Finland-HK Summit gathered top experts in AI and 5G

Finland-Hong Kong Summit on Artificial Intelligence and 5G for Smart and Sustainable Cities

Full press release in Chinese

The University of Helsinki and the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) held today, Tuesday 5 March 2019, the Finland-Hong Kong Summit on Artificial Intelligence and 5G for Smart and Sustainable Cities at the Charles K. Kao Auditorium, Hong Kong Science Park.

This one day event occured in the presence of our honoured guests: Dr. David Chung Wai-keung, JP (Under Secretary for Innovation and Technology), Mr. Albert Wong Hak-keung (CEO, Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation), Ms. Johanna Karanko (Consul General, Finland Consulate General Hong Kong & Macau), The Hon. IP Kin-yuen (Hong Kong Legco Member, Education Panel), Dr. Sari Arho Havrén (Consul, Innovation, Business Finland), and Prof. Hanna Snellman (Vice-Rector, University of Helsinki). Its keynotes and panels featured renowned professor from University of Helsinki, University of Cambridge and Hong Kong universities (HKUST, HKU, CUHK, CityU), as well as researchers from world-leading tech companies (Nokia, Tencent), research centres (LSCM, ASTRI), and the Smart City Consortium[1].

This summit gathered over 300 registered participants from various backgrounds to exchange on the topic of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and 5G enabled smart and sustainable cities, leveraging two unique strengths of Finland - AI and mobile communications. These participants, coming from various Finnish and Hong Kong industries, academia, and government, actively discussed the future of a 5G and AI-enabled smart and sustainable Hong Kong.

The first session of the event discussed the synergy between AI and the upcoming 5th generation of communication networks. 5G will be at the core of future AI, whether for performance improvement, safety, and redundancy. 5G will be particularly critical for future AI applications such as autonomous vehicles, smart cities, and more generally future cloud and edge-based applications. Following this session, the summit dwelved in the software applications of AI under the motto “AI for AI”, where AI is used for developing and improving AI softwares. In order for AI to develop, one should increase the user understanding of the technology, as was discussed during the third session. A particular emphasis was put on the user’s privacy awareness in a world of data. Finally, the summit was concluded with a final session on AI for environment protection and pollution monitoring. Following the concerns of the previous session, participants discussed the importance of a single, accessible and easy to understand indicator of pollution, personalized to the user’s preferences and behaviour.

These sessions were organized around the four core programmes of the Hong Kong-Helsinki Oasis for Innovation and Technology (H2O Centre), a research centre to be established in partnership with University of Cambridge, Nokia Bell labs, and many Hong Kong collaborators. This centre will be dedicated to AI, Augmented Reality (AR), 5G, and their applications for citizens, industrials and government within future cities. For more information, please refer to the official webpage: http://helsinki.fi/h2o.

From left to right, first row: Prof. Pan Hui (Nokia Chair Professor, University of Helsinki), Mr. Albert Wong Hak-keung (CEO, Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation), Dr. David Chung Wai-keung, JP (Under Secretary for Innovation and Technology), The Hon. IP Kin-yuen (Hong Kong Legco Member, Education Panel), Prof. Hanna Snellman (Vice-Rector, University of Helsinki), Ms. Johanna Karanko (Consul General, Finland Consulate General Hong Kong & Macau), Dr. Claudia Xu (Chief Commercial Officer, Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation), Dr. Sari Arho Havrén (Consul, Innovation, Business Finland)

From left to right: Prof. Shing-Chi Cheung (Professor, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology), Prof. Giulio Jacucci (Professor, University of Helsinki), Prof. Petri Myllymaki (Professor, University of Helsinki), Mr. Marko Tiesmäki (Nokia), Prof. Sasu Tarkoma (Head of Computer Science and Director of Helsinki Centre for Data Science, University of Helsinki), Dr. Claudia Xu (Chief Commercial Officer, Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation), Dr. Patrik Floréen (University Lecturer, University of Helsinki; Vice-Director, Helsinki Institute for Information Technology and Member of the Finnish Government AI Program’s group on AI Ethics), Dr. Sari Arho Havrén (Consul, Innovation, Business Finland), Ms. Johanna Karanko (Consul General, Finland Consulate General Hong Kong & Macau), Mr. Albert Wong Hak-keung (CEO, Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation), Prof. Hanna Snellman (Vice-Rector, University of Helsinki), Prof. Valtteri Niemi (Professor, University of Helsinki), The Hon. IP Kin-yuen (Hong Kong Legco Member, Education Panel), Dr. Anna-Maria Salmi (Head of Development, International Affairs, University of Helsinki), Dr. David Chung Wai-keung, JP (Under Secretary for Innovation and Technology), Prof. Pan Hui (Nokia Chair Professor, University of Helsinki), Prof. Victor OK Li (Chair Professor, Hong Kong University), Mr. Simon Wong (CEO, LSCM), Dr. Justin Chuang (VP, Next Generation networks, ASTRI), Prof. James Kwok (Professor, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology), Dr. Lin Ma (Principal Researcher, Tencent AI Lab), Prof. Yong Li (Associate Professor, Tsinghua University)

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[1] HKUST (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology), HKU (The University of Hong Kong), CUHK (The Chinese University of Hong Kong), CityU (City University of Hong Kong), LSCM (Logistics and Supply MultiTech Chain R&D Centre), ASTRI (Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute)