An avid cyclist, Jeff was keen to tackle the problem of staying safe and visible to drivers while riding a bike on the road. During his exchange to Harvard University, he and MBA student Eu-wen Ding came up with the idea to integrate LED lights into a cyclist's helmet. The pair joined and won a hardware-based hackathon at MIT with a helmet prototype, and in 2014 co-founded Lumen Labs in Boston to turn their idea into reality.

After working for nearly a year with a helmet manufacturer, the team launched their first product, Lumos, the only helmet in the market to feature integrated brake and turn signal lights. An accelerometer automatically turns the rear lights red to indicate braking when the cyclist slows down, while the turning signal lights can be operated by a wireless control on the bicycle's handlebars. Lumos has been certified for safety in both the USA and Europe.

Lumen Labs was incubated out of the Harvard Innovation Lab and has gone through Brinc Incubator, the first Internet of Things incubator in Hong Kong. Most recently, Jeff and Eu-wen launched a crowdfunding campaign on the Kickstarter platform where they met their goal of US $125,000 on the first day of launch. To date they have raised over double their original target, with more than two weeks remaining in their campaign. The first batch of Lumos helmets is expected to be shipped in April 2016.

Jeff is one of the first awardees of the HKUST Alumni Endowment Fund's YUNEEC Outstanding Engineering Student Award, an annual award for engineering students with good academic achievements who have actively participated in regional or international engineering-related competitions. Jeff joined the MIT Team as a visiting student and competed in the 2014 AIAA Foundation/Cessna/Raytheon Student Design/Build/Fly Competition where he placed fifth. 

Know more about Jeff from:

Hong Kong Economic Times / Ta Kung Pao / Ming Pao Daily News - 24 February 2017

HKUST Alumni News Magazine - Winter 2015

South China Morning Post - July 29, 2015

Sing Tao Daily - July 24, 2015

Find out more about Alumni Endownment Fund YUNEEC Outstanding Engineering Student Award here.