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AI is not the future, it is really the ‘now’. This revolution is critical because far from taking agency away from people, it is indeed giving it back to them.

Robots on the rise

We begin our journey in Inovance ( 匯川技術 ), a world- leading automation machinery manufacturing company which has its own building in Shenzhen. The company makes robots for industrial applications. Listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2010, Inovance develops everything from elevators to plastics, electric vehicles, and robotics, producing a diverse range of goods from low voltage AC drives to intelligent controllers, industrial robots, electric vehicle inverters, light rail transit converters and industrial internet applications. Yi PAN (2013 EMBA) co-founded the company in 2003, having worked at Huawei and Emerson, both global leaders in industrial applications.

Success came quickly – Shenzhen Inovance Tech went public on the Shenzhen A-share Growth Enterprise Market, and now boasts a research base in Suzhou with more than 20,000 staff. The company has quickly expanded its network to include research bases in Yueyang, Changzhou, Nanjing, Xi’an, Jinan and other cities, along with establishing a presence in Hungary and India. “The whole process has been absolutely incredible,” says Yi. “What we have been able to achieve in such a short time is remarkable,” he adds. While all of this seems so easy, the reality is that the early days of Inovance were marked by struggle. “We had limited capital and profits, so we worked hard to find the right talents who were going to come on board with good value and belief in our mission. After we went public, it was easier to get more talents onboard,” Yi says.

Artificial intelligence with real outcome

AI has become crucial to Inovance – since 2015, the company has used artificial intelligence to explore a wide range of industrial applications from quality checking of tiles to analyzing the purity of cooking oil; all the way to leading-edge coding and decoding that can help companies streamline their production processes. Inovance’s high voltage frequency converter, universal servo system, elevator human-machine interface are the first in China’s market, and many of its other products are among the leaders for the country.

“AI is not the future, it is really the ‘now’. This revolution is critical because far from taking agency away from people, it is indeed giving it back to them. I believe that people will always be giving directions, and AI will be doing the hard work,” says Yi.

Entrepreneurism rooted in HKUST experience

Having completed an EMBA, Yi is always seeking to enter new markets and has a finely honed business mindset. In 2017, he also founded Value Capital, focused on investing in semiconductors, industrial software, intelligent manufacturing, new materials, and new energy sources, with the goal of empowering start-up technology companies to develop into global powerhouses. "Quality not quantity" is the ethos Yi lives by. Established a solid name for itself, Value Capital is recruiting only graduates of top universities with a master's degree or above, all supported by well-developed legal and professional teams.

Yi’s EMBA program helped him mold his vision. “I gained a complete knowledge system on how to manage a company, cultivate industry vision, and lay a good foundation. A bonus was that during my studies I also became actively involved in marathons, exercise, and meditation, which was a significant change for me.”

He also became passionate about social causes – from becoming deeply involved in the relief effort for the Ya'an earthquake in 2013, Yi has now established several foundations, including the Nanjing Li Zhi Yang Guang Xin Hui Xin Foundation, to support education projects for Chinese children. Showing his generosity, Yi made a significant donation to HKUST, establishing the Pan Yi Named Professorship in Business. This accolade recognizes professors at HKUST, encouraging talent cultivation, and supporting the Business School to grow its already stellar reputation.

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You need to be all-rounded, be savvy, have wisdom and develop a sense of worldliness. If you treat everyone with respect and care, things will look up.

An e-commerce icon

In a city where people still spend a lot of their money offline, YOHO ( 友和 ) stands out as a star in the e-commerce pack. Its CEO, Chairman, and Co-Founder is Franz Wu (2008 BBA Economics), who now runs the largest e-commerce platform with a primary direction towards consumer electronics and home appliances in Hong Kong while also having the honor of being listed on the HKEX in June 2022.

You wouldn’t have realized it from chatting with him in person – Franz is down-to-earth and easy-going, and loves playing football. “My favorite memories at HKUST were on the pitch, and of course the beautiful halls. Too bad we don’t have enough staff for a YOHO team!” Franz says. Although having outstanding academic results, he graduated during the turmoil of 2008, and with limited jobs available due to the financial "tsunami", started trading consumer electronics and home appliances, including items big at the time like portable media players.

It was this experience, combined with a strong interest and education in Economics (with minors in Humanities and China Studies), that drove him forward. This diverse education, along with a firm network of friends, offered him the right mix of innovation, creativity, and nous to go on to bigger and bolder things.

In 2013, Franz noticed the lack of channels to buy new electronics and founded YOHO with his now wife Kathy Tsui. “At the time she was my girlfriend,” he says with a laugh. “But we saw an opportunity, with high rents, and that Hong Kong consumers would love a business like ours. In 2013, it was a different world,” Franz says. From an initial capital investment of HK$500,000 each, they have blossomed into a force to be reckoned with.

Indeed, with their market operating in a new environment, innovation is at the core of the company. The duo learned everything there was to know about e-commerce, delivery, payment systems, operations, and marketing. The YOHO team pioneered the concept of online-merge-offline (OMO) business, with showrooms supporting the online experience, and a dual experience for consumers.

YOHO says ‘yoohoo’ to AI

The Group now has more than 1,000,000 registered users with a diverse product portfolio. Gross profit was HK$130 million for 2022-23, and online sales have surpassed direct competitors. YOHO also has 4% of its sales coming from Mainland China. Merchants can also open shops on YOHO, including the likes of LEGO, meaning the range of products will expand. With such a large customer base, AI is essential to keeping customers happy. YOHO has been using AI assistants that can be customized to help people make choices and offer a convenient shopping environment.

