StartMeUpHK Round Table – Transcript

We are finally here. It is January 16th, the start of the 2017 StartMeUp Hong Kong Festival. And it’s also the launch date of my podcast, the Jay Kim Show, so thank you for joining us today. We are going to sit down with Charles Ng, who is the Associate Director General of Investment Promotion at InvestHK, and Jayne Chan, the head of StartMeUp Hong Kong.

So, InvestHK is part of the Hong Kong government. It was established in July 2000 as an initiative to attract foreign direct investment and support overseas businesses set up shop here in Hong Kong. Now, in 2013, Charles decided to launch StartMeUp Hong Kong, which is a subset of InvestHK. Miss Jayne Chan runs that division. And StartMeUp Hong Kong is an initiative to promote the Hong Kong startup ecosystem. They are the key stakeholders behind this StartMeUp Hong Kong 2017 Festival.

We get to sit down with both of them today in a little round table discussion. They’re going to explain all the events that are going to happen in this exciting week and what you have to look forward to, so let’s jump right in.

All right. Ladies and gentlemen, we are here with the directors of InvestHK and StartMeUp Hong Kong. This is a very exciting week we have coming up. It’s the 2017 StartMeUp Hong Kong Festival, probably one of the top two largest conference startup-type festivals in Hong Kong. And we are sitting here with the two key people that are driving this conference, so we’re very fortunate to have them here with us. They’ve been working very hard this year to put on an extremely action-packed and fun-filled week.

Jay: I’m sitting here with Charles Ng, who’s the acting Director General of Investment Promotion, and Jayne Chan, who’s the head of StartMeUp Hong Kong. So, perhaps Charles and Jayne, perhaps you guys can just give us a little introduction of yourselves and maybe talk about what InvestHK’s mission is and specifically StartMeUp Hong Kong. I know it was launched recently, maybe three or four years ago only, so how that differentiates from InvestHK and just give the audience a little bit of flavor, there.

Charles: Sure. Thank you very much, Jay. Thanks for the opportunity. Invest Hong Kong is a government department in charge of [inaudible 00:03:15] foreign direct investment. What we do is we offer a one stop service to help facilitate companies who are from overseas or main land China. They are interested in setting up a presence or growing a presence here, and they would come to Hong Kong.

We have a network of 30 offices around the world, where we help these companies, large corporates or SMEs and also startups, to come to Hong Kong and to set up a base here. And we would facilitate and offer a one stop service from facilitation with work visas to finding a school for their expatriate kids, as well as opening a bank account, for example.

We have sector specialists here who are from nine different sectors helping basically every sector that you can think of, because Hong Kong is a very diversified economy. And this is what we do in a nutshell to help companies set up and expand here in Hong Kong.

Jay: So, overseas investment businesses that want to set up shop in Hong Kong-

Charles: That’s right.

Jay: … Hong Kong being a very, very favorable location to set up a new business or an affiliate of an existing business. I think the surprising thing is that even myself didn’t know that there was 30 branches globally of InvestHK. I had no idea before you told me a while back. Okay. And StartMeUpHK, Jayne.

Jayne: Yes. Thank you so much for asking us to come on this podcast. So, StartMeUp Hong Kong is Invest Hong Kong’s startup initiative. In terms of offering the kind of services that the rest of the sector teams provide, like facilitation of work visas, you know, helping them to advise them on, getting their company registered and things like that, our team also provides very specific startup related advice. For example, if you are a biotech startup and you are doing some serious R and D work, you want to relocate to Hong Kong, then we could potentially signpost you to the relevant funding that is available from the government side.

You know, startup landscape is changing incredibly fast in Hong Kong. We’ve seen phenomenal growth. And actually, it’s a full time job just to keep on top of everything that is happening. So, having the team here to actually, you know, signpost you to the correct workspace, your co-work space … If you are in the investment side, for example, or other types of industries and sectors, you know, we can provide the on the ground kind of advice on that.

The other hats that we also wear is to help to build the Hong Kong startup ecosystem. We are one of the players. There’s some fantastic people in the community who are already doing some things, you know, whether they’re academics, whether they are the corporates with the innovation labs or accelerators, incubators, investors. We come in from, you know, obviously from the government angle, but also we try to provide value by connecting all these different groups of people together so it’s actually easier for someone new coming into Hong Kong to actually tap into this network easily.

Charles: So, as we start the year, we wanted to kick off the year with a lot of excitement. The reason why we’re doing it in January is really to kick off the year and really create a lot of buzz and momentum in the ecosystem. We’ve seen an amazing growth in the ecosystem from four years ago, where there were three co-working space, and now we have over 50 co-working space, innovation labs, accelerator programs, innovation programs in the city. And they are actually quite varied in terms of verticals we’ve seen, from FinTech to SmartCity to [inaudible 00:07:00] to the retail technology and others. We’ve seen a lot of these growth coming up, and for example, in Healthtech we’ve seen quite a big momentum there, as well, and innovative things.

And the reason we’re doing this festival, we have a number of verticals that we are focusing on where we believe Hong Kong has a very unique advantage and strength. So, for example, for this upcoming festival, we’re going to have a number of verticals we’re focusing on, namely retail technology. The other is the FashionTech, as well as SmartCity, Connected City, and as well as [inaudible 00:07:40] things, FinTech and Healthtech. And perhaps, Jayne, you could explain a little bit more about the … some of the details of the festival.

Jayne: Sure. So, we’ve got a whole week of different activities planned. And as Charles has just mentioned, the reason why we chose those kind of areas is that we really looked at what was happening on the ground. We were seeing what kind of startups were coming up. And, you know, they, at the end of the day, are the best kind of decision-makers and giving us the best views about what’s happening. Because if you’re setting up a Healthtech company here in Hong Kong, there’s got to be reasons, strategic business reasons, for you setting something up. We basically did observation on the ground.

We also did a startup survey. We also looked at how Hong Kong’s physical, as well as the business environment, compares with other startup hubs. And we did a bit of soul searching. What would make us unique, and what are the competitive advantages for us? Hong Kong is not for everyone, and we don’t try to be everything for every man, but for certain industries and sectors it really doesn’t make a lot of sense. You know, Charles mentioned those keys sectors, and for us each one of them has some great reasons why startups and that related community in those industries would want to set up in Hong Kong.

So, we’ve got all these different kind of events going on. We’ve got the FashionTech, which is a very natural thing for Hong Kong. We’ve had a long history of design, trading, and things. For FashionTech to incorporate that fashion knowhow with the kind of technology that’s being done, it seemed to be a very, very natural thing for us to move in to. And the same with retail tech. Hong Kong historically has been known as a shopper’s paradise. How valid and relevant that is in this age of globalization. We’re definitely looking at our retail industries and thinking, “Okay, the landscape is changing. How can we address that? How can we adapt to that and still make ourselves relevant going forward?” And that’s where the retail tech is coming on. We’ve got a lot of retailers here in Hong Kong who are searching for the next move, next step to actually grow their businesses, and technology, like in every other industry, is having a massive impact.

We want to showcase some of these fantastic things that are being done, but not only that. You’ve got a very large group of people here in Hong Kong, retail groups who are ready and willing and waiting to basically adopt some of these technologies. And we think that because of that, you know, it makes sense for Hong Kong to actually move in to that.

SmartCity, again for us … We’ve got several major, major infrastructure projects going on here, and it’s actually … It doesn’t come very often where you’ve got a very developed market embarking on such massive infrastructure projects, like the new Central Business District, too, that we’re going to be creating, like the third runway and the new SkyCity that’s going to be built at the Hong Kong International Airport. All these kind of massive infrastructure projects have been prioritized to focus on SmartCity technologies. So, for us, with these kind of opportunities, again, we wanted to attract the best and the brightest from all over the world to basically showcase what’s going on and potentially find customers here in Hong Kong.

