1819T2 Hong Kong/Reflection/Day1

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Day 1
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Reflections
Student Name UBTech Tencent
Ayesha Aziz ALKAFF UBTech was extremely well prepared and enthusiastic to show their products. They embrace innovation and clearly diversifies their product as much as possible to cater to different markets and age groups. Tencent was truly an eye opening experience for me. It is clear why they dominate the global market, emphasising on the customer requirements and wants. They show no signs of slowing down, slowly but surely conquering different industries, and immensely succeeding in them.
Bernadine LYE Su Hui UBTech is at the forefront of cutting edge technology in the realm of AI. In fact, “Machine learning is not really cutting edge technology.” - which was an interesting point. It was insightful to see how robots in movies are actually being realised by UBTech in real life, and its many applications. It would be interesting to see how cost can be minimized to reach out to more consumers. Tencent is very diversified in its operations, and owes its success to its different modes of operations in various industries - investments, partnerships and direct ownerships. It was interesting how QQ and a WeChat - both products of Tencent, were not thought to be in direct competition, but as complementary platforms. The amount of different products and technologies by Tencent was really impressive - a company to continuously watch as it continues to expand its influence in coming years.
CHANG Jia Li A robot can do a back flip better than me! I like how they focus on different aspect in providing the best robots such as in education or customer service. Furthermore, they improved the Walker Version 2.0 within a year which was amazing. Really impressive exhibition and I'm so amazed with the technologies that they have! Tencent provides such a wide services and each of them is so good in their area. Definitely was a fun tour!
Chantalle NG I think it is refreshing how we were exposed to the robotics world today. Before the visit, I did not expect them to be so advanced. I’m excited for walker 2.0 to be available in the market, I think it will revolutionise the way people function in the future. The tour was amazing and an eye opener. The company invests so heavily on their consumers, which I agree, is a right step to capture hearts. The story of the founder inspires all of us and demonstrates that there is no limit to where we can go, if we work smart.
Cheryl KOH Zhi Ying “People should embrace technology advancement rather than fear it.” Technology helps us to better take on mundane routine tasks, enabling us to channel our resources towards more productive and enjoyable tasks. We should hence not fear being replaced by robots and AI, but focus on the positive possibilities they can bring. “People should embrace technology advancement rather than fear it.” Technology helps us to better take on mundane routine tasks, enabling us to channel our resources towards more productive and enjoyable tasks. We should hence not fear being replaced by robots and AI, but focus on the positive possibilities they can bring.
Debbie LEE Shan Ying Current tech products are more reactive than proactive. Making use of AI/ML result in more proactiveness because these robots can learn themselves. 5 years road map is to aim for a robot in every home. Main product is “Walker”, mainly for taking care of elderly due to increasing ageing population in China. Looking to release the product to the market around next December Success mainly due to their huge investment in R&D. R&D makes up 50% of the team to identify new products for diffrentiation from competitors. B2B and B2C so they cover a very huge market segment, helps to gain foothold
Derrick LEE Ming Yang "It would take at least 20-25 years to commercialize the Walker robot and even so, it would be priced around the range of mid-range saloon car" "TenCent implements corporate social responsibility by tracking an individual's steps taken a day. For every 10,000 steps, TenCent donated a cent to a charity. This allows them to promote health fitness and giving back to the society at the same time."
Gary CHUA Rongjie PC —> Mobile —> Robots. Aiming to move towards pro-active response. UBTECH’s aim is that now the uptake may not be a lot, but we foresee that it will be the PC/Internet era where many are apprehensive but will prevail and result in technological wonders. With 4000 partners worldwide and 25,000 patents, tencent will be the heart of technology in China. I think that the chat platforms have reached their potential already. The next step will be to expand on services such as AI and machine learning. Especially with use cases like the AI playing GO, being able to compute 10^170 computations which is unheard of.
GOH Jin Qiang The key to UBTech's growth and innovation strategy is their primary focus on developing their strengths instead of attempting to be a jack of all trades. In doing so, it opens the doors for further collaboration and new innovations as UBTech and other companies capitalize on one another's strength - which in turn drives faster and further growth. Tencent is extremely customer-centric and their innovations are driven by listening and understanding customers' needs. This helps them to anticipate and predict what customers will value and might need, even before the customers realize it themselves.
Gwendolyn GOH Wen Hui The most interesting thing about UBtech is their ability to develop a new prototype robot in just one year. It is interesting to see how they educate people about coding and robots since young. I’ve learned that Tencent is a user-centric company and they cover a lot more different products than just games.
HO Wei Hong "IOT is the foundation of trust to machines. Alexa and home mini build and transfer trust. Walker utilise the trust." Building iconic digital culture with technologies
HOW Zhiteng Robots will soon be an integral part of our everyday lives, and UBTech's vision to have their commercial robots to be in people's houses in the near future seems probable. I believe these robots will add values to people's lives in many ways. Technology is required in every possible industry as it helps improves efficiency. It is amazing to see how Tencent is able to branch out and impact in so many different industries.
LIM Yi Bin From computers to laptops to robots, the progress in robotics will only progress further but a balance between the human touch and robot interaction is necessary in this process. The expansion of a company may reap in the profits but in the long run, it's the community involvement and support for the less fortunate that will ensure continual support for it's products.
Mathilda NG The company mainly uses AI to come up with futuristic robots and even ones to commercialize and use in future households such as the Walker, which acts as a butler. There is always a need to have progression in technology in order to improve the lives of the people and robots can help to ease many laborious tasks in such areas. With the rapid advancement in technology, the use of humanoid robots will also be useful in many areas as well. The company provides a wide array of products and services ranging from the popular social media platform ‘Wechat’ to providing entertainment such as animation and games to others. Their philosophy of putting their customers first and being customer oriented has allowed them to be very successful in many areas of expertise. With 50% of the company focused on research, a lot of time and effort is put into providing the best solution and use cases for any product or service being launched.
Mohammad Hazmie Bin JAAFAR The advancement of the robots are really astounding. I'm very impressed with their vision to make "'Walker available in every house".

