GIES 2022 Event Archive

Dr. Chai assumed the position of Chairman of Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation in July 2018. In the same year, he was awarded the Bronze Bauhinia Star (BBS) by the HKSAR Chief Executive commending his outstanding contributions to the promotion of innovation and technology development in Hong Kong, and was conferred a University Fellow by Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He was named an Honorary Fellow of City University of Hong Kong in 2022, and appointed as a Justice of the Peace in 2021. He received the Young Industrialist Award of Hong Kong in 2004. Dr. Chai graduated with a Bachelor of Science from Rochester Institute of Technology (USA) in 1988, and completed an Executive MBA program (EMBA) at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2007. In 2010, he was awarded the Doctor of Engineering (EngD) from the City University of Hong Kong.

Mr. Chua Hoi Wai is the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Council of Social Service (HKCSS), which represents over 500 non-governmental social services organisations. The HKCSS aims at building a socially sustainable society through enhancing the development of social services and policies.  The HKCSS provides a joint platform for cross-sectoral collaboration and social innovation, and has championed gerontechnology and transitional social housing in recent years.

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 Advisory Committee on Mental Health, the Elderly Commission, and the Steering Committee on Primary Healthcare Development.

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).

Mr Ganbold Baasanjav is the Head of Office of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) East and North-East Asia Office based in Incheon, Korea. Prior to joining ESCAP in 2019, Mr Ganbold worked extensively for the government of Mongolia as a career diplomat, serving as Ambassador to the Republic of Korea (2013-2018) and Vietnam (2004-2008), and more recently as the Ambassador-at-large at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Sustainable Development.

He earned his BA in International Relations from Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), Russia, MA in Political Science from University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA, and PhD in Law from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Korea.

Ms Daryl J. Cady has served as the Chief Executive Officer at Hospice of Southern Maine, the US since 2014. Prior to joining Hospice of Southern Maine, Ms Cady served as the Chief Financial Officer at Home Health & Hospice Care in Merrimack, New Hampshire and spent several years as a finance and business executive. She has also served on several health care and business boards in both New Hampshire and Maine. She has strong financial, clinical and operational acumen and a strong personal interest in end-of-life care.

Dr Priyanka Vandersman is a registered nurse and digital health technology researcher. She is the research fellow for the End of Life Directions in Aged Care (ELDAC) Project at Flinders University, Australia. Her work focuses on developing, implementing, and evaluating an evidence based palliative care digital dashboard for the Australian aged care sector.

Ms Kristy Harper is the Innovation and Growth Manager at iLA, a for-purpose organisation that supports people across Australia through assessment, navigation, and capacity building initiatives – with specific focus on older people, people with a disability, and the service providers that serve these groups. In this role Ms Harper has been instrumental in the development of two digital innovations, AT Chat - a peer-led, co-designed, community for assistive technology (AT) users to share information and lived experience about AT, and LiveUp, a website and self-assessment tool designed to provide free, independent, and easily accessible information and advice to older consumers to improve their access to AT, better enabling them to maintain or improve their independence at home.

Mr Ivan Kjær Lauridsen is the Head of Health and Assisted Living Technology, Aarhus Municipality in Denmark. Since 2011, he has been entirely focused on health and assisted technology / welfare-technology as head of the department, also covering DokkX, an interactive exhibition of health and assisted living technologies and the supply of special aids to Aarhus Municipality. Mr. Ivan Kjær Lauridsen’s primary focus has been to scale up the use of special aids and health and assisted technologies/welfare technology to create value on four bottom lines: Citizens self-reliability and quality of life, improvement of the working environment, economic efficiency and business promotion in the field.

Dr Lakshmi Supriya is a Patent Analytics Officer in the Technology and Innovation Support Division at WIPO. She supports patent analytics activities at WIPO including preparing patent landscape reports, and delivering trainings. Prior to joining WIPO, she worked at a leading law firm in India drafting patent applications, patent prosecution, and patent searches, and is a registered Indian Patent Agent.

Dr Supriya has a PhD in Polymer Science and Engineering from Virginia Tech, USA, and has more than a decade of experience in R&D in global organizations like Intel and Saint Gobain, and several startups in the USA and India.

