Event Archive

Dr Lou has studied widely on family caregiving, active aging, and their health impacts. Examining Chinese family caregivers’ mental health and financial impacts were pioneer studies that generated high impact publications. Recently, Dr Lou’s study extended to examining positive and/or resilient capacity of the family caregiving in Chinese context including studying secondary caregivers, social support, roles of domestic helper, and effective intervention strategies. Dr Lou also pioneered three mobile applications targeting volunteers, social workers, and stroke families respectively. Dr Lou is a Member of Elderly Commission, Community Investment and Inclusion Fund, Statistics Advisory Board, and Elderly Academy Development Foundation.

Ms Jenny Choi holds a Bachelor's Degree of Social Science (Social Work) and Master's Degree in Gerontology. She is currently working as the Senior Manager of Continuing Care in St James' Settlement. Having nearly 20 years of experience in serving elders, she is still ambitious for serving our elders in Hong Kong by developing innovative projects, like '656carer.com' to echo the changing needs for elders and their carers.

Ms. Wing-yin Wu is the Service Director (Elderly Services) of Evangelical Lutheran Church Social Service Hong Kong.  Ms. Wu obtains Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Social Work and Master of Arts in Social Work (Family-centred Practice and Family Therapy) from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.  She has over 20 years of experience in elderly services.  She engages in management and development of various elderly services, leads cross-unit teams, opens up and manages self-financing Projects.  She established ‘ELCHK, Smart Club’ dementia specific training units, designed and produced training materials 「本地薑」華文創智系列for the Chinese elder with dementia.  She also developed and provided dementia care training for professional and supporting staffs.

Ms Grace Chan has worked in the social welfare arena for over 25 years. She is the Business Director of the Hong Kong Council of Social Service, and also serves as a member of Board of Directors and the International Vice President of the International Federation on Ageing. 
Ms Chan was invited as a member of the Strategic Advisory Group for the WHO Global Network of Age-friendly Cities and Communities in 2013. She is a former member of the Elderly Commission, and also sits on some committees and boards in the statutory bodies of Hong Kong. Her areas of expertise include long-term care, age-friendly cities and communities, elderly participation, lifelong learning, and innovation and technology for ageing. 
Ms Chan took the lead in the development of several innovative services, including Gerontechnology Platform, Jockey Club "age at home" Gerontech Education and Rental Service, and Stair Climbing Service, etc. In 2019, she was awarded as Ageing Asia Global Ageing Influencer, in honouring the outstanding achievements of the most influential leader impacting ageing in the Asia Pacific.

Dr Majd Alwan, PhD, a noted researcher and authority on aging-services technologies, is LeadingAge’s Senior Vice President of Technology and Executive Director of the LeadingAge Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST).
Dr Alwan leads a network of technology companies, providers and research institutions focused on technology solutions for an aging society.
Prior to joining CAST, Dr Alwan served as Assistant Professor and Director of the Robotics and Eldercare Technologies Program at the University of Virginia's Medical Automation Research Center.
Dr Alwan has a PhD in intelligent robotics from Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of London, UK; a Master of Science degree in control engineering with distinction from Bradford University, UK; and a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Damascus University, Syria.

Dr Eleni Stroulia is a Professor of Computing Science, the Director of the AI4Society Signature Area, and the Acting Vice Dean of the Faculty of Science, at the University of Alberta. Her research addresses real-world problems, adopting AI and machine-learning methods to improve outcomes.
From 2011-2016, she held the NSERC/AITF Industrial Research Chair on Service Systems Management and has played leadership roles in the numerous national and international projects. She has been recognized with a McCalla professorship and a Killam Award for Excellence in Mentoring. She has co-authored more than 300 publications and supervised more than 60 graduate students.

