Kung Hei Fat Choy! Today is the seventh day of the first lunar month, also known as “Renri” or “Yan Yat (人日)” - an auspicious and special day during the Chinese New Year that celebrates “People’s Birthday”. May I take this opportunity to wish everyone Happy Birthday!
As we look ahead to the future and bid a fond farewell to the Year of the Monkey, it is important to reflect on our achievements of the past 12 months and focus our thoughts on where we are headed next.
At the beginning of 2016, the Government has pledged in the Policy Address and the Budget to boost the support to digital tech start-ups of different clusters such as expanding Smart-Space by 50%, increasing quotas of the Cyberport Incubation Programme and establishing the HK$200million Cyberport Macro Fund.
The HK$200-million Cyberport Macro Fund has been established In August last year. This co-investment fund targets to co-invest with other private and public investors in Cyberport digital entrepreneurs. Since its launch, the fund received overwhelming responses and we are currently engaging in over a dozen of active conversations with many of the applicants.
For our popular Cyberport Incubation Programme, the June intake has already admitted 51 start-ups while the December intake is seeing a very strong momentum. Hence, the increase of quotas of the Cyberport Incubation Programme is presenting a very positive picture.
Towards the closing of 2016, we celebrated the opening of Smart-Space FinTech, a 35,000 square feet, all-encompassing co-working space tailor-made for FinTech start-ups and companies. This new member of the Cyberport Smart-Space family, which is also the largest to date, has greatly enhanced our capacity to serve the growing number of FinTech companies in Hong Kong.
More encouraging, we are seeing a growing digital tech community here with more than 800 companies. With so many like-minded innovators working in close proximity, a lot is happening here all the time—brainstorming ideas, start-ups helping one another with their self-developed service solutions and products, networking and meeting new friends, and so much more. All in all, we will together build a vibrant digital tech ecosystem.
2016 is a fruitful year for Cyberport. In closing, I would like to thank the strong support from the Innovation and Technology Bureau and our industry and institutional partners. Without their support, none of these would have been possible. We are currently working on unveiling our 3rd Three Year Strategy Plan, one that promises to optimise upon the potential of our digital tech talents and bigger and better support to the digital tech ecosystem. Please stay tuned with us.
