Last week we welcomed Brinc’s LAUNCH Summit which was the first dedicated IoT conference in Hong Kong and it was a pretty huge event for Asia’s IoT scene as it welcome speakers and attendees from around the world.
Huge congrats to Bay, Manav, Hilary, Christina, Madison and the rest of the team Brinc on putting together such a great event alongside the StartMeUp Festival by InvestHK. We are convinced that all eyes will be on Brinc going forward for anything to do with IoT in Asia! Here’s to an even bigger 2017 event!
We’ve included the full press release summarising the event below:
On 27th and 28th January Brinc, an end-to-end IoT accelerator platform, proudly hosted LAUNCH – Hong Kong’s first consumer IoT summit at the city’s “hub of innovation” – PMQ, Central. As part of the StartmeupHK Festival 2016, the two-day event brought together over 1,000 guests including 43 key note speakers, and more than 150 startup founders, over 70 investors, altogether representing more than 530 companies – all coming together to connect on the latest technologies, trends and growth drivers surrounding IoT ecosystem adoption, but most importantly, to network and be inspired.
Following welcoming remarks by Gregory So, Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development and Manav Gupta, Founder & CEO of Brinc, the summit featured in-depth talks and panels in the Qube by an exceptional speaker line-up of heavyweights and veterans in the industry including Spencer Fung, CEO of Li & Fung; Julian De Jonquieres, Business Development Manager of Tesla Motors; Michael Perry, Director of Strategic Partnership, DJI; Ben Bateman, Director for Hardware, Design and Technology of indiegogo; Christina Bechhold, Investor at Samsung’s Global Innovation Center; Josh Holmes, Director of Architecture of Microsoft and more, to cover an array of topics: from how to evaluate investments in IoT and the future of the IoT market to subjects tailored for IoT partners and entrepreneurs. Industry-specific content and practical sessions were also held for founders covering a wide range of topics from building their own startups, sharing knowledge in business validation, branding and design, to product development, manufacturing, shipping and sales.
Workshops were also held by General Assembly, Amazon Web Services and ThroughTek at Brinc’s IoT hub on the 7th Floor of PMQ, whilst a Startup Village at the Courtyard drew crowds of tech enthusiasts to learn about the latest IoT innovations, through showcases of prototypes and product demonstrations by nearly 60 exhibiting startups.
Another highlight was the Global IoT Startup contest, where 30 international startupswere shortlisted to compete for an opportunity to join Brinc’s acceleration program and other prizes including startup packs with services from Dragon Law, Compass, CoCoon, General Assembly and Xero. With sixteen pitching rounds taking place over the two-day conference, the world’s first wearable smart recorder – Hipo by Mosaikx was awarded the grand prize, having received the highest number of votes from the contests’ esteemed panel of judges consisting of investors from Seedcamp, Samsung Global Innovation, Mesh Ventures, CoCoon, Ironfire Ventures, Fresco Capital and more.
To further support the growth of the local tech community and foster talent, Brinc joined forces with W Hub, a startups talent and investment acquisition support platform, along with Garage Society to host a job fair on the first day of the Summit, for 30 fast growing local technology startups to go on a hiring spree. The bazaar-like recruitment event attracted over 1,000 tech talents to compete for 80 job opportunities with their dream teams.
“We are thrilled with the turnout at our first LAUNCH Consumer IoT Summit.” commented Manav Gupta, founder and CEO of Brinc. “With the aim to connect the global IT ecosystem and shape the future of IoT in Asia, we were understandably ecstatic to bring together over 1,000 investors, entrepreneurs and key decision makers, all in one place to share their experiences, insights and learnings using LAUNCH as a unique networking occasion. We hope the success of our inaugural event will help raise global awareness of what startups, accelerators and platforms like Brinc and others in Hong Kong have to offer as an IoT hub, and will allow others to recognize its strategic location,” he continued.
