Being at the crossroads of being a global innovation hub as well as a strategic connector to the Greater Bay Area, Hong Kong has long been a gateway for business and urban transformation. The coastal city-state is also a known hotbed for fostering innovation to spur the digital economy, hosting thought-provoking gatherings of leading minds in their fields.
“93% of Hong Kong respondents reflected they use financial services at least once per month and 90% of respondents from the rest of developed Asia have the same answer,”
noted Ricky Yeung, the Chief Operation Officer of Hong Kong-based investment platform Eddid Financial.
“Besides, 66% and 62% of respondents from Hong Kong and developed Asia respectively considered switching from traditional financial services to digital financial services,”
he added, illustrating the pivotal role of Hong Kong as an important part of the digitised Asian economy.
This April 13 and 14, 2023 will feature the grand return of the Digital Economy Summit to Hong Kong’s shores. Previously known as the Internet Economy Summit until 2019, the first edition of the Digital Economy Summit 2023 will make its post-pandemic debut emanating both in-person from the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, and virtually as well.
Building a more resilient digital economy
With a theme of ‘Emerging with Resilience: Fostering a Smarter Future’, the Digital Economy Summit 2023 will once again gather luminaries from the business world along with leading voices in the technology sphere to share their insights – this year, keenly aware of the troubling tailwinds that have buffeted global economies in recent times, and necessitated accelerated adoption of breakthrough technologies.
For the first time, the Digital Economy Summit 2023 will feature expanded forums. The Visionary Forum is back with prominent international thought leaders to enlighten attendees on grasping the full potential of tech transformation to power a sustainable digital economy.
So is the Chambers Forum, where speakers will discuss the myriad opportunities for revolutionary business models that can be capitalised upon, across Asia and particularly the Greater Bay Area, with the benefit of data and smart technologies.
First-ever Smart City, Digital Government panels
Joining these will be the inaugural Smart City Forum, leveraging on the growing demand for smart city technologies to futureproof the digitally empowered society of tomorrow. Another new track will be the first-ever Digital Government Symposium, recognising the Hong Kong SAR government’s drive to embrace digital transformation across government and public services.
The Industry Partner for the Symposium will be Huawei, who will power the government digitisation with a holistic technological throughline across all core services, with a focus on ‘One-Stop Service’ and AI computing.
Digital service offerings will be a key consideration for financial institutions (FIs) and service providers at the Summit, too.
“FIs need to consider how they can adopt digital user engagement and how they assure their customers’ interactions solely by digital service,”
said Eddid Financial COO Ricky Yeung.
“Factors concerning technology acceptability and digital service quality are extremely important to compete in this new business environment.”
Some of Hong Kong’s administrative leadership will be sharing their insights at the two-day event, including the Hon John KC Lee, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong SAR, and the Hon Professor Dong Sun, the Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry of the Hong Kong SAR.
Business, tech influencers share expertise
Also sharing their knowhow will be notable voices in both innovation and business. Not-to-be-missed speakers include Selina Yuan, President for International Business, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence; Michael Fei, the Chief Executive of Ping An OneConnect Bank (Hong Kong); Dr Luyi Mo, Vice President of Pony.ai and Head of its Guangzhou-Shenzhen R&D Center; plus over 70 other informed speakers, to discuss panels as diverse as ‘Business 3.0: Embracing the New Economy’ to ‘Geospatial Infrastructure – the Key to Smart City Development’.
There will also be more granular special programmes for specialised fields of interest, such as the returning FinTech Forum, Smart Mobility Forum, and New Industrialisation Forum. New at the Digital Economy Summit 2023 will be the Beyond Web3 Forum, which acknowledges Hong Kong’s growing role as a hub for Web3 and digital asset innovators.
“Asia has immense potential as a rising digital asset hub, given its diverse and rapidly growing economies, large and tech-savvy population, and increasing adoption of digital technologies,”
explained Dr Thomas Zhu, the Head of the Digital Assets Think Tank at AMTD FinTech Centre of the PolyU Faculty of Business.
“The region’s competitive advantages and business environment can be assessed based on 3 factors: Favorable regulatory environment, innovation and talent.”
Clearly, now is the time for an in-person return to the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, as the Special Administrative Region marks its position as an epicenter of the Asian digital economy.
“Many Asian countries, such as Hong Kong, have established clear and supportive regulatory frameworks for digital assets, promoting innovation and attracting international businesses to set up operations,”
Dr Thomas continued, before adding,
“As for the evolution and potential benefits of Web 3.0 and virtual assets in the financial ecosystem, I think HK’s promotion of STO (security token offering) is a great opportunity to bring innovations to traditional financial industry.”
Featuring over 70 influential speakers over April 13 and 14, the Digital Economy Summit 2023 is organised by the Government of the Hong Kong SAR in conjunction with Cyberport, supported by the China Internet Development Foundation, and in collaboration with InvestHK.
For more information about the event, visit this link.
