Opening Speech by Mr Y. C. Cheng, Acting Director of Information Technology Services at the Tripartite Forum on Commercialisation of IT Research Results 2000 on 29 - 06 - 2000

Mr Cheah, Mr Au, Professors, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good afternoon! Welcome to the Tripartite Forum on Commercialisation of IT Research Results 2000.

On this same date last year, we organised the Tripartite Forum for the first time and received much encouraging and positive feedback. I believe that we have made a good start to foster collaboration between the industry and the academia.

Today, I am pleased to see that this year's Forum has attracted so many venture capitalists, businessmen and academics. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Hong Kong Information Technology Federation, the Hong Kong Venture Capital Association and the relevant departments of six local universities for their support in organising this Forum again.

We may have different expectations in attending today's Forum, but I believe we share a common goal, a goal to sharpen our future with advanced technology. And towards this goal, a major initiative of the "Digital 21" Information Technology Strategy of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is to foster the collaboration between the industry and the academia. Today's Forum is one of our various measures to stimulate the industry to forge partnership with the academia in research & development, and to provide an opportunity for the academia to transform their research results into applications with the necessary support from the industry.

To maintain our competitive edge in the information age of the 21st century, we must develop and exploit technology and to build Hong Kong into a leading digital city. To this end, the Government plays an important role as a promoter and facilitator. We constantly strive to create the best business environment, and to promote this in order to attract continuous investment and to maintain a steady supply of talents. Through organising events like today's Forum, the Government aims to provide a channel for acquisition and transfer of technology that in turn bring about technology upgrade and foster innovations.

The Government also plays an important role as a supporter. We are financing technology development projects and researches undertaken by the academia as well as the industry through funding schemes such as the Innovation and Technology Fund and the Applied Research Fund.

In a market-oriented economy like Hong Kong, innovations need to be commercialised in order to make an impact on the economy. This requires experts like you who are with the right skills including breadth and depth in technology know-how, a thorough understanding of running enterprises, and the commitment to Hong Kong. This is what we intend to do here to connect the right technology to the right people so as to generate the momentum for achieving success.

With distinguished venture capitalists, businessmen and academics like you gathering together, I very much hope that the exchange of ideas will ultimately bring about commercial projects and future enterprises.

I wish you all a fruitful discussion in this Forum.

Thank you.

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