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 Technology 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.