Dr Lim Choon-guan is a psychiatrist, senior consultant and deputy chief of the Department of Developmental Psychiatry at the Institute of Mental Health, Singapore. He obtained his Master in Medicine (Psychiatry) in 2005 and completed a fellowship with the ADHD Clinic at the Hospital for Sick Children in 2010. He is an adjunct assistant professor with the Duke-National University of Singapore (NUS) Graduate Medical School and the National Technological University. Dr Lim’s research interests include ADHD and child mental health. He is also a senior editor with the peer-reviewed open-access journal ‘Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health’.

Dr Hans Supèr is currently an ICREA Research professor at the University of Barcelona, and co-founder and CTO of Braingaze. He has over 20 years of experience in R&D into the biology of the visual system, psychology of vision and attention, and computer modelling. He has publications in the highest-ranking journals like Science, Nature Neuroscience, Proc. Natl Acad Science USA. He discovered a link between eye vergence movements and attention, in which this patented technology is exploited by Braingaze.

Dr Supèr received his PhD in Neurobiology at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands.

Dr Randy Kulman is the founder and President of LearningWorks for Kids, an educational technology company that specializes in using video games to teach executive-functioning and academic skills. His latest project is a small-group executive function tutoring program that uses games such as Minecraft and Roblox to practise and improve executive functions.

He serves on advisory boards for the Boston Celtics and ADDitude magazine. He is also the author of three books: Train Your Brain for Success: A Teenager’s Guide to Executive Functions, Playing Smarter in a Digital World, and The Gaming Overload Workbook for Teens.

Dr Tom Luyten is currently working as a senior lecturer at the Maastricht Institute of Arts and researcher at the Research Centre for Technology Driven Art at Zuyd University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands. He is also the creative director for a multitude of projects at the Qeske Community, active as a media artist and co-owner of Vensterr, a company that produces products for meaningful experiences in care.

Dr Luyten completed his PhD on  "interactive art in elderly care" at Maastricht University, the Netherlands.

Ms Sarah Ticho is the founder and director of Hatsumi, UK, a creative participatory tool created to help people communicate and understand the embodied experience of pain and emotion using 3D drawing and sound. She is a serial founder, entrepreneur and end of life doula, working at the intersection of XR, healthcare and arts. She creates immersive experiences and enables public policy to bring together practitioners across academia, healthcare and the creative industries to create an equitable and just future for immersive technology. She is also the co-founder of the XR Health Alliance, supporting the adoption of VR in healthcare across the UK.

Tracy Harwood is the Professor of Digital Culture at the Institute of Creative Technologies, De Montfort University, Leicester (UK). She is also the co-founder and director of the Art AI Festival and director of the university's Usability Lab. Alongside this, she is the co-host on an international podcast on real-time filmmaking and machinima and is a Trustee of the Leicester-based diversity led arts charity, Serendipity. Prof Harwood's research is focused on emergent technologies and their applications in user/consumer, industry and market contexts. Recent research has looked at the potential for creative applications of artificial intelligence in the care of older people and a current interest is the potential for affective robotics in care settings.

Mrs Jessica Chamba has been an Associate Partner at Ernst & Young Consulting, France since 2019, leading teams working in the health and social services sector. She is an expert in the following public policies: long-term care / support to elderly people, support to disabled people, child protection, child care, social services and inclusion.

Mrs Carina Dantas is the Chief Executive Officer of SHINE 2Europe, Portugal as well as the Chair of COST Action NET4Age-Friendly, the Coordinator of the Stakeholders Network SHAFE-Smart Healthy Age-friendly Environments and the Vice-President of European Covenant on Demographic Change. She is the evaluator/reviewer for the European Commission, Eureka, AAL, EIT; the Committee Member CEN/CENELEC-TC428 and an expert developing the EU Ethics framework for the ICT Profession and Guidelines for Ethics, Data Privacy and Security -AAL Programme. She is also the Ethics Board Member of Valuecare and Beamer, the Advisory Board Member of ReHyb, VisuAAL, PROCare4Life, Tactile, Homes4life, and the reviewer of ICF Journal, Geriatrics and MDPI.

