Eric Yeung's 40-year journey to the smart city | 楊全盛：玩足電腦40年

Eric Yeung's 40-year journey to the smart city

"I was in primary 1 when I started learning computer programming," said Eric Yeung with a shy smile. The IT entrepreneur was overwhelmed with excitement whenever he spoke of computers and innovation technologies. Though born in a traditional Chaozhou bakery family, he chose to found his IT company instead of inheriting the family business 20 years ago. Since 2016, he has even assumed a new role as the convener of the Smart City Consortium (SCC), regardless of how many industry seminars and policy meetings he had to attend. The question is, what carried him so far?

Self-study to lay the IT foundations

Eric's affection for computers came from his elder brother. "I would not have gone this far if he wasn't there. It was he who brought me to computers and the IT industry." While Eric's primary school classmates were reading comics, the little boy was playing with his brother's Mac, which was the 1980's model that looked exactly like an astronaut's helmet. In Secondary 3, Eric spent his leisure time as a part-time programmer and learnt the invoicing system. Soon his teachers discovered his talent and gave him a special duty, which was to compile a digital track table for the school sport's day. Before that, teachers had to mess around with drawing tables with their own hands. 

"At that time, I was completely wrapped up in programming," he recalled that he joined the Hong Kong programming competition he had joined in Secondary 5 with excitement," and I believed I was capable of creating something." During the competition, he created his first computer mini-game and became determined to study computer science in university. It was a difficult goal because there was no IT subject in his secondary school. However, Eric became the first student to self-study IT and attained an A grade in the open exam to enroll in computer science at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. 

Walking along a narrow path 

Coming from a family of successive Chaozhou bakers, Eric did not have to venture into a new business, but he did. Before graduation in 1999, he co-founded his first software company with his elder brother. They had a good start but the company closed down after two years due to the dot-com bubble burst in 2001. 

These ups and downs upset Eric a lot, "but I have never thought of returning to the bakery," he chuckled, "and my family knew it well." He later reflected on this bitter experience, "I misinterpreted business as interest, but after all business is business." Although interest is important in maintaining work momentum, he realized the importance of discerning the market. Shortly after closing the first company, he met his current partner and started his second business. The persistent young entrepreneur now understands how to build a strong foundation and mitigate risks, and as such, his company sustains.

Hong Kong in mind, smart city in view

After the business reaching a steady state, Eric started to think of connecting with people who are passionate about innovation to create greater synergy for smart city development. Knowing that the Energizing Kowloon East scheme was in full swing, he formed an expert panel with a dozen of IT professionals and submitted a development proposal to the Government. The panel soon pooled talents who were interested in a smart city and was reorganized into the Smart City Consortium (SCC) last year, in which Eric became the convener. 

Leading an expert group is no less difficult than starting a business for Eric. "At the beginning people didn’t recognize what the SCC is, they even lacked an idea of what smart city means," he gave a wry smile. Therefore, the SCC focused on pooling sectors of the IT industry, first by organizing seminars of all sizes as well as field trips to smart cities in the world. The SCC also signed memorandum of understandings (MoU) with various countries and organizations, one of them was the Smart City Development Alliance of China, which enables Hong Kong professionals to formulate standards of smart city development in China. After a year, the SCC has operated smoothly and expanded into an organization which spans 17 committees and special interest groups, has signed over 10 MoUs and connected with more than 100 technology enterprises.  

Public expenditure must serve its purpose

Apart from strengthening connections with overseas organizations, Eric hoped that the SCC can take up a bridging role in the IT industry. "There are lots of excellent research projects in Hong Kong, but they have not yet been commercialized and turned into real products." The key solution, as Eric claimed, was not so much onon subsidies but a lack of powerful lobby group, which the SCC has aspired to be. He cited a local company which was planning to retrofit all telephone booths in Hong Kong by installing Wi-Fi hotspots and information panels for better access of public information, payments and even online shopping. "This bold idea requires a lot of legislative amendments, for instance no advertisements are currently allowed on these booths, and they are operated by different service providers. These are challenges the SCC has to consider and deal with." 

A few years ago, New York city started a similar plan called LinkNYC. NYC took just one year to retrofit all the telephone booths and astonishingly the city Government didn’t even pay a single dollar for it. What is more, service providers who paid the retrofitting cost agreed to update services regularly, thus making a three-win situation for the government, industry and citizens. "Therefore, increasing public expenditure may not be the most efficient way to develop smart cities, the government can simply set rules and let companies take over the work," Eric gave a sudden grin, "Hong Kong people are smart, they are always ready to strike gold."

*The article is published in the Smart Vision on 29 May, 2017. 

