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HKIE Enginpreneurs: Engineering Innovations Towards Entrepreneurship

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The HKIE Enginpreneurs is a programme designed to support engineers who are dipping their toes in the difficult water of entrepreneurship. The inspiration behind its name was the notion of “Enginpreneurs”, an epithet which is itself an amalgam of “Engineers” and “Entrepreneurs”. The HKIE’s hope is that, through this programme, more engineers can become entrepreneurs and transform their Innovation and Technology (I&T) ideas into concrete reality, bringing their pent-up creativity to the public arena and the field of practical application.

 

The HKIE believes that “Enginpreneurs” is plausible—not just as an idea, but as a reality—because of engineers’ well-deserved reputation as inventors of new products and technologies. It has been observed that their innovations possess enormous potentials to solve our society’s pain points and reshape it for the better. Nonetheless, chiefly because of complications like financing, mass production, patent application, business strategies and other commonly faced challenges, we have yet to benefit fully from the fertility of these inventors’ minds.

 

Amidst these entanglements, fledgling Enginpreneurs looking to realise a project or establish an innovation-based business need resources and guidance. The HKIE Enginpreneurs seeks to meet that need in collaboration with Cyberport.

 

Where Cyberport comes in

 

Cyberport fits neatly into this picture, as an ideal partner, because of its range of expert-friendly entrepreneurship programmes. Successful applicants for these programmes are given substantial fundings and all-round support, so that they may get their original proposals or early-stage start-ups off the grounds. The programmes embody Cyberport’s enthusiasm for empowering experts to involve themselves in the I&T scene—an enthusiasm shared by the HKIE. Envisioning the possibilities that will be unleashed by a collaboration between two institutions with a common vision, the HKIE and Cyberport established a three-year partnership in May 2023 through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), kickstarting the HKIE Enginpreneurs.

 

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MoU signing ceremony with Cyberport

 

What Enginpreneurs gain from the programme

 

For each of the three years involved, the HKIE would be provided with a reserved quota of up to five candidates who may, on a fast track, gain interview opportunities for admission into Cyberport’s entrepreneurship programmes, which include the Cyberport Creative Micro Fund (CCMF) and the Cyberport Incubation Programme. Nominations of HKIE candidates are made by the HKIE Enginpreneurs Working Group, which reviews and vets the submissions individually with the help of occasional guest panelists with the relevant expertise.

 

“Not only would HKIE-recommended candidates complete their applications more quickly,” commented Ir Alice Chow, Senior Vice President cum the Working Group’s Chairperson, “but they would be guided by us throughout the application process, taken through finer points like presentation materials and interview techniques. Some of the teams have already met with us to discuss how to perfect their proposals.”

 

HKIE candidates who have gained admittance will receive as much as HK$500,000 of financial assistance and benefit regularly from the extensive resources provided by Cyberport’s comprehensive platform. These resources encompass customised advice on project development, business connections, peer and alumni network, promotion and publicity, and sharing of success cases.

 

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A discussion meeting in session between members of the Working Group (sitting) and a project team (standing)

 

The nominated projects

 

To date, three nominated projects—“RetroLogic AI,” “Reno VR,” and “Project Brightlight”—have been admitted to the CCMF through the HKIE Enginpreneurs. Of these, “RetroLogic AI” has succeeded in progressing to the Cyberport Incubation Programme.

 

RetroLogic AI

 

The project “RetroLogic AI” addresses a conspicuous market gap in Hong Kong’s energy-saving practice: the comparative absence of AI and asset management systems in commercial buildings, which do not normally come with the multi-proprietary systems used in those buildings. This is an issue that needs remedying because of the high energy and maintenance costs that often result from traditional approaches to building management. Without a proper control system, air conditioning (AC), for example, would routinely account for more than half of the electricity bill.

 

One of the more popular solutions to this problem, within the EMSD for instance, involves retro-commissioning or retrofitting the buildings to improve the efficiency of AC equipment. Others make simultaneous use of AI and Building Information Modelling (BIM) to optimise buildings’ operational lifecycle. The management team of “RetroLogic AI” has taken elements from both approaches, combining retrofitting solutions and digital transformation to yield an AI system platform, unlike the systems commonly used in more ways than one. Despite its root in a Deep Learning Method, it is not overdesigned, is integrated with the existing Building Management System (BMS), achieves high scalability and flexibility, and has an easy-to-use user interface. It is this smartly combinatory approach that the project title’s Chinese rendering—復創智能—seeks to capture with its juxtaposition of ideas like “restoration,” “innovation,” and “intelligence.”

 

In practice, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, installed all over the building and collecting relevant data while in operation, would transmit these data to the system’s trained Artificial Neural Network (ANN)—an AI Model. The constantly incoming data form the basis on which the ANN defines optimal temperature setpoints and, through the BMS, autotunes and optimises the chiller in real time accordingly. In this way, the building’s energy consumption (and cost) is reduced without the need for manual adjustments.

