The golden age has begun. At least for technology entrepreneurship, especially in the field of hard technology, China's capital market has finally opened its arms to it.
The entrepreneurial choices of technology companies have begun to attack the "hard" and explore the "deep". Taking the "14th Five-Year Plan" as an example, hard technologies with favorable policies and market demand are concentrated in industries such as semiconductors, new energy, artificial intelligence , biomedicine , and biomedicine .
Previously, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the motherland, President Xi Jinping visited Hong Kong Science Park . He emphasized that the country attaches great importance to scientific and technological innovation work and implements innovation-driven development strategy in depth. The country has included support for Hong Kong in building an international innovation and science center in the 14th Five-Year Plan and has high expectations for Hong Kong. We hope that Hong Kong will give full play to its own advantages, gather global innovation resources, connect with the mainland cities of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, strengthen the innovation coordination between industry-university-research, and strive to build a global highland of scientific and technological innovation.
As Hong Kong's largest science and technology research and development and enterprise incubation base, the national science and technology entrepreneurs are all focusing on Hong Kong Science and Technology Park . The actual operator behind it, the statutory institution Hong Kong Science and Technology Park Company , established by the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, has heard the news of the times.
(Hong Kong Science and Technology Park)
At present, there are more than 1,100 startup and technology companies in the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park, from more than 22 countries and regions, and the number of companies has increased by more than 40%.
Hong Kong Science and Technology Park Company has been established for 20 years and has established the largest scientific research community in Hong Kong. More than 17,000 people work in the park, of which more than 11,000 R&D personnel are present. The Hong Kong Science and Technology Park Company has also cultivated many local unicorn companies in Hong Kong, such as the listed SenseTime and the unicorn companies in Huolala and Simou Technology . In addition, foreign unicorns such as Geek+ and Nium also joined in 2021. Yunbao Intelligent, a domestic unicorn company, also officially entered the science park to develop a vigorous innovation and science ecosystem in August this year.
"There is a strong complementarity between mainland science and technology innovation enterprises and Hong Kong science and technology innovation enterprises. This is something that can be expected to happen. How to find its own positioning and future in complementarity?" Huang Keqiang, CEO of Hong Kong Science and Technology Park, believes that in the past, Hong Kong is too focused on "living old capital". Now Hong Kong is working hard to regain the lost 20 years of technology and has seen initial results. He is confident that in the near future, Hong Kong will become China's international innovation and science center and live up to the country's expectations for Hong Kong's innovation and science.
(Hong Kong Science and Technology Park CEO Huang Keqiang)
"No invasive science and no future", this is a sentence that Hong Kong Chief Executive Li Jiachao often talks about, and once became a slogan that Hong Kong has shouted for many fields of scientific research, business, and venture capital. In the past years, the annual policy report of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government has regarded the development of science and technology innovation as the top priority. In the background of investing more than HK$150 billion in R&D resources, new infrastructure, technology clusters, and enterprise subsidies, a wave of entrepreneurship about science and technology has begun to surge.
In addition, Hong Kong Science and Technology Park Company and Shenzhen-Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Company signed the framework agreement last year, and will launch the Shenzhen branch of the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park in Futian District, Shenzhen in the second half of the year. The overall scale of the Shenzhen branch park covers an area of 31,000 square meters, including co-creation space, offices, dry/wet laboratories, conferences and event venues. It aims to strengthen cooperation between Shenzhen and Hong Kong in talent training and supporting services through the complementary advantages of Shenzhen and Hong Kong, so as to attract various innovative resources at home and abroad and improve the innovation and science ecosystem.
(The Shenzhen branch of Hong Kong Science Park is located in Futian District, Shenzhen, close to Futian Port and Fubao Metro Station, with convenient transportation)
Hong Kong Science Park enters Greater Bay Area strategy. What can bring to entrepreneurs is not only a science and technology entrepreneurship park, but also a comprehensive resource ecological support. For entrepreneurs in the field of technology, how to find the direction of currents in the wave of the times is the top priority for business life and death. How to clarify their own advantages and disadvantages and find a way to "go global" may be the answer to the current environment.
The following is the interview transcript:
36kr: From your personal perspective, what are the characteristics of science and technology enterprises with growth potential? Can companies incubated in the Science Park be used as examples?
Huang Keqiang: I can only answer from the perspective of Hong Kong. Hong Kong science and technology enterprises generally have a good background in DeepTech, but they lack thinking about how to commercialize, whether it is to clarify the model or formulate the strategy. The technology companies such as DJI , SenseTime, and Huolala that grew up in the Science Park have thought about their business models under the premise of sufficient technology.