Charles: In terms of the SmartCity, there’s also the second Central Business District, which is in the making, and again, it’s … What we are positioning Hong Kong is that … come to Hong Kong and take a look at these big projects, where there is a lot of demand, a lot of gaps to be filled, and where startups can use Hong Kong as a living lab, a showcase, and a global launchpad. And the rest of the two verticals that we’re going to be focusing on, in terms of the … would be FinTech. And FinTech is obviously a very natural choice for Hong Kong.

As much as we are one of top three global financial center, we believe that Hong Kong has all the ingredients and demand and the needs for to becoming one of the top three global FinTech hub. And in regards to the needs, we’re looking at a number of areas, for example, cyber security, blockchain technology, regular trade technology, insure tech, and so on. And all of these will be discussed and will be showcased in Hong Kong.

There’s the global competition, of course. The finalists from this global competition, the FinTech finals 2017, will be pitching to investors during the two days of the FinTech finals here during the festival.

Last but not least, there is also the Healthtech day, where we will be featuring a number of areas where using digital connected to Healthtech would be featured. And Hong Kong, also, is going through very exciting times, where we see a lot bigger focus on medical device, on digital health, as well as also aging technologies. We have some exciting things happening in Hong Kong, where because of the fact that we’re next to Shenzhen, which is the [inaudible 00:13:04] capital of the world, we are in a very good position. We have all the ingredients here to really help startups at different stages to develop and grow their business.

Jay: Yeah. I mean, so this is incredible, because basically all the verticals that you’ve spoken of basically didn’t exist five years ago. I mean, Charles, I met you probably around five years ago, I think. Over the five years, we’ve sat in this very room multiple times, talking about how to proliferate and grow the startup ecosystem here in Hong Kong. And, you know, to be honest, the first few years nothing happened, and I was quite discouraged. But now looking back, we’ve come a long way. And obviously many thanks to you guys and what you guys do here. The two of them have taken a personal crusade to help grow the ecosystem.

Like I said, a lot of these things didn’t exist. I mean, FashionTech … I’ve never even heard of FashionTech. I think about FashionTech being, you know, wearables and Fitbit and stuff like that, but it goes a lot deeper than that. And I spoke with Marina. We’ll hear from Marina later in another podcast today, released the same day. And she goes into detail about what exactly FashionTech is and says it’s a lot … There’s a lot more to it than just wearables. And she’s also guaranteed that there will be a … confirmed that there will be a catwalk, so that’s a very exciting … For a tech startup type conference, this is something rare, so …

Jayne: A lot of glamor.

Jay: Yeah. If you guys haven’t gotten your tickets, then go right now and grab your tickets for the catwalk. Now, StartMeUp Hong Kong … Obviously there is a signature event. I believe it’s the second night. And so, maybe you guys can tell us a little bit about some of the keynote speakers that you have coming. It’s a high profile event. There’s going to be a lot of people flying in from overseas. I think it’s something like over 5,000 attendees to the conference every year and another 2,000 in the sort of [anteriorly 00:15:07] type events around the city. So, what do we have to look forward to on Tuesday for the festival event?

Jayne: Gosh. So, can I just step back a little bit, just to talk a little bit about the formula that’s changed. We started this [inaudible 00:15:21]. It really was [inaudible 00:15:23] at the time, four years ago, so all the startup things happening. And we decided that … Or he decided that one way of actually showcasing what a fantastic place Hong Kong is as a potential startup hub was to organize a competition, a startup competition.

So, we basically went around the world. We did road shows. We promoted the competition. We managed to get a whole bunch of finalists to Hong Kong. And we culminated by hosting what we call the StartMeUp Hong Kong Venture Forum, where we showcase these finalists. I think it ranged from about ten to about twelve companies per year to actually come to Hong Kong and pitch with the potential to actually win a number of really good prizes. But, you know, last year, as in … Actually, I should say this year. Actually, no. We’re in 2017, aren’t we?

Jay: That’s right.

