A total of 18 unicorns that have the “Hong Kong DNA” have successfully made it on the “Unicorns HK 2021” list announced late last year. With the strong support of the Government, Hong Kong universities and related institutions, many homegrown Hong Kong unicorns have emerged in just four short years, injecting new impetus into the development of Hong Kong’s innovation and technology (I&T) industries and economy.
Li Zexiang: Motivate Youth Entrepreneurship and Help Startups Transform into Hong Kong Unicorns
Sequoia China’s Hong Kong X Foundation published the first ever Unicorns HK 2021. Among 18 “Hong Kong-gene” unicorns inscribed on the list, six are from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) which is a celebrated cradle of unicorns. Li Zexiang, Professor of the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, HKUST, and co-founder of Hong Kong X Foundation, took part in the making of five such unicorns, namely, Da Jiang Innovations (DJI), GOOGOLTECH, Hai Robotics, CiDi and 4Paradigm. What are the unique insights and perspectives of Professor Li who is crowned Godfather of Hidden Entrepreneurship in China? How does HKUST build a favorable breeding ground for unicorns?
Li joined HKUST 30 years ago and established the Automation Technology Center (ATC) in 1998. This platform enabled Li and his team to transfer theories and knowledge they acquired during the equipment selection process to benefit regional industries. While making focused efforts towards the industrialization of research deliverables, he also actively sponsored students with potentials to start their own businesses. This “mentor+student” entrepreneurial incubation model that spans across industry, education and investment is guided by a vision of “changing the world through education and technology.
The Shenzhen Industry, Education and Research (IER) Base as a unicorn incubator
During a keynote address on Greater Bay Area youth talent development he delivered in Shenzhen earlier, Li shared the stories of four HKUST-bred startups, including DJI. According to the professor, there were no world-class research universities in Hong Kong or the Greater China region when HKUST was first founded. Just like other educators who joined the university in those early years, he drove and supported HKUST’s pursuit of this mission.
“We knew that fruits of research must align with the real world, and Shenzhen provided us with just the right platform.” As Li recalls, the then HKUST President, Party Secretary of Peking University and Mayor of Shenzhen came up with a surrogate solution, i.e. to provide venue and capital in Shenzhen for teachers and students of the two universities to launch startups. Under this entrepreneurial initiative, IER was set up in Yuehai Subdistrict as a training ground for a cohort of students. Subsequently, these young entrepreneurs gave birth to many startups, including a number of unicorns. GOOGOLTECH is one of many success stories emerging from this scenario.
Cultivating entrepreneurial qualities to build Greater Bay Area synergy
Commenting on the qualities of an entrepreneur, Li thinks there are four essential elements: curiosity, teamwork, cross-disciplinary cooperation and prompt action. “We should nurture young people who possess these traits with an education system of new paradigm. What’s more, unlike the knowledge economy era, we can access all kinds of knowledge with our mobile phone today. The point is whether we can find something exciting and inspiring that we are willing to make it happen at all costs. Our education must kindle this flame within the students.”
Looking ahead, Li firmly believes that innovation and technology transformation has only just begun in the Greater Bay Area. There are huge space and ample opportunities for development. “Over more than a decade of development, we have never stopped learning. We’ve arrived at a whole new platform and dimension today. Let me take an emerging UK enterprise as example. Against the odd of manufacturing downturn in Britain, it has been very popular with young people and consumers and recorded excellent revenue. Its key to success is to let young people define their own products. This particular case and what we have learned over the years speak volumes about the new generation’s immense momentum. If you can trigger their force (entrepreneurship), they can work miracles.”
Embrace our common value to motivate innovation and entrepreneurship
HKUST has applied itself continually to incubate startups. Donny Siu, Acting Director cum Head (Entrepreneurship Programs) of Entrepreneurship Center, HKUST, points out that the university’s innovation and research excellence is the result of long-term efforts. Since its inception, HKUST has been encouraging and supporting innovation projects initiated by students and teaching staff. It is an ingrained DNA. Many members of HKUST, especially educators who have been with the university since the early years, embrace this spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship. This very culture is conducive to progressive enhancement of the startup ecosystem.
