Day 4 – HKSTP and a view!

By Sara Baracchini July 25, 2016 Edition CHIC 2015-2016Discover Aimo project

All teams worked hard last night (or early in the morning) to prepare the pitching session of the day, this one for investors-oriented people at the Science & Technology Park.

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In the morning, we are given a warm welcome by Marian Gaultney, ex-banker now in charge of international partnerships. HKSTP seems to be the perfect place to innovate in Hong Kong, gathering start-ups and R&D centers of big companies. Young start-ups can make the most of this environment of technology and knowledge thanks to 3 incubation programs, from 18 months to 3 years. This campus has one mission we can sum up with 3C’s: Connect, Collaborate and Catalyze. Innovation here is supported by platforms dedicated to different fields of application: Smart Cities, Healthy Ageing & Robotics.

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After this presentation, it’s our turn to give a speech! The jury is really experienced; jury members want to put us at ease for this stressful exercise: we are here to have practice to improve our pitches. Their advices are precious concerning potential investors’ concerns. They warn us about safety of our products:

  • Hibachi is about food and the team has to prove it is a no-risk product
  • Aimo could take place in public spaces, facing new problems
  • Okeep team has to deal with with certifications
  • Tikku team is asked about retail price, which need to be lowered

Jury members have also a kind thought, awarding our projects as “the most disruptive project”, “the most creative project”, “the most marketable project” and ” the best social impact”. You can see the Tikku team with their award!

Capture d’écran 2016-07-18 à 23.18.40After a feedback session and lunch, each team is invited to visit a company from Science Park, linked to its product and technology. You can see on the picture the Okeep team with the CEO of the company their visited: Lexiwave.

Capture d’écran 2016-07-18 à 23.15.31Then we met the people from Innokick. Innokick is a master program in Switzerland that allows students to acquire the necessary interdisciplinary skills required to develop innovative products and services and to market them successfully. They explain their project to us, they have been working on integrating business 4.0 into Hong-Kong’s companies. They tell us their feelings about the culture difference in Asia. We did a small version of our speeches to them as well, without slides for the first time, which was very challenging.

At the end of the day we took the bus and went to the Victoria Peak. It’s a mountain that surrounds the city of Hong-Kong. We enjoyed a beautiful view and were impressed by the density of buildings and the lights. We then followed Marc on a small walk from the top to the bottom of the mountain, so back to the city center. The path was very steep but we made it. We arrived right in the middle of the city and we enjoyed some beers before going to sleep.

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