As a graduate of Pomona College (BA) and the University of California, Berkeley (PhD), Dr Allison Sekuler holds faculty positions at the University of Toronto and McMaster University. Her clinical and translational research aims to develop methods to prevent, detect, and treat age-related sensory and cognitive decline; and her foundational research uses behavioural and neuroimaging approaches to understand how the brain processes visual information, with specific interests in face perception, motion processing, perceptual learning, neural plasticity, aging, and neurotechnology.

Dr Sekuler has won numerous national and international awards for research, teaching, and leadership, including serving as the country’s first Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience and recently being named one of WXN's Top 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada (2019).

Dr Tanya Petrovich is the Business Innovation Manager at Dementia Australia. She completed studies in Genetics at University of Melbourne and Post-Doctoral studies at the Marie Curie Research Institute, UK. She has spent many years teaching in the fields of Science, and Health Science. She joined Dementia Australia in 2008 and leads the team in applying innovations in technology to dementia care. This includes the Virtual Dementia Experience, Enabling EDIE and Talk with Ted the AI Avatar.

Ms Marianne Barland has been with the Norwegian Board of Technology since 2008 and has worked on several projects concerning health care and technology, as well as development of the Boards methods, such as scenario development, foresight and citizen involvement.

She holds a master degree in European studies of Science and Technology from the University of Oslo and the University of Maastricht.

Dr Katharine Forth is a neuroscientist and founder and CEO of ZIBRIO, an empowering health device that monitors balance to reduce fall-related accidents in older adults. She previously created award-winning balance training programs for older adults, and was awarded the Young investigator Award at the World Expo 2000 for research into that work.

She completed her post-doctoral work at NASA and during that time co-invented the ZIBRIO technology, originally for astronauts on the moon, to start her company and is on a mission to save the world from falling down.

Dr Nathan Estrada is the VP of Clinical for Nymbl Science and a subject matter expert on older adult balance training and fall prevention. He is a physical therapist by training and received his Doctorate in Physical Therapy from University of Colorado Denver Health Science Center, where he also received the Hubert J. Levy Humanitarian Award in 2007.

Dr Lim Meng-hui is an academician-turned entrepreneur, who has a strong passion in creating social impact with AI technology. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Electronic Engineering from Yonsei University, South Korea in 2012. He then became a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and subsequently a Research Assistant Professor at Hong Kong Baptist University. In 2017, he founded SmartPeep, a health-tech company that develops AI solutions to help nurses and caregivers to keep seniors safe.

As Director of Research and Development for Sleeptite, Dr Andrew Tucker oversees all aspects of product development and research programs within the company. With over 18 years of experience in institutional R&D, industry innovation, and commercialisation, he has developed several solutions, devices, and capabilities in the areas of sleep health, wellbeing, performance, and occupational safety. Andrew has also held senior executive roles across industry-research consortia, university and health-tech start-up sectors. Andrew holds a PhD in Psychophysiology and continues to be involved in applied research through an adjunct academic appointment at the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health at Monash University.

Dr Christoffer Rinder Larsen is a trained physiotherapist with a Master in Clinical Science and Technology and a Master in Biomedical Design. In recent years, he has been working with different projects of design and testing assistive technologies into the Rehabilitation area from Aarhus Municipality. He has special experience in designing, developing and implementing behaviour-regulating technology with self-monitoring and tracking of physical activity and health data through user-driven innovation.

He currently works as a project manager for a Nordic public-private innovation project called "sleep monitoring" with support from Nordic Innovation on designing and testing sleep monitoring equipment for elderly citizens in nursing homes.

Dr Andrew Vakulin is NHMRC Career Development Fellow, Associate Professor based at the Adelaide Institute for Sleep Health, Flinders University. He has research interest and expertise in investigating the impact of sleep loss and sleep disorders on daytime sleepiness, sleep neurobiology and neurobehavioral function, particularly in relation to operational performance and motor vehicle accident risk. His research focuses on biomarker discovery to develop innovative ways to assess fitness to drive or work in patients with sleep disorders. He has also been leading the development of innovative online sleep health decision support tools and utilising new sleep monitoring technologies for simplified screening, diagnosis and management of sleep disorders.

