain.

Eyeing Hong Kong’s proximity to China, Scania also set up its first fleet management centre in the park to further develop its vehicle black box (Scania Communicator), which monitors and provides intelligence to enhance the performance of drivers and their vehicles. The Material Analysis Laboratory and the Reliability Test Laboratory in Hong Kong Science Park are integral to these important tasks.

Connect, collaborate, catalyse
HKSTP is a keen supporter of firms that have the potential to deliver and add genuine social value. Five major technology trends have been selected as our key focus, namely ICT, electronics, material and precision engineering, biomedical technology, and green technology. Together, HKSTP delivers cross-disciplinary solutions that are set to meet the threats associated with global challenges such as energy conservation, pollution, ageing and personal health.

Let me cite a few examples. Five provinces and seven cities in mainland China employ Insight Robotics’ wildfire detection system. A graduated incubatee of HKSTP, Insight Robotics developed an early-warning threat detection system that combines thermal imaging and artificial intelligence technology. The method’s automation and early-warning patterns help save lives and valuable resources from destruction.

Our biomedical incubatees have also been taking on many challenges. Novoheart, a spin-off from the University of Hong Kong, is making breakthroughs in drug testing with its world-first artificial heart technology. eNano, another start-up focusing on holistic solutions for personal health monitoring, is working to enable us to stay attuned to our wellness through nanosensors, mobile devices and cloud-based data analytics.

These technology start-ups benefit from the numerous activities at Hong Kong Science Park organised by HKSTP. Without making frequent trips away from Hong Kong, they get to hook up with potential collaborators and investors from around the world through the year-round, one-on-one or group business matching events. They receive technology updates from renowned academic and industry specialists when the latter converge in Hong Kong through innovation summits and soft-landing programmes to examine the emerging trends and issues in global challenges and on the innovation scene.

When they are ready to apply their innovation commercially, HKSTP pulls in the industry partners. As Hong Kong is famous as a city of high efficiency, the conglomerates and industrial leaders are eager to adopt technologies that will take their businesses to the next level. For instance, the Airport Authority of Hong Kong – the statutory body running one of the most efficient airports in the world – has given a boost to our homegrown innovators by shopping for technologies from Hong Kong Science Park from time to time.

In this way, Hong Kong and HKSTP are doing what we do best: bringing together the best of the East and the West to cater for new markets that no other city perhaps understands so well. This means drawing together the technological and business knowhow and thereby expanding links with the rest of the region and mainland China. In this way, we at Hong Kong can drive progress in technology and innovation, the pillars for a better tomorrow – for us and our future generations.