HKPC Inno Space Opens to Support Hong Kong Startup Ecosystem — All You Need to Know about Inno Space

Inno Space offers a combination of mentorship, industrial-grade equipment and business support for startups

So… you have test-run your ideas past your friends, now you need to build a prototype as one final step to show to potential customers and investors before you can scale up. Who can you turn to?

Inno Space established by the Hong Kong Productivity Council (“HKPC”) [i]may provide the missing puzzle piece in startup ecosystem, providing business support + mentorship + hardware support before startups can take off.

“We were appointed by former Chief Executive, Mr C Y Leung in his policy address in 2017 to build an Inno Space to foster a culture of creativity and innovation in the community,” said Mrs Agnes Mak, Executive Director of HKPC.

In terms of hardware support, Inno Space allows access to industrial-grade production facilities otherwise not available to startups because of cost and production volume issues.

“Most startups find it hard to scale up as they haven’t reached the minimum production volume of factories. However, they can access these facilities at our centre at affordable prices as we are a non-profit organization.”

Inno Space itself boasts an 8,000 sq-ft-facility, housing laser printer, titanium metal printer and 3D printer to help startups from all walks of life, e.g. environmental industries, electronics, IT, robotics and A.I. etc. Inno Space also has product testing machines — the ultimate litmus test to see if your product is customer-ready. “If you wish to test if your product can last three years, we have accelerator machines to mimic three year’s wear and tear,” explained Mrs Mak.

Inno Space is prepared to provide business support for issues that start-ups face from ideation to fruition. “We have a team of multi-disciplinary engineers and industry experts working on-site and can provide the know-how to ensure startups’ products are of good quality,” said Mrs Mak. “We are the implementation agent of the HK Government’s Patent Application Grant up to HKD 250,000,” said Mrs Mak.

Perhaps what is most attractive of all is that Inno Space provides connections to Hong Kong companies in Pearl River Delta and venture capital companies, inadvertently may catapult startups to mainland China market. “Once the product prototypes are mature, we can refer selected companies to Hong Kong companies in Pearl River Delta to help them expand in China.” remarked Mrs Mak. “Product prototypes will also be displayed in the centre and shown to venture capital companies,” said Mrs Mak.

Apart from startups, Inno Space also welcome collaboration with other players in the startup ecosystem and beyond. Inno Space offers reciprocal membership with partner organisations, and collaborates with universities such as MEMSI[ii] accelerator programme organized by MIT, and welcome speakers to speak on entrepreneurship.

Interested to join Inno Space? Here are three types of membership offered. For further details on Inno Space, or to join as members / partner organizations, please contact Stephanie Huang, Centre Manager of Inno Space, at tel.: (852) 2788 6118 or email: innospace@hkpc.org

[i] Inno Space was opened on 27th October 2017 by Mr Nicholas Yang, Secretary for Innovation and Technology, Mr Wily Lin, Chairman of HKPC, Mr Cheuk Wing-Hing Permanent Secretary for Innovation and Technology, Ms Anne Choi, Commissioner for Innovation and Technology and Mrs Agnes Mak, Executive Director of HKPC.

[ii] MEMSI, is a two-week Startup Bootcamp in Hong Kong to help product-based startups to gain hardware and software building skills. http://memsi.mit.edu/