This is an interview I did with Dragonair’s inflight magazine called Silkroad — they don’t have a website so they were gracious enough to allow to reprint the article in full here. I sat down with writer Katie Scott for about an hour in April and this is the result of it with insight from friends and ecosystem supporters Simon Squibb and Bay McLaughlin — I’ve attached the actual spread below with Chinese translation:
This is the Asian Century. The region is changing faster than arguably anywhere at any time in history, and innovation is at the heart of this transformation. In our new monthly series, Innovation Asia, we’re exploring new ideas, technology and entrepreneurship across the continent, one city at a time. But what is the big picture? In our first instalment, we look at how the winds of innovation are ready to swing east.
Six years ago, six people met in a Hong Kong coffee shop. They were there to share ideas, exchange contacts and give each other support as they embarked on the uphill slog of making their startup businesses a success. ‘At this early stage, there was more enthusiasm and ideas than investors and proper business plans,’ says Casey Lau, one of the co-founders of the group, StartupsHK. ‘Some of those early birds fizzled but the ones with sound ideas are still around today.’
The potential, however, was clear and the StartupsHK gatherings soon gained traction. Now the group has more than 10,000 people in its network and can no longer find a coffee shop big enough for its meetups. This story has parallels across Asia.