Hong Kong's advantage lies in its deep enough basic research background and can play an important role in the construction of the Greater Bay Area. However, for innovation and entrepreneurship, only basic research is obviously not enough. Technological innovation and entrepreneurship are not just technological innovation or breakthroughs, but should be transformed into specific products that can actually bring changes to the public's lives.
As mentioned earlier, SenseTime, which is more familiar with the mainland market and focuses on artificial intelligence, was founded by a number of core members of , the Chinese University of Hong Kong Multimedia Laboratory, . It has a good technical background and has incubated and grown in the Hong Kong Science Park. In the process of Hong Kong entering the Greater Bay Area, it is clear its commercialization path and then moves from the international stage.
(listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange of SenseTime)
So I think that a technology company with potential growth must have sufficiently strong technological strength and clear enough commercialization path. These are the two most basic characteristics.
36kr: What kind of competitiveness do domestic science and technology enterprises need to have in general if they want to become international?
Huang Keqiang: The domestic market itself is very large and develops very fast. How to survive is already a challenge. But it should be noted that the pressure you will suffer in the international market is far greater than that in the domestic market. The differences in culture and habits may be completely opposite. Financial and policy supervision is a new requirement.
Take Hong Kong companies as an example. Even if the culture and habits of Hong Kong and , in the Northeast region are very different, we are all Chinese after all, and we can all return to the same idea and conduct the same frequency. However, in the international market, it is very difficult to find the same idea as locals.
My personal suggestion is to first build a good domestic market, and then penetrate the markets in different countries and regions. The most core action is to localize, whether it is employees, business or products. Like hiring local employees is the best way to integrate into the local area, but don’t fight on multiple lines and fire everywhere. The situation varies in each country.
But localization is not the core competitiveness. The real core competitiveness is still your technology, your technology. On the basis of ensuring that your core technologies have sufficient differences and barriers, adjust your own flexibility to achieve a localized strategy for increasing or decreasing non-core dimensions.
For example, Fano Labs (Youguang Technology), a company in the Science Park that focuses on natural language processing (NLP) technology and engages in language recognition business, is founded by a mainlander. She studied in Hong Kong and finally incubated companies in the Science Park. The business was initially dominated by local dialect recognition in China, and its core capability lies in the recognition of complex languages. This capability can be copied to Southeast Asia, thus completing its internationalization.
(The Hong Kong Science and Technology Park has just celebrated its 20th anniversary. It will continue to grasp Hong Kong's unique advantages and build Hong Kong into an international innovation and science center)
36kr: What are the advantages and characteristics of Hong Kong companies and mainland companies? What are their respective competitiveness?
Huang Keqiang: The advantages and characteristics of Hong Kong companies have been mentioned. My view of mainland companies is actually focused on the rapid development and the courage to try several impressions, because in the process of rapid development in China, it actually skipped some stages and started directly in a new field. The most direct example is our payment method, which directly ranged from cash to digital payment, skipped the credit card and check era in the middle.
We can see that in the past twenty or thirty years, the development of the mainland market and the development of enterprises have been completely overturned.However, the Hong Kong market has always maintained a consistent view and is more optimistic about low-tech (low-tech content). Because the lower the technological content, the smaller the risk of R&D. Under the same interests, no one is willing to stick to high-risk high-tech.
But I think Hong Kong will start catching up in the future. Because everyone has now realized that there will be no future if you rely on your old capital, and you must find a new future from high risks.
36kr: In which areas does Hong Kong companies and mainland companies have the possibility of complementarity?
Huang Keqiang: From the perspective of Hong Kong, the two sides can in-depth cooperation in science and technology (basic technology) and innovation (commercialization), and the urban characteristics of Hong Kong as an international city can also complement each other. Hong Kong will have advantages in the fields of talent, finance, logistics and transportation, and international exchanges.
36kr: What kind of mentality do you think a science and technology enterprise needs to have if it wants to succeed?
Huang Keqiang: Starting a business requires repeated attempts and continuous exploration. As long as the goal is in sight and full of enthusiasm, everything can be solved. But if the goal is just to make money, I hope to become famous in one day, and I cannot bear failure, and eventually I will become empty dreams.
Unless you are enthusiastic about your work, it is impossible to persist and face the blows brought by failure. For entrepreneurship, we must be determined, devote ourselves to it without hesitation, and never regret it.
"Entrepreneurship is about giving everything, there is no possibility of putting in the middle."
If you want to learn more or be interested in entering the Hong Kong Science Park, please contact us at [email protected].