Jayne: I can finally say last year. So, last year we decided to change the formula. Instead of having a competition, we just thought we would hold a fantastic inspirational kind of type of event under the StartMeUp Venture Forum umbrella. But we also increased the scope of the actual festival itself, so we actually asked different kind of partners to create all these fantastic events in the key sectors that we mentioned earlier. So, in January 2016 was when we had our first one, and we were incredibly lucky for our venture forum to actually have Elon Musk as our keynote speaker. And that really helped to show the world that we are very serious about building Hong Kong as a startup hub. Now, following on from that, this year-

Jay: I don’t know how you guys pulled that off, by the way. I think everyone’s still scratching their heads on that one.

Jayne: Yeah. Oh, it was … We were just-

Jay: Unbelievable.

Jayne: … incredibly fortunate. And the guy was a complete inspiration, actually. Can I just say it was actually a lot of hard work on our sector team side, actually. They had a great relationship with Tesla ever since we helped them set up here in Hong Kong. You know, our sector teams did a lot of hard work to actually work with their teams to enable this to happen, so it wasn’t something that we decided that, “Oh, wouldn’t it be fantastic?” And it just happened. It was a culmination of several years of really good relationships with Tesla that enabled that to happen.

So, this year how do you follow up on someone like Elon Musk? We decided that we wanted to actually entertain the heck out of people. You know, it’s still very much with a tech focus and very much in an inspirational kind of focus, but we were going completely the different way of actually entertaining people. So, as our keynotes this year, we actually have Marco Tempest, who’s our final keynote. And he is like a tech illusionist. If you don’t know him, you should definitely search his things up, because the guy is incredible.

Jay: Actually, I did that myself. I went on YouTube and [crosstalk 00:18:20]-

Jayne: Oh, you did?

Jay: Yeah.

Jayne: Oh, it is so cool, isn’t it? It really is-

Jay: Very cool.

Jayne: … quite amazing. It is just … You know, he is actually an AI expert, as well.

Jay: Really?

Jayne: Robotics expert.

Jay: Really? Wow.

Jayne: But he leverages tech to actually create entertainment in the hope of educating people about these more abstract kind of concepts, which I think is a great tie-in for us. We’ve also got Brett King as one of our top line speakers. Brett King, again, incredible thought leader. And, you know, he’s what’s called a futurist.

Jay: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jayne: He’s been predicting trends of what’s going to come up, what the millennials want, you know, what we’re going to see down the road in five, ten, twenty years time. And it would be very interesting to see whether a lot of his views are going to come to pass. You know, he has put money where his mouth is and he’s actually created a Fintech company, a digital bank, that is worth over a hundred million U.S. now. So, it really is … He does practice what he preaches, and we’re real looking forward to that.

But it’s not just the overseas kind of speakers. We also wanted to highlight some local heroes, as well, so we’ve got Professor Dennis Lo from CUHK. Actually, this guy is a marvel, and so few people know of who he is. He basically developed some … did research and developed this technology to allow for non-invasive ways of testing fetal DNA. For example, if you’re a woman or a man with your wife, you’ve had children and things … One of the ways you used to get tested for Down Syndrome was basically through amniocentesis, which when you’re a woman, usually around about five months pregnant, it’s actually quite a dangerous thing. It’s just not risk-free. Professor Lo has found certain proteins within the mother’s DNA, her blood plasma, that you can actually search for the fetal diseases. Basically all you have to do is add a tip of saliva from the mother or a little bit of blood and you can test for all these things without having to inject these really long needles into the stomach of a pregnant mother.

The guy is amazing. And his technology is being leveraged and, you know, patented and used by a number of very, very large organizations. And I just don’t think in Hong Kong we’re very good at actually shouting from the rooftops when we’ve got people that are compelling like that. So, hopefully through this event we’ll showcase some of these fantastic thought leaders and visionaries in their respective fields.