“Another advantage of HKUST is that it is a relatively young institution with a flexible mechanism that allows and supports university teams to experiment new things.” Siu cites the example of the six unicorns on the list which HKUST helped to incubate. A robust pioneering spirit and perseverance in making bold attempts and breakthroughs are crucial. More importantly, HKUST serves as a platform and gathering point for like-minded innovative talents. One particular key figure is Professor Zexiang Li who joined HKUST soon after its founding. Possessing the HKUST innovation DNA, professor Li is happy to assist students looking to starting new businesses. Thus, he has been able to attract and agglomerate promising entrepreneurs who share the same values, such as Wang Tao. As a team, they generate maximum impetus to drive innovation and entrepreneurship.
When asked about the role of the HKUST Entrepreneurship Center, Siu says it aims to provide students and teaching staff with a more favorable environment for innovation and startups, including capital contributions, organizing the Entrepreneurship Competition, introducing more fabricable development space to help address challenges encountered when implementing a novel idea and ultimately developing a startup, and minimizing setbacks. “The One Million Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition is a program designed to augment startups. It has expanded to seven cities and gained increasing impact in recent years. It is a significant driving force for innovation and entrepreneurship in Mainland China and Hong Kong.”
Jia Jiaya: Homegrown Hong Kong Unicorn Created by High-End Intelligence
SmartMore is the youngest firm on the “Unicorns HK 2021” list announced by the Hong Kong X Foundation for the first time last year. Founded in 2019 by Jia Jiaya, a tenured professor of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, SmartMore is an I&T firm that specializes in applying AI vision technology and optical technology to smart manufacturing and high-definition videos.
The idea of commercializing cutting-edge technologies came to Jia when he saw that the gradual shift of focus in the global scientific and technological innovation environment from information to intelligence has undoubtedly brought great development space for advanced technologies such as AI and computer vision technologies, and there is a sharp increase in industry demand for cutting-edge technologies and technology talents amid the trend of global collaboration across technological innovation markets.
“The core reason for our ability to gain capital and market recognition in just two short years is that we have an excellent team. I have to lead the team to continuously improve our skills and products, while thinking about the scale and potential commercial value of technology applications. I also need to take into account customer feelings and always explore how to grow steadily.”
Three key reasons for success and driving development of Greater Bay Area
Prior to founding SmartMore, Jia left his teaching position to head X-Lab at Tencent, an internationally renowned technology company. He recalled: “AI for social good was my goal at that time. To this end, I have made many achievements, such as a self-developed autonomous driving platform. Many projects have created a lot of social and public welfare value.”
Regarding the key to SmartMore’s success in becoming a unicorn, Jia identified three major reasons: An experienced team, technical foundation and capital recognition. SmartMore has a wealth of experience that enables it to fully leverage cutting-edge technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), cloud, edge computing and digital twinning in its products, and commercialize them.
Boasting Asia’s largest smart manufacturing technology team, SmartMore has successfully served over 100 high-end manufacturing customers and solved over 500 key technical problems, laying a solid foundation for its subsequent rapid growth, which in turn helps it gain the trust of capital and the market, attracting investors keen to drive the development of high-end advanced manufacturing.
He especially mentioned that “the shortage of top talents will always be the biggest challenge for startups”, so in the early stage of starting the business, he paid great attention to recruiting and training talents. SmartMore has also set up R&D centres in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, and adopts scientific management internally. In recent years, SmartMore has worked with major companies, government departments and top investors in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area to help young people and high-end technologists find more opportunities to open up a new window for economic development in the Greater China region in order to attract existing scientific and technological innovation companies to seek development and potential investors to invest in the region.
Leverage smart ecosystem to enter era of high-end intelligence
The manufacturing sector has not changed much fundamentally in the past five decades. However, the emergence of cutting-edge AI and computer technologies has ushered the world into a new era of high-end intelligence. In Jia’s view: “History has shown that unicorns need strong enough fighting power to stand out from the competition. Since we are based in Hong Kong, we need to make full use of Hong Kong’s strengths as an international hub to create products that meet the needs of the times and markets, taking the opportunity to address customer pain points.”
Specifically, SmartMore has built its own complete smart manufacturing and digital innovation ecological framework - the SMore ViMo intelligent industrial platform, which can enable one-stop services for manufacturing customers, shifting smart manufacturing from an in-depth bespoke model to a standardised model. SmartMore has also launched a series of smart sensors and integrated smart equipment in conjunction with the platform to accelerate the upgrading of smart manufacturing, and ultimately lead the global manufacturing sector to move together into the preamble of the smart era.
