People

Earlier, I visited a senior care home. At 2 p.m., several elderly residents gathered in the activity room, engaging in cognitive training with a therapist using picture cards. In the corridor, more residents sat quietly in wheelchairs, basking in the sun.

Among traditional Chinese medicine old brands, there is a packaging method called the "One Fen Bottle": how to divide, package, and measure the medicine—how much to put in and how much force to use—are not written in textbooks and rely entirely on the master’s years of experience and intuition.

A Hong Kong start-up, Transible Lab, which provides digital inspection solutions for property management offices, was recently studied by a student group in an MBA Capstone course. The company’s three co-founders come from backgrounds spanning product design, engineering, and real estate.

Recently, as part of the MBA Capstone course, one student group studied Code-Create, a Hong Kong-based fashion AI company. It is a distinctive enterprise founded in 2022 and is the first spin-off from AiDLab, a joint initiative between The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the Royal College of Art in the UK.

Recently, in an MBA Capstone course, a student team studied Braillic, a Hong Kong medical technology startup. Founded in 2022, the company has developed the ArNav surgical navigation system, which integrates augmented reality (AR), artificial intelligence (AI), and computer vision technologies.

Recently, in an MBA Capstone course, a student team studied Alpha AI, a local AI startup in Hong Kong. The company’s founder also joined the class to exchange views with students on the company’s business and growth challenges. According to publicly available information, Alpha AI focuses on smart inspection, computer vision, and customized technology solutions, using drones, camera equipment, and AI technologies to inspect buildings and infrastructure.

In the middle of this month, I attended a forum hosted by the HKU Business School South China Alumni Association Healthcare Chapter in Shenzhen. On my way there, I traveled with Professor Yi Huang from HKU’s Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. During our journey, we discussed his research fields: brain-inspired chips and brain-computer interfaces (BCIs).

Prof. Roy Tan, Professor of Practice at HKU Business School and Academic Director of Custom Executive Education, argues in Fortune China that HR is undergoing fundamental disruption in 2026 — not incremental change. Drawing on his MBA and EMBA teaching and executive education work with global firms, he identifies three structural breaks: AI has automated HR's traditional workload, leaving the profession without a clear new mandate; the psychological contract between employers and employees has expired without a replacement; and most leadership development frameworks still train leaders for a predictable world that no longer exists. He calls on HR professionals to rebuild from first principles.

In 2024, I taught a master’s course at HKU on the dynamics of multinational corporations. For their capstone graduation project, one student group chose to study the Danish company Too Good To Go.