Charles: Yeah. We are extremely excited about what’s going on and also in the ecosystem. And I think a great reason for the success of the momentum that we’re seeing is really thanks to the passion and the people who are in Hong Kong and we see from people from all over different parts of the world that are here, that are based here. They’re really, what we call them, champions of the ecosystem. But we’re also seeing a lot of momentum coming out from the locals who are increasingly getting excited about getting into the entrepreneurship innovation platform.

And we’re extremely, extremely excited about the upcoming future for Hong Kong. It was announced on Tuesday that the chief [inaudible 00:21:33] Hong Kong government and the leader of Shenzhen just signed an agreement to really create this amazing hub, this what we call a innovation and technology hub, take part between Shenzhen and Hong Kong. It’s an 85 hectares of land that is going to be put forward to creating this very unique proposition. And I say unique because of the fact that when you look at the world, there’s very few places where you can actually … where you can bring ideation to commercialization in a very big sense, where …

You know, you can do prototypes anywhere in the world. You can do one or two or five prototypes in universities and so on, but if you want to scale that and you want to make small amount of samples to validate the samples and to bring the samples to fruition … And then once you get approval and this is … you fine tune the samples so that you have the right prototype and you want to launch the product, two or three hundred thousand pieces, and get the funding and so on … I mean, Hong Kong … the combination of Hong Kong and Shenzhen is second to none. And that’s why we see a lot of the IOT, internet of things, people coming here, just setting up here the base, as well as in various innovation side.

So, we believe that with this technology park between Shenzhen and Hong Kong that we’re going to be creating, that is going to really be a game-changer for us and for the world. As Jayne mentioned about the innovation that we’re seeing … The reason why we see that this momentum is really picking up is that there’s a lot of innovation coming over from this part of the world, as well. We’re really excited from the fact that we’re seeing some innovation, a number of innovation coming from Hong Kong, from the main land, but also from the rest of Asia.

And we believe that we are in a very sweet spot, being part of the [inaudible 00:23:22] system, really looking at this combination and this technology park that is going to be created, which is going to be a really unique part in the world where you can bring ideas, test it, validate it, get the funding, get the research completed and done, and then get a small amount of samples, small amount of orders, and then scale it in a very big and quick way. And this is really … The type of ecosystem that you’re talking about is really second to none.

We believe that we have the best of both worlds. We have the main land Chinese as a huge market, then Asia itself as a huge market. Within five hours flight you can reach half of the world’s population, 3.5 billion people. And we believe that not only can you have access to market but also access to production, access to talent, and also access to funding. And so, all these ingredients are very important for startups at different stages, and of course [inaudible 00:24:17] is here to welcome them with a red carpet.

Jay: We’re living in an exciting time right now. You know, I read an article the other day that said basically between the years 2016 and 2020, there’s estimated three to five billion new people that are going to come online. And the majority of that’s going to come from China and India, right?

Jayne: Yes. Yes.

Jay: So, we are sitting right smack dab in the middle of that innovation, that technology, and this cycle is going to be huge, right? One of the challenges, even from when I first came here and I was looking around the ecosystem, is in Hong Kong the fragmentation, the silos of the different pockets within the ecosystem. And InvestHK, StartMeUpHK has done a phenomenal job of sort of leveling that playing field, just being a neutral ground for everyone to come together and work together to help just grow the community.

My question to you guys now is, you know … You guys are sitting here with a gargantuan task. I mean, InvestHK supporting inbound business investments, obviously StartMeUpHK trying to cultivate the startup ecosystem here. Out of all the verticals and all the things that you have on your plate for 2017, what are one or two of the top key focus areas that you want to see, you know, when we’re sitting here next year, ahead of 2018’s StartMeUp Hong Kong Festival? What can you say, “This is what we accomplished in 2017. This was our directive, and here’s what we brought to the table. This is what we checked off for 2017”? What do you guys … What are your focus areas?

