Shenzhen’s mature technological base offers Hong Kong’s young people a path to realize their business goals, writes Wu Menglei.

Pricking one’s finger with a needle  and drawing blood from a blood vessel to measure glucose levels not only hurts — it is primitive and painful. It prompted Hong Kong entrepreneur Sam Ho Yiu-fai to seek a remedy that can monitor a person’s blood glucose levels without the pain.

He found a path from research into non-invasive blood glucose by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University that was in line with his vision. His next step was to get a team together in Hong Kong to commercialize this innovative solution.

It was not smooth sailing initially as Ho’s team’s work stalled — unable to find suitable manufacturers for chips and sensors to back them up with technical support in Hong Kong. Neither was there technical expertise to turn their findings into products.

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One option was to look to Shenzhen’s mature industrial chain that is home to some of the world’s top technology enterprises like Tencent Holdings. The southern technology powerhouse provided the impetus and foundation for Ho to pursue his dream and get his project off the ground. It gave birth to his startup, Add Care.

Ho is among a pack of Hong Kong entrepreneurs turning their aspirations into reality in Shenzhen, a city at the heart of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area’s integration that is creating unprecedented opportunities for budding firms, especially in technology.

Embracing opportunity

The crux came on July 1, 2017, with the rollout of the Framework Agreement on Deepening Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Cooperation in the Development of the Greater Bay Area, which offered Hong Kong people working or doing business in Guangdong province greater support from the local authorities.

Add Care got the nod from the Shenzhen municipal government to move into the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Youth Innovation and Entrepreneurship Workshop in Futian district in 2018. It took off in the following years through incentives like rent discounts, media exposure, and access to talent recruitment channels, as well as production facilities and data resources.

Ready funding and networking resources with venture capital and angel investors are abundant. Shenzhen also introduced favorable policies, including cutting taxes on startups, to push innovation development.

Add Care’s newest product was registered as a Class III medical device for blood glucose tests with the National Medical Products Administration in 2023. It passed the registration review and obtained ethical approval from a hospital, paving the way for clinical trials.

Currently, Shenzhen has more than 10 innovation and entrepreneurship bases for young people from the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, including the Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Youth Innovation and Entrepreneur Hub (E-hub).  

Gary Tang Kiu-cho from Hong Kong also launched his startup in the hub, providing students with tailor-made academic plans by leveraging artificial intelligence. His goal is to reduce the pressure on both teachers and students by leveraging AI and other cutting-edge technologies.

Before proceeding to Qianhai, Tang was running a similar enterprise in Hong Kong, but then, his efforts to establish a professional team were hindered by the city’s high rental and labor costs. The E-hub offers abundant network resources and policies that are conducive to business, he says.

Shenzhen’s supportive role

The hub’s comprehensive industry chain proved to be a boon to Tang’s career. His company needed AI technologies to set up a targeted learning system and voice recording technology to produce course videos, both of which he was able to find through partnerships in the hub.

Having gained entrepreneurial experience in Shenzhen, Tang is more confident about succeeding, especially with a professional team supporting him. He sees this experience as a valuable advantage in overcoming the initial challenges he faced when starting out in Hong Kong.

Looking ahead, Tang says that while the Chinese mainland’s education market is highly competitive, his extensive experience with overseas education models puts him in a good place to explore international opportunities. He is now planning to establish a branch at Hong Kong’s Cyberport as a springboard for overseas expansion.

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Tsang Yee, founder of the Shenzhen 708090 Entrepreneur Club, a co-working space, says most Hong Kong people have yet to realize the pros of technological entrepreneurship in Shenzhen, as many of those heading to the China’s southern boomtown are merely trying to become social media influencers.

To the older generation of Hong Kong people, the most popular professions in the SAR have been in the medical, legal, financial, and real estate sectors. Few Hong Kong people traditionally sought work in the technology sector after graduation, says Tsang, noting that the HKSAR government has begun promoting science, technology, engineering and mathematics in schools.

The current era calls for young Hong Kong people with a passion for science and technology to grasp the opportunities arising from the integration of Shenzhen and Hong Kong, allowing them to leverage Shenzhen’s beneficial policies, as well as the growth potential of technology, along their entrepreneurial journey, Tsang says.

Contact the writer at thor_wu@chinadailyhk.com