HKEX Biotech Week opened this afternoon with some very special guests: Nobel and Turing laureates!
HKEX Chief Executive Charles Li welcomed the visitors to Hong Kong to kickoff Biotech Week, followed on stage by Hong Kong SAR Financial Secretary Paul Chan, the Chairman of both the Greater Bay Area Homeland Investments Limited and China Resources Group Fu Yuning, as well as the Founding Partner of Ausvic Capital Chen Ping. The speakers shared their excitement over Hong Kong’s potential as a global biotech hub as well as the challenges that lie ahead.
Nobel Prize Laureate Prof. Aaron Ciechanover delivered a keynote speech on the revolution of personalised medicine, which is being driven by technology. He said we are on the cusp of an exciting era in which the prevention of illness, early detection and efficient treatment of disease can be personalised for individual patients. This isn’t some future dream, either; Ciechanover said it’s already a reality, with well-documented examples of interventions in human health earlier and more effectively than ever before.
Turing Award Laureate Prof. Joseph Sifakis said in his keynote speech that the role of artificial intelligence, or AI, will depend on choices we make about when, where and how it should be used. Making informed decisions will require a high level of social awareness and sense of political responsibility, as it involves developing tools capable of evaluating trust. Building autonomous systems that can be trusted by humans involves engagement far beyond the AI and scientific communities.
The day closed out with some roundtable discussions on Hong Kong’s development as a biotech hub and the city’s role in the Greater Bay Area, an economic zone covering the cities around the Pearl River Delta.
The talk today was a great beginning to the conference. It was co-organised by HKEX, Greater Bay Area Homeland Investments Limited and Ausvic Capital. The Biotech Summit begins tomorrow at 9am Hong Kong Time. It can be watched live online at hkex.group/biotech.