Jayne: Well, for me it’s just basically extending the kind of work we’re already doing. We are very, very busy, as you say, trying to link those different silos up, provide a platform for people to actually do that. So, whether you’re in the … Whichever kind of sector you’re in or whether you’re an investor wanting to reach out to the different types of startups and things, we have this platform to enable people to actually put on their own events. And what the fantastic thing is is these people are really doing it. So many people are taking time out of whatever really busy schedule that they’re doing, and it’s humbling to me. It really never fails to amaze me.

I speak to Charles about this all the time, that you’ve got some of these busiest people in Hong Kong, whether they are head of large corporates or a startup frantically trying to get their business off the ground or in universities who are teaching and researching at the same time, they are all coming out, either to attend these events or to volunteer for these events or to actually create events and become speakers and things, just so we can actually build this ecosystem here in Hong Kong and potentially set Hong Kong up as a place for entrepreneurship and innovation to thrive.

And I feel like we just need to do more and more of that and basically try to expand the circle we’ve got at the moment. It’s like dropping a rock in a lake, you know? You’ve got the ripples starting to happen. We want those ripples to really spread out more, but not just within Hong Kong. We’re basically going to make 2017 a year where we actually push that story out to a much more of an international audience, as well, so they can see what a fantastic environment Hong Kong is for potentially the entrepreneurship and bringing their business here. Our ultimate goal at Invest Hong Kong at the end of the day is job growth. That’s what we want to do. We want to bring the best companies in Hong Kong to basically set base here.

And with startups and their massive scalability potential, they can actually suddenly hire a lot of people very, very quickly, compared to the more regular traditional kind of companies. So, that’s what we’re hoping to do, bring some of those fantastic companies that we’re seeing overseas to Hong Kong to potentially do that, but also to showcase the companies we’ve got homegrown, like Professor Lo, like what all these fantastic people are doing. There’s some great innovation happening. I just don’t think, like I said, we’re very good at actually talking about and marketing that. If we can support that and get that into a wider kind of profile, I think it would be a fantastic thing.

The second thing of course is funding. Funding is a big deal. It’s a big deal everywhere within startup hubs, but when we’ve got China on our doorstep, which arguably has been attracting a lot of VC funds and startup funds, and us being in Hong Kong, which is obviously a much smaller kind of entity, it’s quite … You don’t even try to compete. But I think funding is an area that we could potentially grow a lot more, especially since there is money here. There’s no doubt about it. I mean, Jay, you’re working in the financial services industry. You’re talking to family offices regularly, the high net worth individuals. We just need to get some of that fund into tech startups.

Jay: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jayne: And that’s what we’re going to try and do. So, you need to do it in two ways. On the one hand, you’ve got to basically make sure that you’ve got the deals worth investing in in the first place, and that is going to take time. It’s not going to be something that we can resolve right away. But the other side of things is to potentially bring other funds from overseas to Hong Kong. And potentially, maybe some of the family offices, the high net worth individuals might feel a bit more relaxed and basically putting some money into those kind of funds, as opposed to doing it themselves. Because it is a very, very different proposition to investing on your regular wealth kind of products or-

Jay: Or property.

Jayne: … you know, property or … Yeah. Yeah. And it’s a very different ball game. You know, we appreciate that. And we do realize that it does take time to mature, but it’s … You know, one of the ways you want to get more funding of course is through that. And of course I know within the Hong Kong government itself, we are looking at other ways that we can potentially address some of the areas where we see shortfalls. And we’re looking forward to hearing what the policy addresses are going to produce, as well as the next budget speech, as well.

Charles: Yeah. I think in regards to the funds, immediately in the next six months there will be the two million-dollar fund that the government has been talking about will be launched, the government co-investing with VC, two million-dollar fund, encouraging more VCs to come in and invest here. And I agree with Jayne that funding is very important. We have a lot of money here in this town. We have a lot of high net worth individuals, ultra net worth individuals. The challenge for us is that we … How do we get them to participate more, invest more into innovative startups? And we’re extremely encouraged by … When we go to meetings, when we go to gatherings, we see a lot of the next generation, the third generation, as we call, of family offices, folks getting involved, very much interested into looking at investing into innovative startups and business ventures.

