Hong Kong’s Smart Government Innovation Lab has been putting out a slew of innovations develops by its various incubatees.
Today, one of its supported firms developed a solution which is now ready to be acquired by other firms, government agencies and academic institutions.
Solution description
The firm is an AI solution company focusing on deep learning and natural language processing.
With a team of over 40 engineers and data scientists based in Hong Kong, it is one of the portfolio companies of Pacific Century Group which also owns PCCW, FWD Insurance and PineBridge.
They are also under Cyberport’s incubation program. In the last two years, the firm has successfully implemented AI solution with more than 10 financial institutions including investment banks, commercial banks and other financial institutions.
One of its focuses is a document intelligence solution. By leveraging a proprietary AI model, the solution can recognise the pattern and layout of various electronic document type and extract insight and user-defined knowledge from it.
For example, the solution can extract specific accounting items in a financial statement and generate analytics based on the extracted information.
Application Areas
The technology can be applied in the areas of Commerce and Industry, Development as well as Finance.
Technologies Used
The solution employs Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cloud Computing, Data Analytics, Deep Learning, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing as well as Robotic Process Automation.
Use case
With fine-tuning of the existing solution, the firm can build an end-to-end solution to improve the process in the public services domain.
The government need to handle a sizable amount of forms and documents daily and the solution can help:
- increase the efficiency in handling these documents
- enhance the accuracy of processing these documents
- identify pattern lies in these documents and provides insights
For example, the solution can apply an AI verification model to check the information extracted from the application form and notify applicants for potential errors.
The solution can also perform big data analysis to identify the pattern of deceptive information for all the information submitted and flag out relevant new cases to officers to further investigate.
About the Smart Government Innovation Lab
In 2018, the Government established the Smart Government Innovation Lab to explore hi-tech products such as AI and relevant technologies, including machine learning, big data analytics, cognitive systems and intelligent agent, as well as blockchain and robotics from firms, especially local start-ups.
The Lab is always on the lookout for innovation and technology (I&T) solutions that are conducive to enhancing public services or their operational effectiveness.
I&T suppliers are encouraged to regularly visit the Lab’s website to check on the current business and operational needs in public service delivery and propose innovative solutions or product suggestions to address them.
Enabling the tech sector to flourish
According to a recent press release, the HKSAR Government announced that the Innovation & Technology Commission launched enhancement measures for the Technology Voucher Programme.
The commission said the move is to further assist enterprises and organisations in making use of technology to improve their business operations and enhance their competitiveness.
Starting from 1 April 2020, the Government’s funding ratio for each project under the programme will be raised from two-thirds to three-quarters.
The funding ceiling per applicant will be increased from $400,000 to $600,000 and the maximum number of approved projects will also be increased from four to six.
Under the Innovation & Technology Fund, the programme aims to subsidise local enterprises and organisations to use technological services and solutions to improve productivity or upgrade or transform their business processes.