Mr Leung joined the Administrative Service in August 1985 and rose to the rank of Administrative Officer Staff Grade A in April 2018.  He has served in various bureaux and departments, including the former Security Branch, the former Deputy Chief Secretary's Office, the former Office of Members of the Executive and Legislative Councils, the former Economic Services Branch, the former City and New Territories Administration, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Secretariat on secondment, the former Education and Manpower Bureau, the former Commerce, Industry and Technology Bureau, the Innovation and Technology Commission, Radio Television Hong Kong, the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau, the Project Planning Office and Celebrations Coordination Office for the 20th Anniversary of the Establishment of the HKSAR, and the Hongkong Post.  He has been serving as Director of Social Welfare since September 2019.

Dr Tony Ko is a physician by background and a specialist in geriatric medicine. He is currently the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Hospital Authority (HA).  Dr Ko moved from clinical medicine to health services management in 2008 and served under various management offices in the HA Head Office until the appointment to Hospital Chief Executive of Pok Oi Hospital and Cluster Chief Executive of New Territories West Cluster in 2012 and 2014 respectively.  He was then appointed as the Director of Cluster Services in 2018 prior to the appointment to his current position in August 2019.

Mr Albert Wong was appointed CEO of Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation in 2016 to lead the organisation in accelerating the development of Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship of Hong Kong. Mr Wong possesses more than 30 years of experience with various multinationals, including 15 years spent with GE in the US headquarters, Asia-Pacific and China, where he was responsible for M&A, Business Development, Product Management and Business Operations.

Mr Chua Hoi Wai is the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Council of Social Service. Mr Chua has participated in a number of advisory or statutory bodies of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. He is currently a member of the Elderly Commission, and the Advisory Committee on Mental Health.
Mr Chua is a graduate of the University of Hong Kong in Mechanical Engineering. He studied Master of Social Work at University of Illinois at Chicago and is now a social worker by profession. He was the President of the Hong Kong Social Workers Association (2004 – 2008).

Based in Liverpool, UK, Mrs Rosemary Kay is the Director of the eHealth Cluster, a not-for-profit membership organisation bringing together local NHS, local authorities, care organisations, and the technology industry. Through the cluster, Mrs Kay is also Project Director for the government-funded project “Liverpool 5G Create – Connecting Health and Social Care”. The project is developing a 5G stand-alone network for delivering health and social care services across Liverpool.

Mr Claudiu Leverenz founded munevo in 2018 after graduating from the Technical University of Munich in Germany. Munevo empowers people with disabilities by using innovative technologies. People that are impaired by ALS, MS, etc. or spinal cord injuries are limited in their legs and hands. With munevo DRIVE they can steer their wheelchair by using head movements via smart glasses. 2017 he was nominated on Forbes 30under30 list in Healthcare. Since 2018, he joined Global Shapers, an initiative by the World Economic Forum, to support social projects. He serves on the board of foundations and speaks at events such as the WEF Annual Summit in Davos.

Following her passion to address accessibility issues after a visit to a long-term care facility, Dr Pooja Viswanathan completed her trans-disciplinary doctoral and post-doctoral research, with her work spanning across several areas including computer vision, artificial intelligence, robotics, user-centred design, assistive technology, and mixed methods research. She has published several peer-reviewed conference and journal articles on “smart” wheelchairs.
Throughout her academic career, she secured competitive grants and earned prestigious scholarships/fellowships from several organisations in the US and Canada, including Google. She is Founder and CEO of Braze Mobility, a company that developed the world’s first blind spot sensors for wheelchairs.

Ms Sara Smolley is the co-founder and Head of Partnerships at Voiceitt, a digital health startup that has developed a unique speech recognition technology to help people with disabilities live more independently. Ms Smolley's academic background and her growing career in impactful technologies have been driven by her passion for combining high-ambition entrepreneurship with positive social impact.
Having grown up in South Florida, US, she moved to Israel after spending 5 years in Asia – at a biotechnology startup in Hong Kong; and in various corporate and startup environments in Seoul, South Korea, where she also completed a Global MBA. She holds an Economics degree from Barnard College at Columbia University in New York City, US, where she co-founded the Columbia Chapter of Net Impact, the international nonprofit which strives to orient business principles toward sustainable social goals. She now leads Voiceitt's business development, grant writing, and strategic partnerships.