Prof Catherine Bridge has a significant national and international reputation in the area of enabling environments and innovative technology relative to wellbeing and quality of life. She has been instrumental in researching the intersection of assistive technology and built environment interventions on human performance. Her housing research portfolio includes: research on housing and care; housing and health; older people and sustainability; accessibility of the built environment and extensive research on home modification interventions. Prof Bridge has also led two projects that have developed software for use by older people in assessing and changing their environment to improve their quality of life.

Mrs Bernadette Mitchell-Armstrong has over 15 years of international experience leading residential and community service management spanning neurological rehabilitation, aged care and disability services.

As Microsoft's APAC Leader for Cloud and AI business strategy, Mrs Pratima Amonkar focuses on supporting countries' sustainable economic growth through digital transformation. She leads the strategy, planning and programs to collaborate with customers, governments, industries, and communities to leverage the world’s largest and most trusted cloud infrastructure network. She also held leadership and P&L responsibilities at various technology companies like Rational Software, IBM, and Sun Microsystems, over the past 20 years.

Ms Elisabete Pitarma is a social and cultural developer working as a Project Manager at Innovation Department at Cáritas de Coimbra in Portugal. She has facilitated online and offline workshops in the context of her work, both internally and externally with workshop participants ranging from older people, informal carers, health and care professionals, researchers, technology providers and public authorities.

Mrs Lucy Ruck joined Business Disability Forum in 2014 and has been leading the Technology Taskforce since then, which have developed free resources, including the world-renowned Accessibility Maturity Model (AMM). She also manages the Customer Taskforce, Procurement Network and the Northern England Network. Her knowledge brings a combination of technical understanding, communication, and customer service skills, as well as a lived experience of disability of nearly 30 years.

Ms Michala Carney has worked for the Adult Community Services of Suffolk County Council for 29 years, including roles like Front Line Social Work Practitioner and Digital Care Advisor. She has a great passion for digital care and how it can support people to remain independent in their own homes for longer by blending with other care provisions and being used as a stand-alone service reducing the need for other care interventions.

Mr Hans Danneels is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Byteflies, a company with a mission to make virtual care available to all and has the ambition to become a world-leading partner for healthcare to make the transition to hospital@home.

He completed a PhD in micro-electronics at KU Leuven, focused on low power electronics for IoT, and worked at Nokia Digital Health in San Francisco. He was nominated by "De Tijd" as 1 of 50 innovators to watch together with co-founder Hans De Clercq.

Mr Sun was appointed as the Secretary for Labour and Welfare on 1 July 2022. Mr Sun joined the Administrative Service in 1994 and rose to the rank of Administrative Officer Staff Grade A in 2022. He has served in various bureaux and departments, including the former Finance Branch, the former Constitutional Affairs Bureau, the former Finance Bureau, the Home Affairs Department, the former Home Affairs Bureau, the Civil Service Bureau and the former Food and Health Bureau. He was appointed as Deputy Secretary for Food and Health (Health) in 2011, Head (Healthcare Planning and Development Office) in 2012, Deputy Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury (Financial Services) in 2017, and the Commissioner for Labour in 2020.

Dr Donald Li is a specialist in Family Medicine and private practice in Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Shanghai. He is the Chairman of Elderly Commission. He is the Immediate Past President of the World Organisation of Family Doctors (WONCA), Chairman of Action Committee Against Narcotics, Honorary Consultant of Department of Health, member of the Steering Committee on Primary Healthcare Development of Health Bureau and Censor of the Hong Kong College of Family Physicians. He is the Past President of Hong Kong Academy of Medicine.

One of Asia’s most respected higher education, health and philanthropic leaders, Gabriel Leung is known for his commitment to improving human capabilities, nurturing impactful innovation and building strong institutions. He is Executive Director (Charities and Community) of The Hong Kong Jockey Club overseeing its Charities Trust.

