Let traditional Hong Kong industries be challenged by tech sector, says top computer scientist
Traditional industries would have to innovate if challenged by tech sector, says top IT scientist
Allowing traditional industries such as finance to be challenged by competition from the tech sector will be more important than creating an innovation and technology bureau, says the University of Science and Technology's top computer scientist.
"The idea of the … bureau is good, but the crux of the problem is not with the bureau," said Yang Qiang, the university's chair professor and head of computer science and engineering.
"The bureau should be an effect, not the cause. The cause should be the whole government from the top must think innovation is the key for Hong Kong's future, and the bureau should be a phenomenon of this [thinking]."
The government's proposal for an IT bureau was scuttled after a funding request to the Finance Committee to set it up was killed off by a pan-democratic filibuster in February.
Speaking just before he took up the New Bright Professorship in engineering last week, Yang said it was vital for the city to allow traditional "comfortable" industries such as the financial sector to be challenged by information technology and big data, to spur true innovation.
He cited the mainland as a good example, in which the financial industry was forced to evolve from a "conservative backwater" after the government allowed internet giants such as Alibaba and Tencent to compete with them in online payments.
"This created a major nervousness in the financial industry and suddenly they were keen to invite the internet companies to come in and help them innovate to meet the challenges," Yang said. "The end result was that many small start-ups benefited."