楊全盛：玩足電腦40年

提起電腦及創新科技，楊全盛（Eric）瞬間化身一位「機癡」，一臉雀躍地分享與電腦結下的不解緣。出身潮州餅家的他沒有繼承家族生意，反而選擇創辦IT公司，一做20多年。一年前他更成為智慧城市聯盟的召集人，生活多了各項業界研討會及政策會議。問到甚麼時候發現喜歡電腦？「小一」，Eric略微靦腆地說，「那時我已玩programming了。」

自學電腦知識  為IT路奠下基礎

Eric對電腦的熱愛，全靠大哥啟發，「無他就無我，是他帶我自小接觸電腦，帶我入行」。當小學同學還在看連環圖時，Eric已在玩哥哥的蘋果電腦，那時還是80年代，蘋果的電腦還像太空人頭盔一樣笨重。到中三時，他利用課餘時間做程式編寫員，學習操作進銷存系統。當時老師也注意到他的電腦才能，放手讓他用電腦編排陸運會賽程及賽道表，取代以往用人手逐行編寫的麻煩。

「當時真是做到廢寢忘餐，認為自己有能力寫出東西來。」他憶述中五參加的全港編寫程式比賽時仍難掩興奮。在那次比賽中，他寫了個人第一個遊戲，同時確定了修讀電腦科學的目標。雖然學校沒有電腦科，他卻成為全校首位自修電腦科的學生，最後更輕鬆奪A入讀中文大學計算機科學系。

拒當餅店少東  創業一波三折

身為有名的潮州餅店少東，楊全盛大可不必辛苦「捱世界」，但是他卻決定開闢自己的道路。1999年，他大學尚未畢業便與哥哥創立他們第一間軟件公司。創業初期生意尚算順利，然而不到兩年的時間，卻遇上科網股爆破，最終公司也被逼倒閉。

首次創業一波三折，給Eric的衝擊自然不小，「但我從沒想過要回去繼承父業」，他笑道，「家人都十分清楚這一點」。痛定思痛，他說自己其實有不少體會，「當時純粹由興趣出發，忘記了生意就是生意」，雖然說做事應由興趣出發，但他明白到配合市場亦很重要。經歷高山低谷，他遇上現時的業務夥伴，很快便決定重新出發，開展第二輪業務。這一次他學會了打穩根基及分散風險，公司也一直營運至今。

放眼社會 望建智慧城市

在公司業務穩定以後，Eric開始思考如何連繫其他對創新科技有熱誠的人。近年起動九龍東計劃進行得如火如荼，他便在2015年和10多個資訊科技界人士自發組成專家小組，向政府提交發展建議。小組後來匯聚了愈來愈多有志參與智慧城市建設的專家學者，並在去年正式組成智慧城市聯盟，由Eric擔任召集人。

與創業一樣，他指聯盟開始時處境也十分艱難。他笑說「最初公眾不認識智慧城市聯盟，甚至不知道甚麼是智慧城市」，因此聯盟過去一年，舉辦了大大小小的研討會，同時組團到世界各地的智慧城市考察，凝聚業內人士。聯盟更先後和不同國家及組織簽訂合作備忘錄，例如與中國智慧城市聯盟合作，推動香港專家參與制訂中國智慧城市標準等。經過一年努力，聯盟已擴展至擁有17個委員會、與10多個地區簽訂了合作備忘，並連繫了百多間科技企業，總體可算上了軌道。

創科補助須用得其所

除了加強和海外地區的連繫外，Eric希望聯盟可以真正做到創科界的發展橋樑。「香港有很多出色的研究，但它們都『落唔到地』，未能商業化」，Eric認為除了資金援助外，更重要是有人推動政府的政策及改變法規，而聯盟正可以發揮這角色。他舉例指有本地企業希望更新全港電話亭，除了全綫加裝Wi-Fi熱點外，更計劃加設互動資訊面板，讓市民可查閱政府資訊、繳費甚至網購等。「但這個建議其實要改很多法例，例如電話亭現時由不同營運商管理，而且是不准賣廣告的，聯盟的角色就是思考如何推動這些法規的改變。」

紐約早前也開展了類似的LinkNYC計劃。計劃不但只花了一年便完成，市政府更不用花一分一毫，當地承辦商又會不時添加最新服務，令政府、商界及市民一同受惠。「因此加大公共開支未必是最有效率的方式，不如由政府訂定規則，再由私人企業承擔更理想。」Eric笑說，「香港人其實好醒，只要有空間，他們就會有方法做。」

*原文刊於《Smart Vision 智城》 2017年5月29日。