Mr Adam Sobol is driven by making people’s lives easier, healthier, and more sustainable through emerging technologies and machine learning. He is currently the Founder and CEO of CareBand, location-based health and safety wearable solution for people living with dementia. Trained in informatics and cybersecurity, Mr Sobol has a background in consulting, leadership, and project management. Before CareBand, he had founded three SaaS startups focused in education, sports, and healthcare.

Mr Kane Sajdak is the 2020 Australian Startup Leader of the Year, multiple time Young Entrepreneur of the Year winner and career technology enthusiast who specialises in the real-world application of technology. Mr Sajdak has the unique ability to commercialise innovative concepts, with his latest venture – HomeGuardian.ai, a perfect example of bridging the gap between disruptive technology, industry and a global market need.
HomeGuardian.ai is a patented, world first, AI-driven smart care device that analyses human behaviours and notifies carers or family when assistance is required – detecting everything from falls, to the decline in health, and even the onset of COVID-19 and influenza-like symptoms.

Dr Tan Jit Seng is trained as a medical doctor and still is a full-time eldercare clinician, doing primary health care work and running long-term home-based services. He has been involved in public, charity, military, social enterprise, and private systems for the past 19 years. He is currently Founder and Director of Lotus Eldercare Pte Ltd. Dr Tan has always been keen in new technologies supporting patients and healthcare workers alike and is currently the Vice President of Asia Pacific Assistive Robotics Association and Head of Centre for Digital Therapeutics Research for Demand, Korea.

Mr Colin Pudsey is the Founder and CEO of SilVR Adventures, a Melbourne-based startup using virtual reality to reduce feelings of loneliness and isolation among seniors and enrich their quality of life. SilVR Adventures' vision is a world without barriers for seniors, where their needs are not only met but exceeded using VR. Mr Pudsey is a highly experienced entrepreneur and founder with 15-years of business development, sales and innovative solutions expertise, and LASA Next Gen. Young Leader Award Finalist.

Mr Jakob Skaarup Nielsen is the CEO for Healthcare DENMARK, a public-private partnership and non-profit organisation. Healthcare DENMARK is the official gateway for international stakeholders to Denmark’s healthcare and life science expertise and innovation.
He has broad international experience from leadership positions with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark and has served at diplomatic mission in the USA, China, Japan, Singapore as well as with the Permanent Representation of Denmark to the European Union in Brussels.
Born in 1970, he holds a master’s degree in Economics, Business Administration and Commercial Law from Aarhus University, School of Business and Social Sciences, Denmark.

Mr David Maman spearheads the team in fulfilling Binah.ai’s vision and mission. A serial entrepreneur, Mr Maman has taken numerous start-ups from vision to international success: Hexatier (acquired by Huawei), Precos, Vanadium-soft, GreenCloud, Teridion and others. Binah.ai is his 13th start-up where he sets the strategy and manages the execution of the company's mission to enable health and care, anywhere.

Prof Jeff Hughes is the Chief Scientific Officer of PainChek Ltd, and one of the co-inventors of the PainChek® pain assessment App. He is the former Head of School of Pharmacy at Curtin University in Australia, and currently holds an honorary appointment in the Curtin Medical School. He has published over 300 research and professional papers, and contributed to 37 books. He has received a number of national and international awards for his contribution to pharmacy research, education and practice, including the 2014 Australasian Pharmaceutical Sciences Association’s Medal and the 2020 Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia’s Fred J Boyd Award.

Timothy is a registered social worker, and also a fellow of Certified Risk Planner. He is the Founding Executive Director of Senior Citizen Home Safety Assn., of which is the most social service applying Gerontech to serve their service users via its 24 hour operating emergency alarm service.  He is the Chief Consultant of Ma Kam Wah & Co, and serves as mentor of the new start up SE projects of STP.  He is also a member of the JCIT looks after the digital strategy of the welfare sector.  He was one of the anchor at the RTHK TV series on Gerontech / Smart Ageing years before.

