SOON WE MAY NOT have to carry membership cards around or we could get our nails painted at MTR stations in just five minutes - if the creative business ideas of Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) undergraduates are put into practice.
The students' business plans scooped top prizes in the HSBC Young IT Entrepreneur Awards, which aims to encourage creativity among young people.
Final-year marketing students, PolyU's Joanne Ma Pui-ying and Christy Kwong Ka-ming and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology's Michael Wong Chi-fai, snatched the gold award with the software, Mobile Identification (MID).
'Nowadays, many shops or retailers offer loyalty programmes. I'm sure many of us have quite a few membership cards in our wallets,' said Ms Ma, who has almost 20 membership cards.
'With MID, we will be able to verify our membership status using mobile phones and will not have to carry the cards around.'
Ms Ma and Ms Kwong said the MID would work with the existing Short Messaging System (SMS) and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technologies.
'Vendors can also make use of the MID management system to send out promotional materials or recruit new members,' Ms Kwong added.
