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About the Event:

The 13th Five-Year Plan identifies innovation as one of five new tenets of China’s economic and social development around which policies will be designed and implemented during 2016-2020. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has stressed that China must develop mass entrepreneurship and innovation, and urged government agencies to enhance support for that. Initiatives such as "Made in China 2025" and "Internet Plus" have been established. Sectors driven by innovation and technology, including high-end manufacturing, e-commerce and medical devices, have seen impressive growth. Meanwhile, the Chinese government continues to establish platforms to spur innovation and entrepreneurial activities nationwide. As a result, R&D spending is soaring, and a new generation of entrepreneurs are creating ground-breaking innovations in China.

A recent report by KPMG shows that 47 percent of the CEOs of China-headquartered companies surveyed place innovation at the top of their personal agenda, compared to 23 percent globally.

An increasing number of innovative Chinese firms have leaped into global market leadership. Some analysts are predicting that China will emerge as a global innovation leader in the near future. Our speakers will discuss how innovation in China is propelling the country’s transformation, while driving a paradigm shift in the world economy.

About the Speakers:

Ping K. Ko
PhD,Univ of California, Berkeley
Fellow,IEEE

Professor Emeritus
Dept of Electronic & Computer Engineering, HKUST

Ping K. Ko received his B.S. degree in Physics from Hong Kong University in 1974, and M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) from the University of California at Berkeley, in 1978, and 1982 respectively.

Professor Ko has been active in commercializing technology. He was a consultant and advisor to many semiconductor companies in the silicon valley. He was a co-founder of Celestry, an ICCAD company which was acquired by Cadence in 2002. He co-founded Silicon Federation International (SFI) in 2004, which focuses in nurturing China’s fabless chip design startups, and has served as its President and CEO. SFI now has more than 10 companies in its investment portfolio, and has 4 exits already.

Besides activities at SFI, Professor Ko has also been an active private angel investor. He has invested in more than 20 companies, including DJI (the UAV company), which he serves on theBoard of Directors.

Robert Yung
Partner, Walden International

Robert Yung, Ph.D. is Partner at Walden International, a top worldwide venture capital investment fund. Dr. Yung also served as DJI’s Executive Vice Chairman, the largest UAV company in the world in 2014. Dr. Yung is a co-founder of GSR Ventures and currently an LP of the Fund.

Robert Yung, Ph.D. served As EVP and CSO of Analog Devices (NASDAQ: ADI)Robert also served as EVP and CTO of Tessera Technologies (NASDAQ: TSRA), and EVP and CTO of PMC Sierra (NASDAQ: PMCS). Prior, he was a chief architect in Sun Microsystems’ UltraSPARC microprocessor program and served as the company’s CTO in Asia. Dr. Yung also worked for Intel serving as its CTO in China as well as CTO of the Intel Communication Group and Intel Enterprise Processor Group.

Robert received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. He is the inventor of 70 issued and more than 20 pending patents.

Dr. Yung was named to the National Committee of U.S.-China Relations as a Fellow during the inaugural Young Leader Forum in 2002. In 2000, he was named to the World Economic Forum's “Top 100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow,” in Davos, Switzerland. Dr. Yung served as the technology advisor and accompanied President Clinton during his State visit to China in 1998, and Vice President Gore visit to China in 1995. He also serves as a member of the China Foreign Expert Group and member of the China National Science Foundation.

Kenny Man
Head of International Investment, Ant Financial

Kenny is currently the Head of International Investment for Ant Financial, Senior Director. He has been actively involve for all the overseas acquisition & investment for Ant Financial, including the KT Consortium for the K Bank License deal, Paytm in India, and Ascend Money in Thailand.

Prior to that, Kenny is a Senior Investment Director at Vision Knight Capital, a USD 800mn asset under management private equity firm. He has led the 91.com project and successfully sold the company to Baidu for USD 1.9 billion. He has also been leading the 500.com deal which supports the Company to list in the NYSE. Finally, he has been involved in the exit of PPS and Allyes.

Prior to Vision Knight Capital, Kenny was the Director of Alibaba.com Investment & Acquisition team. He built the international M&A team while completing multiple deals during his tenure. His deal included Vendio, Auctiva, and Singlefeed in US and Oncard Payments in China. He also worked in the Corporate Finance team in Alibaba Group

Before joining the investment team, he is deeply involved in the Alibaba.com IPO deal. Prior to Alibaba, Kenny was the Bottling Operations Planning Manager, assisting the COO of Pepsi China on strategic and operational planning and was the Market Development Manager, overseeing the restaurant market in Hong Kong & Macau. Before Pepsi, Kenny worked in Mckinsey & Company in the Corporate Finance & Strategy Practice, advising MNCs on their China growth strategy and potential synergies on M&A.

Kenny received an Executive MBA, Joint Degree program in the Kellogg School of Management, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and a Bachelor of Commerce degree in University of British Columbia.

Zhang Keke
President of Shenzhen-HongKong Union For Promoting Science and Technology

Executive Dean of Shenzhen-HongKong Development Research Institute of SZIER
(PKU-HKUST Shenzhen-Hong Kong Institute)

Mr Zhang graduated from Wuhan University in 1982 and started his career in Shenzhen from 1988, he once served as Deputy Director-General of the Shenzhen Municipal Science and Technology Bureau, Executive Vice-Chairman of the Shenzhen Municipal Science and Technology Association and has been working closely with several government departments.

Mr Zhang is the founder of Alliance for Shenzhen-HongKong Science and Technology Associations, who also hosted and participated a series of plannings and projects such as the project for Shenzhen's information construction, the planning on the building of a innovation Shenzhen and several Five-Year-Plans on science & technology and industry development for some Districts in Shenzhen.

Mr. Zhang has rich experience and broad research achievements in the following areas as Hi-tech Development, Collaboration among Industry, Education & Research, the Construction of a Green, Smart & Eco City, as well as Culture and Creative Industries.

About the Moderator:

Irene Chu
Head of Technology, Media & Telecommunications, KPMG China

Irene is a Partner of KPMG China, specialized in the technology, media and telecommunications sector. She is also the Head of High Growth Technology and Innovation Group in Hong Kong.Irene started her career with KPMG Toronto and has been working in Hong Kong for over 14 years.

Irene has many years of experience in serving multinational and Chinese companies in the technology sector including software, media, telecommunications, e-Commerce, electronic components, an consumer markets on audit and accounting advisory projects.
In her role as the lead partner of the High Growth Technology and Innovation Group in Hong Kong, Irene actively works with innovative startups and entrepreneurs across different sectors including Fintech, robotics, IoT, ecommerce, health tech, and green tech and support different stages of their development and growth strategies.

Irene and her team collaborate with Hong Kong government agencies, startups incubators, investors, universities and corporate entities to help promote and support the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Hong Kong. Some of these efforts include providing subject matter expert mentoring support to startup founders on a number of accelerator and incubation programs.

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