Speakers

Thematic Session
The Belt and Road Initiative: Digital Framework for Connecting Smart Cities

Dr Frank Tong
Chief Executive Officer, The Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute

Dr. Frank Tong Fuk-kay is the Chief Executive Officer of Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI), a HKSAR Government subvention organisation with information and communications technologies (ICT) as its main focused area for research and development.

Dr. Tong oversees the development and operations of the research institute. He has set clear and ambitious strategies for the organisation since his taking the helm at ASTRI in 2014. He has identified Fintech as ASTRI’s key initiative, followed by intelligent manufacturing, next generation network and health technologies as some other focus areas at ASTRI. These ICT technologies form the building blocks for smart city and beyond. Over the past two years, Frank has built many needed infrastructures and platforms in form of joint laboratories and R&D centres with government, universities, and industry partners, thus facilitating more R&D collaborations and talent development in Hong Kong, in the meantime, bridging the gap between applied research and industry needs. Under his leadership, ASTRI has entered close collaborations with Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Hong Kong Police Force, Hong Kong Airport Authority, The University of Hong Kong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Beijing Institute of Collaborative Innovation, HSBC, Bank of China, and many private enterprises.

Prior to joining ASTRI, Dr. Tong has assumed various executive roles in high-technology business, starting as a researcher and as a professor at IBM Research (1987 to 1996) and at CUHK (1996 to 2004), respectively. Between 2001 to 2004, he was seconded from CUHK to ASTRI as Vice President of the Photonics Group at which he led his group spun off successfully and joined SAE Magnetics (2004 to 2013), a wholly owned subsidiary of TDK. The spin-off was one of the most successful commercialisation achievements in the history of ASTRI. Many of the original team members have progressed to executive positions in major photonics enterprises in Mainland and elsewhere. From 2013 to 2014, he joined Hisense Broadband Multimedia Technologies focusing on merger and acquisition of technology companies, and served as the Chief Executive Officer of the acquired company afterwards.

Frank was born in Hong Kong and had his primary and secondary education at La Salle College. He obtained BA and MA degrees respectively from UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara, and PhM and PhD from Columbia University. His thesis work was conducted at MIT Lincoln Laboratories. Over his research career, he has published about 200 articles and 19 patents. Frank is very active in community service, serving various advisory roles in including charity foundation, universities, scholarship schemes, and other government bureaus and departments.