Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Edmond Lai Shiao-bun joined HKPC in 2018 to lead the digital transformation, smart manufacturing and Mainland businesses of HKPC. Mr. Lai is an expert in Industry 4.0 (i4.0) and Enterprise 4.0 (e4.0) business transformation, as well as digital product development, with experience in local and overseas market development. He assumed the position of Member of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Hong Kong Industrial Artificial Intelligence & Robotics Centre (FLAIR) in 2019.

Mr. Lai worked in General Electric (GE) for more than 20 years. He successfully completed the management trainee programme in the information technology department of the multinational company, and then had also served in their internal audit and finance functions. He also spearheaded his expertise across other business units including aviation, capital, healthcare, plastics, power, transportation among various regions including Greater China, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland, the United States. He also assumed regional and global responsibilities to drive the business growth for various industries, such as energy storage, mining, marine, rail, renewable energy, thermal power generation, and so on.

Mr. Lai held the Bachelor of Engineering (Computer Engineering) and Master of Philosophy (Computer Science) degrees from the University of Hong Kong.

Chief Operating Officer

Prof. Ge obtained his doctoral degree from Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2003. Before re-entered the campus, he worked as an engineer in Jardine and Swire joint venture being responsible for the system design and control algorithm development of the automation system at Super Terminal 1 in Hong Kong Airport. He worked as Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the NSF Industry/University Joint Centre of America later on. In 2004 he joined Hong Kong Productivity Council serving as Consultant, Senior Consultant, Principal Consultant and now is General Manager. In 2019, he engaged the establishment of Hong Kong Industrial Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Centre.

Prof. Ge has more than 30 years’ solid experience in the R&D and applications of artificial intelligence, robotics, big data, intelligent manufacturing and automation. He has undertaken over 20 R&D projects funded by Hong Kong ITF and the Mainland Science and Technology Fund. Moreover, he has provided application R&D and solutions to the industry and enterprises on intelligent systems, intelligent equipment, intelligent robots, digital modeling and analysis, and etc.. He provides consultancies on customized automation systems, advanced manufacturing solutions and intelligent product development to assist enterprises to establish and complete a series of digital, automatic and intelligent systems. Many of these are the first of this kind in Hong Kong so as to promote intelligent manufacturing, intelligent logistics, digitalization and the re-industrialization of Hong Kong.

Prof. Ge has a monograph and has published around 20 papers in reputable international journals. He owns more than 10 invention patents and more than 20 utility model patents. He is the Adjunct Professor at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Visiting Professor at Guizhou University, Adjunct Professor of Department of Advanced Design and Systems Engineering at City University of Hong Kong, Visiting Research Fellow at Shenzhen Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Manufacturing of CUHK, Senior Member of IEEE, and Fellow of HKIE.

In addition, Prof. Ge is serving the societies proactively, including Member of the Committee on Innovation, Technology and Industry Development of the HKSAR government, Chairman of the CAI Division of HKIE, Evaluation Committee Member of HKSTP Entrepreneurship And Development Program, Industry Committee Member of the Shenzhen Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Society, Member of Design Council of Hong Kong, Advisory Committee Member of CAD/HKIE, Expert Committee Member of Shenzhen Artificial Intelligence Application Innovation Service Center, Director of Shenzhen Western Returned Scholars Association, Director of Shenzhen Association for Artificial Intelligence, Director of Hong Kong Automation Technology Council, Director of Hong Kong Electrical Appliance Industries Association, Expert Committee Member of Shenzhen Robotics and Intelligent System, Senior Consultant of Institute of Measurement and Control Hong Kong Section, and so on.

Chief Technical Officer

Dr. Benny Drescher’s professional expertise lies in Industry 4.0, mechatronic product development, robotics, machine learning and data analytic technologies. He has worked with research institutes, corporate and medium-sized companies from machinery, automotive and manufacturing industries in Germany, USA, Japan and China.

Dr. Drescher serves as Director Technology at INC Invention Center Limited – supporting manufacturing companies in increasing shop floor efficiency by Industry 4.0 technologies. He is also Co-Founder and Managing Director of Technovation GmbH – a sensor and data analytics engineering firm for the manufacturing industry. In addition, Dr. Drescher co-founded Dronefence GmbH – a safety startup with patented technology for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.

He successfully implemented consulting, engineering and applied research projects with industrial clients at Fraunhofer IWU (Augsburg) and Technical University of Munich. His work resulted in more than 15 scientific publications and major contributions to two patents.

Dr. Drescher holds a B.Sc./M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and Ph.D. (Dr.-Ing.) in Mechanical Engineering from Technical University of Munich.