Ms Kuniko Masuda is a certified dietitian and a council member of the Japanese Society of Dysphagia Rehabilitation. She also serves as a part-time lecturer at the Department of Health and Medical Sciences, Kanagawa Institute of Technology, Japan. After working as a hospital dietitian, she has been working at a special nursing home for the elderly in Kawasaki City since 1995. Her research focuses on the importance of “eating through the mouth” in supporting dietary care for the elderly.
She is involved in the development of dysphagia food products for several Japanese companies. She has also published many books on dietary care for the elderly and educates the public and dieticians about the importance of dietary care.

Mrs Carys Hansed is a senior specialist MSK and orthopaedics physiotherapist with 10 years experience in the NHS and 4 years in the private sector. She is the co-founder and Specialist Physiotherapy Lead at Denton Physio Technology and has a passion for the role in which digital can play in transforming patient pathways to enhance the recovery of the individual but also empower physiotherapists. Denton Physio Technology is partnered with re.flex (a device for tele-rehabilitation) to introduce this advanced technology to the UK market.

Mr Simon Wong is the Chief Executive Officer of the Logistics and Supply Chain MultiTech R&D Centre (LSCM). The Centre was established in 2006 by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.  It aims to strengthen the local logistics sector and related industries by providing a one-stop resource for applied research and technology transfer, and to reinforce cooperation between the industry and research institutes, to bring about meaningful and significant benefits to the industry and the community.

Mr Joe Velderman serves as Vice President of Innovation at Cypress Living – supporting Cypress Cove and Cypress at Home. As VP of Innovation Mr Velderman has an external focus, leading IT-powered digital innovation, while building and supporting the innovation capabilities of the organisation. In addition to the innovation efforts, he is responsible for all technology operations within the Cypress brand; guiding strategy and direction for all infrastructure, enterprise applications and data initiatives.

Mdm Low Mui Lang is Executive Director of The Salvation Army Peacehaven Nursing Home. Peacehaven operates a 430 bedded nursing home with 4 daycare centres ranging from Integrated Home & Day Centre, Senior and Dementia Day Care Centres. Peacehaven in her endeavour also forges forward in creating a new model of care for Person Living with Dementia (PLD) known as Jade Circle that includes a modern gaming activity centre, training centre for lifelong learning beside the apartment for PLD.
Always looking to solve problems, she actively participates and trials innovations inclusive of face recognition for fall detection and monitoring of resident’s movement thereby empowering older persons to ambulate and keep active.

Mr Yip Pang Wai is the recipient of the Outstanding Third Age Citizen Award, Hong Kong ICT Awards Best Digital Inclusion (Outstanding Individual) Award and the University of 3rd Age “Outstanding Teacher” Award. After his retirement 20 years ago, Mr Yip participated in volunteer services such as promoting the elderly to learn information technology and serve the community, supporting the development of the University of 3rd Age, training volunteers, organising culture and ecology guide scheme for the elderly, etc. Currently, he is active in projects including Dementia Friendly Community Campaign, Smart Power Services and Gerontechnology Ambassador.

Zoe is a registered social worker. She is the Manager of New Life Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association, a leading non-governmental organization specializing in mental health, in Hong Kong. She has committed herself to leveraging her social work expertise and network to provide high quality mental health services for people in recovery of mental illness (PIR), their families and the general public. She supervises innovative and need-oriented service development, especially in gerontech application and healthy ageing in mental health services, with aims to early identify and monitor the physical health conditions of PIR, and to strengthen their community living capabilities.

Jordan is the Home Manager of Fook Yen, a family business servicing the elderly for over three decades. In the past two years, Jordan has helped Fook Yen to become certified by HKAG and earn the "Good Practice" recognition, shared only with three others Homes on HK Island.
Jordan has over 15 years of experience, including technology and quality management implementations. Jordan sees common challenges among smaller elderly homes operators and founded Silvermorph, with the vision to help Home operators to embrace technologies and innovations. He has an MBA from Cornell University and Engineering degrees from the University of Minnesota.

