Start-up wins top Hong Kong ICT award for sales platform aiding small businesses
A start-up allowing small businesses to easily list their wares on online marketplaces has won the Hong Kong ICT Awards’ “Award of the Year”.
Holistic Technology’s SoldEazy platform took the overall prize in the government-backed competition for its online business management system that automates sales listings across websites including Ebay and Amazon.
Now in their tenth year, the Hong Kong ICT Awards are led by the Office of the Government Chief Information Office and organised by industry associations.
“When small and medium-sized enterprises start e-commerce, there’s no need to build own web store, it’s too expensive and time consuming,” said Calvin Ho, managing director of Holistic Technology. “Our platform can build business in a short period of time.”
Ho said the platform, which also won “Best Business Solution Award”, allowed small online sellers to reduce costs associated with building a website and online marketing.
Instead of having to copy and paste listings for identical goods across different selling websites, SoldEazy’s data conversion engine automatically replicates sales details across marketplaces.
Ho said in the past year the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park incubatee had helped more than 3,000 small and medium-sized businesses take HK$3 billion in revenue through the platform.
Organisers received 1,172 entries across eight categories for this year’s competition.
In a bid to promote financial technology (fintech) in the city, the awards included a new category, “Best FinTech Award”, which was won by Bank of East Asia for its digital branches.
BEA now has 89 branches offering tellers by video conferencing at busy periods, and i-kit technology allowing electronic form filling by scanning documents such as Hong Kong ID cards.
The digital branches also allow the banks to reduce the space needed to 200 square feet from 1,000 square feet.
Fellow HKSTP incubatee Well Being Digital Limited won the “Best Smart Hong Kong Award” for its dynamic real-time heart rate measurement technology “ActivHearts” that uses light shone on the skin to measure heart rate and oxygenation.
“Best ICT Start-up Award” winner Metas has developed intelligent electronic modules to allow primary and secondary pupils to build circuits for torches or other uses.
Metas said its products encourage schools to promote science, technology, engineering and maths by combining electronics and programming.
“Many schools teach programming, but for most, it is virtual,” said Steve Tang, product development director for Metas. “But ours connects virtual with reality so the kids can build their own models and control them.”
