Harnessing rich experience, professional expertise and adequate capital, seniors are fully capable of starting new businesses. A retired university professor has successfully developed an AI Chinese-English translation engine which is gaining favor with financial institutions, listed companies and professional translation houses.
As revealed by HKEX data, the financial press specializing in IPO prospectuses, annual reports and other listed company documents has seen sustainable growth in the past ten years. Total revenue of the sector is expected to increase by 53% to HKD2 billion. Indeed, there are very attractive business opportunities in financial translation.
Francis Chin, Emeritus Professor of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Hong Kong, had a long career in teaching that spanned over three decades. At the age of 70 after his retirement, he formed a team with his wife Bethany Chan, PhD in computer and information sciences with a career background in investment banking, and his friend Colin Hong, who has years of hands-on experience in the translation and financial printing sectors. Together, they founded DeepTranslate, an industry leading AI translation engine tailored for Chinese and English translation of financial documents.
Husband-and-wife team gains insights from daughter
Chin recalled that he first got the idea to apply AI deep learning in professional sectors back in his teaching days. After retiring, he spent about a year with his team to develop DeepTranslate, a Chinese and English translation engine platform that caters to the professional needs of financial translation. Operating 24/7, the platform cuts both manpower and proofreading time. Translation accuracy is constantly improved as the system continues to harvest data and expand its database.
This is the first time they have founded a startup as a husband-and-wife team. Chan said in the early stage of the venture they sought advice from their daughter, who stressed the importance of product promotion and proposal. “The sector knows little about AI translation engines and our promotion efforts must emphasize how this platform can drastically reduce the time for preparing translation drafts and manual proofreading.”
Now, three years later, DeepTranslate has broken even. This year, the company was selected for HKSTP’s LEAP program and won the HKTDC startup competition. These accolades empowered them for quick business expansion and access to new markets. Currently, DeepTranslate has a workforce of about ten people and provides service to more than 20 corporate clients, including financial institutions and listed companies.
Senior business starters training fresh blood
The couple admit that starting a business is never easy. Just like freshmen, they had to learn and put knowledge into practice from scratch. “DeepTranslate is not a big company and we have to oversee everything.” That notwithstanding, Chin said the sense of satisfaction is great beyond words.
A long-time educator, Chin still has a strong desire to cultivate talent. When it comes to recruitment, DeepTranslate is partial to university graduates or postgraduates with no working experience. Chin described his company as an incubator that trains green horns at the beginning of their careers, thus attracting talent to stay and grow in Hong Kong. They are the young starters’ mentors and friends.
Strengths in capital and technology
Many companies are actively developing AI solutions but Chin finds that most of them do not have defined market positioning. As a result, product features and direction of operation get out of focus, or worst still, the operating team get bogged down and brain drain follows. “Businesses must have a clear direction to retain talent and produce quality products that fill market voids.”
Chin said that, unlike young startup entrepreneurs who lack capital and technical support, he has years of experience, strong networks and good finance. He is therefore in a position to turn down potential partners who propose capital participation for a say in business operation. He ensures that he has total control of the company’s business direction.
