A Sino-Finnish conference and workshop recently took place in Suzhou of Jiangsu Province, with participants sharing on the latest development in health care and elderly care in both countries, exploring collaboration opportunities to satisfy the massive market needs in China.
“Finland has a wealth of experiences and know-how in providing cost-efficient elderly care with tools and gadgets developed with artificial intelligence (AI) and big data analytics capabilities,” said Mr. Edwin Ngoi, Founder and CEO, NgoiHealth, a Singaporean company with deep roots in Suzhou, Shanghai and other Yangtze Delta cities. “With China entering in an ageing society, we believe that the Finnish counterparts have a lot to share to the Chinese counterparts for the benefit of the Chinese people.”
“The Finnish experiences will most likely be adapted in China when applied but one thing is certain - they are sure to unleash an immeasurable impact in China when applied, considering the size of the population and the fact that elderly care is still rudimentary, sketchy and patchy,” he added.
Jointly convening the conference with Edwin Ngoi was Dr. Tiina Laiho, Innoboost Manager from Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences, another co-organizer of the conference cum workshop, which took place on 12-13 November. Innoboost is the Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences service offering that helps and supports companies, organizations, entrepreneurs and innovators in the commercialization of innovations.
About 50 people, which include 10 who flew in from Finland, and participants from Shanghai, Suzhou, Wuxi (also of Jiangsu Province) and Shaoxing of Zhejiang Province, attended the 2018 R&D InnoCamp Workshop.
Mr. Edwin Ngoi, founder and CEO of NgoiHealth (in the middle), posing in front of the Dao Valley building, in which the Suzhou Innovation Centre is to be located early next year, with the Finnish guests.
The conference also marked the soft opening of the Suzhou NgoiHealth International Innovation Centre and Haaga-Helia Research and Development Innovation Centre, which are to start operation in Dao Valley, a clustre of office buildings developed by Bu Bu Gao Group (SZ002251), a retailer and commercial real estate developer listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, early next year. The Centre will work to bring the best concepts and practices from Finland, the United States of America, Singapore and some other advanced countries by providing work spaces, seed funding, an international mentoring network and fund-raising assistance.
Mr. Li Naihe, Associate Professor from Shanghai Jiaotong University, also a member of the advisory council for NgoiHealth, gave a lecture on China’s artificial intelligence industry. He said that China’s investment in AI stands at “a staggering 60 per cent of the world’s total, according to a report by Qinghua University”, yet the industry is constrained by a lack of specialized talent despite having produced the world’s biggest number of AI-related research papers by country, and a preoccupation on AI application at the neglect of AI hardware and algorithms.
Among the Finnish speakers was Dr. Amir Dirin, Senior Lecturer from Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences. He gave an overview on Finland’s smart cities development and focused on his research project, a smart phone application that enables elderly houses, nurses and patients to be inter-connected, providing convenience, efficiency and quality to all these three parties.
Live debate and deep thinking were typical features of each group discussion. Mr. Edwin Ngoi, founder and CEO of NgoiHealth, sat in in a group discussion, which was chaired by Ms. Tiina Laiho (the first one on the right), Innoboost Manager from Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences,
The participants were organized into four groups to focus on health care, elderly care, a sport a sports town focusing on children town, and education, and went through an ideation process known as "Lean Service Creation" developed by the Finnish tech company Futurice. The LSC workshop was facilitated by Dr. Irmeli Pietilä, Senior lecturer at Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences, School of Vocational Teacher Education. The aim of the workshop was to help entrepreneurs take an usually vague entrepreneurial idea forward and lay down their next steps and action plans. For many of the Chinese participants, the process is a novice experience, as brainstorming now can be structured and managed like a negotiation or training session.
Representatives from Shanghai Huashan Hospital presenting their strategies on how to tackle dialysis by incorporating the Finnish practices, following the structured processes of Lean Service Creation, under the baton of Dr..Irmeli Pietilä, Futurice Senior lecturer at Haaga-Helia School of Vocational Teacher Education.
Meanwhile, the workshop afforded the Chinese participants a rare opportunity of learning firsthand how Finland has been integrating machine learning, AI and big data in health care and elderly care in real-life cases.
The positive response received from the participants prompted both workshop organizers to decide to plan for another event of the kind in May 2019 to drill down further on AI and big data’s application in health care and elderly care, on the occasion of the official opening of the Suzhou NgoiHealth International Innovation Centre and Haaga-Helia Research and Development Innovation Centre.
Live chats during tea breaks.
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The author Sam Gao is Vice-President of NHC Capital (Shanghai) Co Ltd., which works closely with Ngoi Healthcare to build innovative ecosystems targeting the health care and elderly care market.
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