 

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RetroLogic AI prediction and control technology

 

“RetroLogic AI” is a proven energy-saving AI solution with a track record of successful field tests at the Kai Tak district cooling system, Times Square, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, and four Hospital Authority venues. Its recognitions, including the Hong Kong Green Building Council’s Green Building Award 2023 (Grand Award) and an inclusion in ScienceDirect’s contents list, are a testament to its effectiveness and reliability.

 

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The project being admitted to the Cyberport Incubation Programme

 

Reno VR

 

“Reno VR” is a project that derives its inspiration and momentum from the painfully gained realisation that, perhaps, construction safety had yet to receive as much attention from tech innovators as its importance demands. The existing classroom-based safety training, though sometimes making fruitful use of VR technology, is limited in its ability to fully replicate the complexities and perils inherent in real-life construction sites. Such complexities would include the ever-present need for coordinative teamwork and the human body’s tactile response to its environment.

 

What such conventional training lacks, and “Reno VR” supplies, is a way to reproduce a simulated environment so accurate in its details that the training workers, while immersing themselves in it, can learn from their virtual experience as from their real experience. With Building Information Modelling (BIM), this true-to-life element is realisable; in “Reno VR,” this BIM technology is combined with VR to render tailor-made scenarios for front-line practitioners who must work with safety rope equipment, bamboo scaffold, etc. daily.

 

The simulated training platform for any project is customised in clearly defined stages. The first few find the contractor processing the BIM assets and preparing the BIM data. After the BIM model and materials are processed for VR and the scene is rendered, the remaining components— including internal movement interactions, multi-roles training content, multi-scenes in VR, real-time instruction mode— are provided to ensure a simulation realistic enough as a platform for workers to plan appropriate responses to on-site emergencies.

 

The scenarios generated by “Reno VR” are made to each subscriber’s needs, conforming to actual site conditions and updatable, in real time, with the phase in the construction timeline that the project has reached. Among other things, that means that confined spaces, heavy machinery, suspended platforms, and other Smart Site Safety System (SSSS) considerations are all reproducible. According to an analysis in market positioning, “Reno VR”’s collaborative multi-player system and feedback system have further distinguished it from its major market competitors and set it a cut above them.

 

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Demonstrations of the use of BIM in “Reno VR”

 

Project Brightlight

 

“Project Brightlight” is an innovative initiative from Bright Byte Technologies Ltd, designed to revolutionise the engineering and construction industry with its cutting-edge application of AI and big data. This project specifically targets the complex and often challenging domain of underground utilities, aiming to streamline the process of modelling these hidden infrastructures through advanced technological solutions.

 

At the core of “Project Brightlight” is the ability to automatically model underground utilities from 3D LiDAR scans of exposed piping and cabling. Traditional methods of mapping and maintaining underground utilities involve labour-intensive processes that are prone to human error and inefficiency. By leveraging AI algorithms and domain knowledge of underground utilities, “Project Brightlight” can interpret these 3D scans with remarkable accuracy, creating comprehensive models of utilities networks that are both precise and reliable.

 

The project’s ambitious goal is to integrate various forms of engineering information into a single, cohesive platform. This platform will enable users to visualise underground utilities in both 2D and 3D formats, accommodating different data representations and formats within one unified environment. Such a capability is invaluable for engineers, construction professionals, and government agencies who need to access and analyse underground utility data efficiently.

 

“Project Brightlight” also addresses the crucial need for accurate and up-to-date information in infrastructure projects. By incorporating any available data alongside the AI-generated models, the project ensures that the utility networks’ representations are as complete and current as possible. This holistic approach not only improves the accuracy of the models but also enhances decision-making processes, allowing for better planning, risk assessment, sustainable development and management of underground utilities.

 

The significance of “Project Brightlight” extends beyond technological innovation; it represents a paradigm shift in how underground utilities are managed and information shared. By providing a platform where different engineering information can be visualised and accessed seamlessly, it promotes greater transparency, collaboration, and efficiency in the industry. This project’s potential is to transform the engineering and construction sectors, and its alignment with the needs of government agencies, positions “Project Brightlight” as a pivotal player in the future of infrastructure management.

 

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Spatializing Multi-Dimensional Data

 

Conclusion

 

However technically different these projects may be from one another, all of them reveal an enterprising spirit through the ways the project teams applied engineering knowledge to address real-world challenges. The success of these cases has affirmed engineering technologies’ pivotal role in I&T development; they have also showed how innovations can be introduced into our daily lives.

 

Despite these encouraging examples, the path taken by Enginpreneurs is still a thorny one and the supportive company of like-minded peers remains important on their I&T journey. After all, it is a commonplace that professionals, and not just engineers, often confront unexpected challenges and might even feel deterred when trying to put their I&T ideas into practice. The HKIE Enginpreneurs has provided a much-needed platform on which advice, collaboration, and encouragement are always available in the form of dedicated mentorship, expert sharing sessions, and much else.

 

With projects like “RetroLogic AI,” “Reno VR,” and “Project Brightlight” attesting to the utility of the notion of “Enginpreneurs”, the HKIE has been emboldened in its endeavour to continually support its members, through the Programme, in “engineering innovations towards entrepreneurship”.

 

 

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