Say Hi to Hi-Tech Unicorns! Startup visits led by MBA graduates
Two HKU MBA graduates recently led an educational tour to Hong Kong Science Park to visit two startup companies, SenseTime and HKAI Lab. SenseTime developed Hong Kong’s first hi-tech unicorn. The artificial intelligence (AI) machine has an extensive range of technology including facial recognition, reality augmentation, intelligence monitoring, automatic driving, medical image recognition and among others. HKAI Lab is a not-for-profit initiative fully funded by Alibaba and SenseTime that uses cutting-edge technology and world-class expertise to advance the field of AI as well as providing an established platform to empower start-ups to showcase their technologies.
Tour organisers were Mr. Srijan Kataruka and Ms. Hong Phuc THanh Nguyen, both from HKU MBA Class of 2019. The initial brainstorming phase to the actualisation of the trip was indeed quite a memorable and valuable journey for the two graduates. Srijan recalled that breaking the ice with HKSTP was harder than envisioned. The pair had done many cold calls and emails to reach out to the numerous start-up companies in HKSTP but to no avail. With the recommendation from Hong Phuc’s lecturer, Mr. Savio Kwan, the students managed to breakthrough to Mr. Timothy Leung, Executive Director of HKAI Lab to discuss the plans for their visit.
Together with the collaboration between HKU Faculty of Business and Economics’ MBA office, HKAI Lab and SenseTime, the tour stepped foot into the headquarters of SenseTIme, visited the HKAI Lab and Data Lab and most importantly, gained firsthand knowledge and insights from leading experts in the technology industry. Hong Phuc added not only was it eye-opening to be able to apply what she learnt in the classroom to the ever-changing tech industry, but it was in fact a golden opportunity to gain a sneak peek into the Alibaba operations model. The tour attracted over 30 participants from different universities and received highly positive reviews.