The other thing I think is very important is to really engage with the corporates. We have close to 8,000 corporations here, and more than half of them have their original headquarters and original office. And when we talk to corporates, they’re all looking at corporate innovation, and corporate innovation is going to be very key. The corporates are very important because we want our startups, when they’re here, to have access to market, and one of the ways is to link up with the corporates. And of course, a lot of the corporations have their corporate funds that … universities and corporate funds that actually would like to work with so that they could participate in this whole ecosystem. Because they’re very an important, integral part of that.

One of the other point I like to make is that, in addition to what Jayne said, was that the engagement with the various other ecosystems around the world. Because there are a lot of accelerator, incubator programs, innovation labs, that having a presence here will really help them grow their own ecosystem. So, this is something that we’re very keen in doing, working with universities, identifying some of the best in class incubators, accelerators, innovation labs, and universities that would want to link up here so that they can have this soft landing, if you will, here, at the same time having the champion startups going to their particular jurisdiction, as well.

So, I think all-in-all, we are extremely excited about the journey that we have started, and I think 2017 is going to be also a very, very important one, as we see more and more verticals coming up. One of the things, Jay, which we are seeing very interestingly is that … You know, we talk about all these verticals that we have sort of plumped up into one week, and the interesting thing is that we’re starting already to see spinoffs. For example, Fintech, we started this year … I mean, sorry, last year-

Jayne: Yes.

Charles: … a dedicated Fintech team, where in November last year, we had our first Fintech league. And we’re working now on a second Fintech league towards the fourth quarter of this year, and this is also very exciting.

We’re also seeing spinoffs, for example, in terms of Internet of Things. And I think that as we move forward, these clusters or these verticals are going to have their own lives, and this is something which is really exciting to us. I think that when people ask us, “So, what’s next? What do we see next?” … Well, there’s a lot of people talking about different other verticals, as well. And we’re, in a way … We don’t want to be top down in saying that, “Oh, we need to do this or that,” but really rather than … really working with the businesses and coming up from bottoms up, rather than top down. And as Jayne was saying earlier, we’re incredibly lucky to have these very passionate startup champions in each of these verticals really willing to take the bull by the horn and just working with us very closely to making it happen. And we’re very grateful for that.

Jay: Fantastic. Sounds like it’s going to be a great week and it’s going to be a great year. Thank you guys both so much for your time. Last question is if I’m a business or startup perhaps looking to plant roots in Hong Kong, what’s the best thing I should do? Where could I find you guys? How can I connect with and maybe get some support, some guidance?

Charles: Yeah. We are open to business, and we’re completely willing to welcome anybody of any size of company, one person company or a mid-size company or large company. We’re here to help. Our website, www.InvestHK.gov.HK or StartMeUp.HK, you can reach us. And we have an inquiry hotline, and we can … Talk to us any time. We welcome people, and please do participate in this ecosystem. Be part of this exciting journey.

Jay: Yes. Yes. And they’re very, very good at getting in touch and getting back to you. I mean, they’re two of the busiest people that I’ve ever met, and they’re still very, very good at being very responsive. So, that’s it, folks. We are here all week. It’s going to be a great week. Most of the events are happening at the PMQ, so run over. And you can hop online, and StartMeUp.HK is where you can find all the information there. I believe the venture forum is at the convention center.

Jayne: It is.

Jay: And there’s a bunch of little anteriorly events that are around the city. There’s some pub crawls and some social events, as well. But yeah, PMQ, and this is the StartMeUp Hong Kong 2017 Festival. And we’re really excited. So, thank you again, Charles. Thank you, Jayne-

Jayne: Thank you.

Jay: … for your time.

Charles: Thank you, Jay.

Jayne: Thank you.

Jay: And for everything that you do for Hong Kong.

Charles: Thank you very much. Thanks a lot.

Jayne: Thanks.

Jay: All right.