Attention duty announcers, radio and TV stations: Yellow fire danger warning The fire danger situation today (October 14) is yellow and the risk of fire is high. People are urged to prevent fires breaking out and hik… read more
Attention duty announcers, radio and TV stations: Yellow fire danger warning The fire danger situation today (October 14) is yellow and the risk of fire is high. People are urged to prevent fires breaking out and hik… read more
Police are investigating a fatal traffic accident in Tin Sum yesterday (October 13) in which a 81-year-old woman died. At about 7.16pm, a public light bus driven by a 53-year-old man was travelling a… read more
Hong Kong saw a record breaking result today (October 13) at the 18th Asia Pacific Information and Communications Technology Alliance (APICTA) Awards, sweeping 6 Winner and 13 Merit awards. It is the biggest number of awards Hong Kong won in the competition. The APICTA Awards, held from October 10 to 13 in Guangzhou this year, is often dubbed as the Oscars of the ICT arena in the Asia Pacific region.
Joining 10 contesting categories, the delegation brought Hong Kong to the glory of a total of 19 awards among 260-plus entries. The Winner awards were granted to:
– TravelFlan AI Travel Concierge by FreeD Group Limited
(Consumer – Entertainment & Hospitality category)
– Belun™ï¸� Ring by Belun Technology Company Limited
(Inclusions and Community Services – Wellbeing category)
– Multilingual Artificial Intelligence Customer Service System by Fano Labs Limited
(Business Services – ICT Solutions category)
– Tale, an AI presentation coach for presentation practice, The University of Hong Kong and The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
(Student – Tertiary Students Project category)
– SmarKie, a smart vending machine, by Mini168 Limited
(Start Up of the Year – Consumer and Industrial category)
– Intelligent RFID-embedded Baggage Loading Robotics for Automated Baggage Reconciliation by Airport Authority Hong Kong and E-Business Solutions Limited
(Technology – Internet of Things category)
Led by the Government Chief Information Officer, Mr Victor Lam, the delegation was the largest-ever Hong Kong sent to the event hosted by other member-economies. It comprised some 100 representatives, including 22 students coming from two primary schools, one secondary school and three universities.
Mr Lam said the brilliant performance of the delegation demonstrated Hong Kong’s strong ICT capability and rich pool of talented ICT practitioners and students.
“We are overjoyed with the remarkable results this year. This is a solid proof for Hong Kong’s excellence in ICT solutions and innovations. I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the Hong Kong Computer Society which had attributed great effort in organising and coaching the delegation, making happened the success today.
“The Government has been striving to broaden and enrich our I&T talent pool. This year, 22 students as well as two representatives from a non-government organisation (NGO) were sponsored to join the event. It was definitely an invaluable experience for them,” Mr Lam added.
Apart from organising the annual Hong Kong ICT Awards and Internet Economic Summit, the Government also support local talents to participate in regional and international competitions in order to help them connect with international market and acquire experience.
During the event, a reception was hosted by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council and the Hong Kong Computer Society last night. The reception provided an excellent platform for Hong Kong students, NGO representatives and SMEs to share insights on ICT strategies and development as well as to showcase the city’s unfailing innovations to representatives from other 15 participating economies.
APICTA member-economies take turns to host the annual international Awards. Through networking and product benchmarking opportunities to participating ICT innovators and entrepreneurs, the Awards aims to stimulate ICT innovation and creativity, and offer business matching opportunities via exposure to business partners, venture capitalists and investors.
The Chief Executive, Mrs Carrie Lam, in addition to attending two radio programmes this morning (October 13) to respond to questions on the 2018 Policy Address, visited ethnic minorities to introduce to them relevant support measures in the Policy Address and inspected the site selected for the first District Health Centre (DHC).
Accompanied by the Director of Home Affairs, Miss Janice Tse, and persons-in-charge of the Hong Kong Community Network (HKCN), Mrs Lam visited the LINK Support Service Centre for Ethnic Minorities (LINK Centre) in Kwai Tsing District to learn about its facilities and services. Commissioned by the Home Affairs Department, the HKCN has been operating the LINK Centre since the end of 2014 to provide interest classes, counselling service, employment service and integration programmes to help ethnic minorities integrate into the community, benefitting more than 14 000 service recipients in 2016-17. Mrs Lam made glutinous rice balls with ethnic minority women in an interest class and played games with children learning Chinese. She also chatted with members of the LINK Centre to understand their lives and work.
“Ethnic minorities are members of the Hong Kong family. The Government has been providing support for them to ensure equal opportunities for them and facilitate their integration into the community. In my recent Policy Address, I proposed a host of initiatives covering employment, education, social welfare and youth exchange to further strengthen support for the ethnic minorities. A total of $500 million has been earmarked in this year’s Budget for the above-mentioned measures. The Government established the Steering Committee on Ethnic Minorities Affairs, under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretary for Administration, in July this year to enhance internal collaboration in the Government. We will work together with various sectors to build an inclusive society,” Mrs Lam said. The Policy Address this year further enhanced support services for ethnic minorities. New measures include enhancing interpretation and translation services in the Centre for Harmony and Enhancement of Ethnic Minority Residents (CHEER), enhancing the professional competency of teachers to help non-Chinese speaking students learn Chinese more effectively, launching a pilot programme to provide employment services in conjunction with non-governmental organisations for ethnic minority job seekers through a case management approach, expanding the Chinese language and industry-specific training courses by the Employees Retraining Board, encouraging ethnic minorities to join the disciplined services, setting up dedicated outreach teams to actively approach and assist ethnic minority families in need of welfare services and organising more activities to encourage interaction and exchange between ethnic minorities and local communities.
Accompanied by the Secretary for Food and Health, Professor Sophia Chan and representatives of the Architectural Services Department, Mrs Lam then inspected the site selected for the Kwai Tsing DHC. The Food and Health Bureau will set up the first DHC in Kwai Tsing District to, through district-based medical-social collaboration and public-private partnership, provide services in health promotion, health assessment, chronic disease management, community rehabilitation, etc. Situated in a commercial building connected to the Kwai Hing MTR station, the DHC has an area of about 15 000 square feet. It aims to start operation around the third quarter of next year.
“Enhancing district-based primary healthcare services will effectively change the current focus of our healthcare services on treatment and alleviate the pressure on public hospitals. The Government will therefore allocate resources and proactively take forward the setting up of DHCs in other districts, with the Kwai Tsing DHC as the blueprint, to enable early service delivery,” Mrs Lam said.