Peter Kwok is the lead for gerontechnology development in the Hong Kong Council of Social Service.  Prior to joining the Innovation and Technology for Ageing team, he had served in the Membership Liaison and Service and the Information Technology Resource Centre of the HKCSS, working on capacity development of the welfare sector, adoption of ICT by non-profit organizations, and promoting cross-sectoral collaboration between the social and technology sectors.
Peter holds a Master degree in Social Work and a Bachelor degree in Electronic and Communications Engineering.

Beatrice Teo is the Director of Amazing Speech Therapy Pte Ltd (Singapore) and Amazing Speech Therapy Sdn Bhd (Malaysia).  Beatrice has worked as a Speech Therapist for 10 years and has helped many patients achieve success in their rehabilitation.  She is passionate and specializes in working with people with swallowing difficulties.  She is well known in her industry for her clinical skills, determination and innovation.  Beatrice also has strong networks with many renowned doctors and healthcare professionals.

Jeff Chow has over 25 years’ solid working experience in the Telecom and IT industry with comprehensive technical competences on various ICT solutions. He worked for several leading global companies, including Motorola Inc., Hutchison Telecom Ltd. and Ericsson Ltd., playing various key roles in consultancy, solution management, programme management and business engagement on large scale ICT projects. He currently dedicate on developing IoT businesses with total end-to-end solutions.
Mr Chow is a graduate of University of Sunderland in Electrical & Electronic Engineering. He studied Master of MBA at University of Northern Iowa at USA. He is Chartered Engineer of the IET.

Brian Lam is the Co-founder of BNET-TECH Company Limited which focuses on developing the products for elderly. He was extensive experience in IT industry over 14 years and familiar with CRM, Digital Media, Usability Experience and app development. He also participates in volunteering services for Elderly.

Mr. Gordon Lee has over 20 years of experience across research, engineering, and international sales and marketing in electronics, information technology, medical and healthcare fields. He started his career with Omron Electronics, and spent many years pioneering new business and solutions with Bluetooth technology. With IBM, Mr. Lee was the digital media solution owner for the Greater China region. He is responsible for numerous successful collaborations and partnerships with multinational corporations.  In recent years, Mr. Lee is focused on the healthcare and medical devices industry including electronics technologies for surgery. Mr. Lee received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from National Taiwan University.

Jessica Lam is the Manager of Healthy Ageing Platform of the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP). She plans and implements the strategic directions of Healthy Ageing Platform to enhance the adoption of gerontechnology from our park companies. She also takes the lead to develop HKSTP as the Hub of Gerontechnology in Hong Kong.
She obtained Master of Business Administration from The Chinese University of Hong Kong and First Class Honours in BA (Hons) Business Studies from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She is an experienced sales and marketing consultant in gerontechnology industry.

Eric Lau, Director (Services) of Hong Kong Red Cross (HKRC).  Eric is a registered social worker with over 18 years extensive managerial experience in community and rehabilitation services.  He joined HKRC in 2012 and he has developed different new initiatives including the first blended learning first aid training course in Hong Kong, 6 blended training courses were developed within 2.5 years.  Eric has lots of achievements in community resilience including the launch of mobile disaster preparedness education truck and VR games in Hong Kong.  Eric also contributed the community health and hygiene promotion programmes.

Dr Elsie HUI is a Consultant at Shatin Hospital and Prince of Wales Hospital, and Deputy Chief Executive of Shatin Hospital. She is also the Service Director of Community Outreach Services and General Out-patient Clinics in New Territories East Cluster. As a honorary faculty member of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Dr Hui teaches at undergraduate and postgraduate level. Her research interests include end of life care, frailty, nutrition and feeding in the elderly, and use of innovations to support the cognitively impaired. 

Dorothy is Project Manager of Jockey Club “age at home” Gerontech Education and Rental Service at the Hong Kong Council of Social Service. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Social Policy and Administration from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (with First Class Honours); and Master of Philosophy (Social Science) from The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology. She has been working on projects related to social security systems, long term care service options, adoption of Gerontechnology and social support for carers etc.