Record breaking results for Hong Kong at the 18th APICTA Awards (with photos)
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.
