Wearables from FashionTech to BioTech

During the StartMeUpHK Festival, I was surprised by the FashionTechAsia event organised at the creative space PMQ after the Retail’s Cutting Edge. Both events put Hong Kong as a strategic place in Asia to lead a business in RetailTech/ FashionTech, such as GRANA, which became the eCommerce success story or the wearable rising star ORII. Among the speakers, Nan Fung Group introduced one of the most ambitious FashionTech projects, The Mills, based on the rehabilitation of a former textile factory. Another large company, the Fung Group, announced that Explorium, currently running in Shanghai, will expand soon in Hong Kong.

FashionTechAsia Show

HealthTechAsia was another great event to discuss the digitalisation of healthcare, biotechnologies, and the so-called quantified self. In addition to connected devices, genomics is one of the most promising enabling technology. It allows personalised digital health with solutions such as nutrigenomics or pharmacogenomics provided by Prenetics. The Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks gathers most of the other leading biotech companies in Hong Kong, including Novoheart that engineers bioartificial human heart or Sanwa that provides Lab-on-chip diagnostics.

Benjamin Joffe, one of the speakers at the HealhTechAsia event, uses the term “wearapeuthics” to talk about the connected things that can replace or complement various therapies. From the creation of connected things or fashion products to the digitalisation of healthcare, I had the opportunity to share new ideas during two “Startup Weekends” dedicated to those topics. The mentors and judges of both competitions inspired me just as much as the students of the HKUST Entrepreneurship Center, The BASE, with whom I have organised one of the competitions.

This article is part of the Hong Kong — Shenzhen Innovation Hub series.