Robot expert planning to turn Hong Kong into android city

Walking into David Hanson's office in Sheung Wan, a human-looking robot with a cascade of wires sprouting from the back of its head catches your attention. Its eyes are looking in two different directions, but it is moving its jaw and raising its eyebrows, apparently aping the technician working on the wiring. It's fascinating, if somewhat disconcerting, to watch a machine being manipulated into behaving like a real person.

Hanson, 44, is an American robotics designer known for creating lifelike humanoid machines. The founder and president of Hanson Robotics, he sees robotics as his calling and works on many fronts, from sculpting features to developing artificial intelligence.

To advance to the next step of producing robots for everyday applications in entertainment, health care and education, he has moved to Hong Kong with his family - his wife Amanda and their son Zeno.

Hong Kong seems a curious move for Hanson, but he and Korean-American entrepreneur Jong Lee, Hanson Robotics CEO, say a robotics community is emerging here.

Plus, "there's a lot of expertise and design infrastructure here", Hanson says, referring to Hong Kong's long history of toymaking and its links to mainland suppliers.

He hopes to help establish a robotics hub and, as part of his talk at TEDx Hong Kong on May 31, will encourage related enterprises to move into the Science Park in Sha Tin.

At Hanson Robotics, the team believes the immediate future for the business lies in creating animatronic robots for theme parks while it develops for the longer term lifelike androids to work in hospitals and with special needs children.