Gabriel’s career has straddled academe, public service and philanthropy. From 2013 to 2022, he was the longest-serving Dean of Medicine and inaugural Helen and Francis Zimmern Professor in Population Health at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). Formerly, he was Hong Kong's first Under Secretary for Food and Health and fifth Director of the Chief Executive's Office in government.

Gabriel’s research defined the epidemiology of three novel viral epidemics, namely SARS in 2003, H7N9 influenza in 2013 and most recently COVID-19. In government, he led Hong Kong's response against the 2009 influenza pandemic. He was founding co-director of HKU's World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Control and established the Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health (D24H) at the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park.

Duncan has committed to technology and innovation development for nearly 20 years. He is not only a tech entrepreneur but also a veteran investor, as well as an influential advocator of local I&T policies. He often speaks at forums and conferences to promote start-up culture and helps young entrepreneurs with workshops and mentorship.

Duncan is the President of the Hong Kong Information Technology Joint Council (HKITJC) and the Convenor of Innovate for Future, a think tank representing some of the leading technology start-ups in Hong Kong. He is also a Non-official Member of the Digital Economy Development Committee, the Chairman of HKTDC Information & Communications Technology (ICT) Services Advisory Committee and the Chairman of Information Technology Services Committee of the Hospital Authority.

Helen So leads the Arts Innovation team in policy research and advocacy at Our Hong Kong Foundation, the largest public policy thinktank in Hong Kong. Her public service includes various advisory roles appointed by the Hong Kong Government: currently serving as Member of the Advisory Committee on Arts Development, and Member of the Museum Advisory Committee. She is also the Director of the Hong Kong Palace Museum Board under the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority.

She holds a Master of Studies (MSt) in Musicology & Ethnomusicology at the University of Oxford. She is a cellist and continues to perform today.

Dr Jamie Wong is the palliative care Resident Doctor of Jockey Club Home for Hospice, Hong Kong. She was graduated from The Chinese University of Hong Kong Medical School in 1992. She got her MSc Degree of Clinical Gerontology CUHK in 2000. She has been working in palliative care field for over twenty years. She was previously working in Hospital Authority Bradbury Hospice. She is dedicated to palliative care field and has wide experiences in taking care of terminally ill patient. She also involved in teaching and promoting hospice care to the community.

Dr Kenny Chui is the Deputy General Manager at Jockey Club Centre for Positive Ageing, Hong Kong and Co-Director of Dementia Studies Programme in The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). He is also an honorary lecturer in the University of Stirling (UoS), United Kingdom and received his PhD in CUHK. He got three Masters degrees in Clinical Gerontology from CUHK, Dementia Studies from the UoS and Social Service Management from CUHK. He was the Winner of Social Impact Award in British Council and was awarded Teacher of the Year in the Faculty of Medicine, CUHK in 2016. He promotes the concept of DemenTitude® and focus on the research of voice of people with dementia.

Ms Ng Yuk-mun is a Hong Kong registered physiotherapist by profession. As a community physiotherapist, she is dedicated to integrating rehabilitation in aged care. Her expertise lies in preventive care, rehabilitation, and wellness. As Head of Allied Health and Primary Healthcare in The Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation, she leads the multidisciplinary team to build service model for various rehabilitation services and projects for persons with disabilities and chronic diseases. Apart from this, she serves currently as a Committee Member of Community Rehabilitation and Primary Healthcare Working Group and Aquatic Physiotherapy Working Group in Hong Kong Physiotherapy Association. She is also a Committee Member of Exercise Is Medicine-HK (EIM-HK) Advisory Board.

Prof Ramin Nilforooshan is a professor in psychiatry at the University of Surrey (UK) and a consultant psychiatrist for older adults in Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. He is the director for R&D in his organization and is the Dementia Specialty Lead for Clinical Research Network in Kent, Surrey and Sussex. He is the Principal Investigator and Chief Investigator for numbers of national and international clinical trials and has considerable experience running clinical trials. He is also the Clinical Lead for Dementia Research Institute Care Research &Technology Imperial (UK).