Walker can easily take over the duty of a domestic helper. Although it may be expensive, I believe that it will eventually be cheaper than paying for a maid.

Tencent biggest irony is that the company worth more than 10cents.

When I went to visit SAP I was already impressed with their technology. However, Tencent just wowed me with its futuristic technology.

Muhammad Hafizuddin Bin ABD RAHIN The UBTech visit was a very entertaining one. We were exposed to the various humanoid robots that the company created. The information sharing session was very interesting and informative as I learnt more about product uses and strategic partnerships. I believe that the AI Robotics industry is still in its early stages but is highly promising with the likes of UBTech leading the innovation I was very impressed by the sophistication maintained by Tencent throughout the entire tour. Tencent’s solutions and products were very well exhibited and were very impressive. I believe that Tencent played a big part in the development of China and will definitely continue to do so with new innovations and solutions changing the way the world do things.
ONG Li Ting Ub tech aims to integrate intelligent robots into our daily lives and create a more intelligent way of living. It is interesting how Ub tech has marketed the robot “Walker” as a companion and service robot due to its very humanoid technology and intelligence. The speaker touched on how robots can take up riskier duties and mundane jobs to improve workplace safety, speed, consistency and productivity. The idea that workplaces with no human necessary human presence like factories and retail shop has come to fruition. The display that caught my eye would be the VR shooting game where players are able to immerse themselves totally in the virtual world. This breaks the barriers of conventional online gaming by introducing a “physical action” component which brings the game closer to reality. I was surprised with how fast the AI of the game “GO” reacts to a player’s movements, promptly calculating and computing the best next move by learning from the players choices.
ONG Lin Sheng I am quite amazed by the robotics from UBTech, how they transform from different prototypes to becoming a unicorn company today! Different use cases for data analytics and usage of technologies to meet the needs for everyone. Tencent wow-ed me from its building to every showroom with different showcases and demos.

The company tour exceeded my expectation and hope I have the chance to work in company like that someday.

ONG Yan Kai While robots may make future lives easier, it also raises more concerns regarding data privacy. Given the recent discussions involving mobile apps tracking user data, we can be sure that more issues will be raised once robots enter our households. There’s always a trade off between convenience and privacy. I find it interesting how thought leaders like Tencent allocate 50% of their manpower into research. No wonder they are able to provide such a wide variety of services and stay at the forefront of the industry.
Shaun John CHEETHAM It was an amazing experience to see the progress in robotics and A.I that they have made. From one iteration to the next, the time taken is reduced but the leap in functionality is immense. To see a tech company grow and diversify itself over the years the way tencent has is inspirational. Despite their meteoric growth, they still make it a point to give back to the community.
SIM Li Jin Provides a range of products for each of the different education sector. Integrate into daily lives of commercial homes. #Dreamwithrobots Connecting people for a greater future. The technologies they used have benefited sectors, such as health, entertainment, transport and government.
Stanley LIN Weijie Interesting and creative robots are being created. However, such invention can be exploited if the programs lends itself in the wrong hands “What I like about this job is how the company treats its customers”

From this we can see the importance of how customers is valued towards the company and how the employees are being treated.

Before any employees are able to treat their customers well, the employees should be treated with care and respect first.

SZE Shao Tang "Many people think AI and robots will become just like in the movie and kill humans but this is not reality". Some robots can programmed to kill, though, and they are mostly deployed in militaries. But hackers exploiting security flaws can cause robots to do harm and so security should be more highly prioritised in UBTech. Tencent has made much emphasis on its push towards digitalisation of cultural assets to make them more accessible to the masses. I am not too sure whether that raises the cultural awareness of the Chinese but to me, Tencent is merely commercialising culture, knowing that real cultural experiences such as art rather than entertainment are lacking in China.
TAY Wei Xuan Robots cannot replace humans for all tasks. We will still need some form of human interaction from time to time. Tencent can be considered more advanced in terms of R&D compared to other tech giants like Google and Amazon and will definitely surpass them in the near future.
TEO Wei Shen It was very interesting to see how UBTech was able to adapt the robots to many different use cases. For example, they could adapt it to educational uses. I was most inspired by how robots can be used to "teach school kids how to play football". There was so much to take in for our visit to Tencent - what they were capable to do at such a massive scale was overwhelming to me. But the most important thing I took away from the visit was the good practice on being customer-centric - "being able to focus on clients is the right direction".
TIONG Nai Shi Even though the commercialisation of their technology is in the far future, it was amazing to see how their robots are able to function.UBTECH are definitely one of the forerunners in their industry and will be revolutionary when their robots are available for the commercial market. Tencent dabbles in many aspects of the community and I feel that they really do improve the quality of life through internet value-added services. They are definitely one of the main drivers to China's improvement over the years.
YONG Fu Xiang Self destruction is essential in robots to prevent it from doing harm to human being. The future is infinite
YUEN Chui Shan 'Walker is able to respond to simple commands such as bringing visitors to certain places, entertaining visitors by dancing, and also report the weather forecast.' 'The company's mascot has grown from a skinny penguin to a well fed penguin over the years.'