HK presents innovative projects at international invention expo in Geneva

​The Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, Berlin (HKETO Berlin) hosted a reception on the occasion of Hong Kong's participation in the 49th International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva on April 19 (Geneva time).

A Hong Kong delegation of close to 700 participants from 40 institutions, including universities, research and development (R&D) centres, laboratories, technology companies, government departments, and primary and secondary schools, exhibited more than 360 projects at the exhibition. Among over 1 000 inventions this year, the Hong Kong delegation won 28 Gold Medals with Congratulations of Jury and 114 Gold Medals, totalling a record high of over 350 prizes.

The Government accords top priority to promoting innovation and technology (I&T) development and establishing Hong Kong as an international I&T centre. Speaking at the reception, the Director of the HKETO Berlin, Ms Jenny Szeto, highlighted the Government's commitment and recent policies to foster an innovation-friendly environment in Hong Kong, in particular supporting R&D activities and commercialisation of their outcomes.

"In this year's Budget, we have doubled the maximum funding to the Technology Transfer Office of each specified university, and will also be providing annual subsidies to nurture start-up development within the universities. And just last year, we have launched the Research, Academic and Industry Sectors One-plus Scheme to promote the '1 to N' transformation. The scheme aims to encourage the commercialisation and technology transfer of universities' R&D outcomes, and will fund at least 100 research teams from local universities which have good potential to become successful start-ups," Ms Szeto explained.

In addition, the Government has also been spearheading efforts to attract I&T talent. To accelerate the expansion of the talent pool, the Government has launched the Technology Talent Admission Scheme, providing a fast-track arrangement for companies to admit young tech talent from abroad to undertake R&D work in Hong Kong.

Founded in 1972, the International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva is the largest global exhibition exclusively devoted to inventions. This year's event showcased a record high of more than 1 000 inventions from about 40 countries and regions.