YOHO is working with HKUST Business School to create a suite of AI offerings. The projects include a product recommendation system. “As we have a history of consumer behavior from previous purchases, such as brands, categories and what not, we are using AI to help customers make the best choices for their future purchases,” Franz says. YOHO has 20 business use cases they are working on that can help customers, including the AI assistant.

“Customers can choose their own attitudes for assistants, so if they want someone sassier and fun, that can make it. No one is doing this globally, even in Mainland China and the US. Meanwhile at the backend, we use AI to help better organize our data and systems. Product descriptions are a nightmare with the requirement of having three languages so this can really help us speed up,” Franz adds. AI will thus lessen mistakes in product descriptions in the backend, improve efficiency and time spent.

YOHO is also using AI for product comparison. But what if the AI assistant recommends consumers to buy less or a cheaper item? “Well, at the end of the day, it is a LLM (Large language model) so that could happen,” he laughs. Franz aims to increase users in Hong Kong, along with Mainland China and the GBA.

It's very ambitious, but Franz has done it before and can achieve the same again. How should others follow his path? “You need to be all- rounded, be savvy, have wisdom and develop a sense of worldliness. If you treat everyone with respect and care, things will look up,” Franz says.

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AI will help us create better conditions for users, and ultimately, that is the best use of any technology.

Bike business becomes tour de force

Hong Kong can seem dominated by cars and buses, but for many New Territories residents, biking is a widely used mode of transportation. Former eBay engineer Ken Ching (2007 BEng Computer Engineering, 2011 MSc IT) founded Locobike in 2017 to address this reality. Having grown up with bicycles from a young age, he started looking at the feasibility of bike-sharing in Hong Kong.

"We strongly believe in the shared bike model, I have a personal interest in biking because at the time I was studying at HKUST as a part-time master's student, but was working at Science Park in Tai Po. The pain point was I could ride to HKUST, but I couldn't ride back home after classes because it was late at night. There was nowhere to leave or pick up bikes, so I thought that the share market had its place," says Ken.

Life often comes full circle – Now based in Science Park, Locobike took center stage in the Hong Kong market by leveraging the use of big data and AI and partnering closely with government departments. It has gone from a company that was trying to understand the market to a major player operating a machine-learning based dockless shared-bike management platform, and MaaS (Mobility as a service) solutions for 600,000 registered users.

"When we started there were several operators, and the market was fairly chaotic. We had bi-weekly meetings with the Transport Department to set it all up. So we signed agreements with the government as the first operator to implement transport department systems and monitor the bikes in terms of real-time users and locations," says Ken.

Mapping out a strategy

The team focused their efforts on districts with comprehensive cycling networks including Tai Po, Ma On Shan and Sha Tin. "Essentially we committed to only building bike stations in areas that have cycling infrastructure or in new development areas. Because of road conditions, we agreed to limit our services and avoid Hong Kong Island and Kowloon in the beginning, as at times the road conditions can be really dangerous,” says Ken.

This strategy has allowed Locobike to expand with government co-operation. In 2022, they finally created the first smart bicycle route in Hong Kong Island, with an app to accompany and an IoT (Internet of things) system to manage the route. In 2023, they partnered with the Transport Department to launch the first shared electric mobility trial in the New Territories. The company is now moving towards deployment of electric scooters and electric-assist bicycles

Robust hardware meets super software

Locobike also improved the useability of their app, created patrols to monitor the condition and location of bikes and to tackle issues such as blocking up streets. As the project progressed, AI became essential, especially as Ken has a background in data mining and management. The team set about collecting more bike data to help with urban planning, moving from 2,000 bikes to more than 10,000 bikes in 13 districts with the help of AI. The company has patented the world's first AI dockless micro-mobility management system.

“The system helps us plan collection, maintenance, and repair. AI uses data from patrols and usage, if a bike is not being used for a few days, it means there may be a problem, or it might be in a bad place for pickup. This data helps us determine why users like certain places better than others for pickup."

In many ways the inspiration for Locobike came from HKUST, and not only because it sparked the original idea. "At HKUST I loved the campus and the atmosphere, but I also learned how to combine hardware and software, the education I received in the CPEG (computer science and electrical engineering joint degree program) that made the birth of Locobike possible. CPEG provided me with a well-rounded understanding of both software and hardware, which are fundamental to the development of IoT. I would say all because of HKUST CPEG, I unlocked the Hong Kong first Locobike in my home,” says Ken. The next step for Locobike is expanding its corporate network, having started working extensively with Shell which is keen to develop micro-mobility concepts. In Chengdu, they are working together with an international luxury resort brand to provide customized E-bike services to guests. Recently, they established a joint micro-mobility loT research center at the HKUST Shenzhen- Hong Kong Collaborative Innovation Research Institute in Futian. That is just the beginning. Locobike is now setting its sights worldwide, expanding to four tourist resorts and parks, one university campus in Mainland China and one industrial campus in Taiwan.

For Locobike, AI is a way to optimize their work on road conditions, safety, user systems, and to run its solar energy-based wireless charging stations. Locobike has developed a global first green energy micro-mobility network powered by solar and wireless charging. “AI will help us create better conditions for users, and ultimately, that is the best use of any technology,” says Ken.

We have developed a global first green energy micro-mobility network powered by solar and wireless charging.