Opening Remarks by Ir. Allen Yeung, JP, Government Chief Information Officer, at the “Internet Economy Summit 2018 – Entrepreneurship Forum” (with photo)

Dr. Lam (Chairman, Hong Kong Cyberport Management Company Limited, Dr. Lee George Lam), distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

Good Morning. Welcome to the Day 2 of the 3rd Internet Economy Summit.

Today we will start with the Entrepreneurship Forum. Entrepreneurship is now a global phenomenon. According to Crunchbase, in 2017, the global venture funding is over US$200 billion, an increase of 23% over previous year.

Entrepreneurship represents a new source of innovation for the entire society, like blood carrying oxygen to every part of our body. Making use of new technologies, start-ups offer innovative products and services that are more efficient and cost-effective. They stimulate innovations and technological advancements and provide solutions to urban issues, societal problems and aging challenges. Quality jobs would be created and its cascading effect will benefit every party through the supply chain.

While start-ups disrupt market incumbents, they introduce competitions and accelerate structural changes to industries that will bring new business models.

On a personal level, starting one's own business challenges people’s capabilities such as perseverance, curiosity and creativity. It offers opportunities to channel energy and passion for personal growth especially for the younger generation.

Hong Kong has a vibrant start-up community and experienced a notable growth in recent years. Many co-working spaces, accelerators, incubators and innovation hubs are springing up all around the territory. According to a latest survey, Hong Kong counts 2 300 start-ups in 2017, an increase of 16% over previous year, providing more than 6 300 jobs. According to KPMG, just in the last quarter of 2017, Hong Kong sees over US$425 million of VC funding investments to Hong Kong’s start-ups, and start-ups in the Science Park and Cyberport account for majority of it.

Indeed, the work of Hong Kong-based advanced technological start-ups is gaining international recognition and has attracted investments from overseas and the Mainland. These home-grown companies offers new services and applications that cater for different aspects of daily lives, such as WeLab, SenseTime, GoGoVan, Tink Labs, TNG Wallet, to name just a few. Last year, we witness the birth of a number of our start-ups joining the league of unicorns. I am very glad that founders of these home-grown start-ups are among us today sharing with us their journey of entrepreneurship.

There is also a growing trend of overseas founders who have selected Hong Kong as the preferred destination for them to lift off and thrive. Hong Kong has all the resources for these companies, from precious seed funding to affordable office space, and from high quality business advice to valuable access to investors and global markets.

The bustling start-up scene is the result of hard work and partnership between the private sector and the government. The government offers comprehensive support to start-ups in various areas through different means. For example, Government-owned Cyberport, which is also the co-organiser of this Summit, and the Science Park, which is a supporting organisation of this event, have been providing incubation programme, co-working space and funding support to Hong Kong start-ups for many years. And there are also many successful cases.

Another supporting measure of the government is the annual flagship event of Hong Kong ICT Awards. Some of these winners have continued to grow and received substantial venture investment for expansion of their businesses beyond Hong Kong. Examples include OpenRice, Klook, GoGoVan and I have mentioned some already before. Last week, the Chief Executive presented eight Grand Awards to another year of promising winners. I am confident that they will continue to thrive and contribute to our start-up community in the coming years.

To further stimulate private investment in local I&T start-ups, the government commenced an unprecedented measure last year.  We established a HK$2 billion Innovation and Technology Venture Fund to co-invest with the partner venture capital funds at a ratio of one to two.  Selection process is now underway and we expect to announce the result in the short term and make co-investment in start-ups gradually starting from the second half of the year.

In this year’s budget, we will invest further in this area.  We will allocate HK$300 million to Cyberport for enhancing support for start-ups, promoting the development of a digital technology ecosystem and foster the development of e-sports.  For Science Park, HK$10 billion has been earmarked for constructing research infrastructure and facilities, and enhancing support for its tenants and incubatees.

The HKSAR government promulgated the Hong Kong Smart City Blueprint in last December, with the vision to build Hong Kong as a world class smart city, by embracing innovation and technology to build a vibrant economy and improve qualify of living.  In the Blueprint, Smart People calls for promoting entrepreneurship.  It also calls for life-long learning and retooling of our talent.  It is important that we continue to learn while technological changes are requiring new skills.

Therefore today’s Forum is also part of the government’s commitment to drive the development of start-ups and we are excited to have a full line-up of visionary leaders, successful entrepreneurs and founders of start-ups as our speakers.  In the afternoon, we have arranged youth session especially for students as parallel events like last year.  These students will meet winners of the HKICT Awards and real-life sharing of their experiences, and a tailor-made, guided tour to the ICT expo, which I hope they will become our next generation of entrepreneurs.

I am also delighted that in a moment Cyberport will be announcing its latest collaboration with HKUSPACE and Amazon Web Services for launching the Cloud Computing Certification Course.  This partnership will certainly enrich our talent pool for meeting demands of booming I&T industry particularly in the area of Cloud Computing.  We have been seeing new demand of talents in the technological changes, and that’s why these kind of new Cloud Computing courses will be vital to retooling of our existing I&T talent pool.

We’re here today because we believe in the power of entrepreneurship.  So let us work together to sustain the community who, I believe, will shape the future of the world in decades to come.   I wish you all have an enjoyable conference and a lot of fruitful sharing.  Thank you.

- ENDS -