HKPC’s Food TranSmarter Scoops Double Award Win at City I&T Grand Challenge

(Hong Kong, 18 October 2021) “Food TranSmarter”, the food waste conversion system developed by the Hong Kong Productivity Council (HKPC), scooped two grand awards at the first-ever City I&T Grand Challenge. It was crowned the Champion of the Open Group (Environmental Sustainability) category and won the Most Favoured Award by receiving the most public votes from the audience of the award presentation ceremony on-site.

Organised by the Innovation and Technology Commission (ITC) of the HKSAR Government together with the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation, the City I&T Grand Challenge invited different sectors of the community to develop innovation and technology (I&T) solutions focusing on two topics, namely "environmental sustainability" and "social connectivity" under the theme of "Innovating for Hong Kong's New Normal”. Divided into four categories, including primary school, secondary school, university/tertiary institute and open group, it attracted over 740 submissions from R&D teams from Hong Kong, the Mainland and overseas. For the Open Group, each nomination was judged based on four criteria: feasibility & commercial viability, I&T application & deployment, impact on society & solution effectiveness, and relevance & uniqueness.

Mr Mohamed Butt, Executive Director of HKPC, said, “Our excellent achievement at the City I&T Grand Challenge demonstrates once again HKPC’s capability as a world-class innovator and technology pioneer and that the technology solutions by our R&D teams stand to make Hong Kong a more sustainable and liveable smart city and contribute to its development as an international I&T hub as supported by the National 14th Five Year Plan.”

With the production of Its prototype for trial being funded by the Public Sector Trial Scheme under the Innovation and Technology Fund of ITC, the award-winning “Food TranSmarter” is the first-ever system in Hong Kong to automatically liquefy food waste into slurry. By a combination of mechanical and biological actions, it can extract 97% of the organic matters into slurry at source without tedious food waste separation. The slurry rather than the messy food waste can be easily and effectively delivered by air-tight tankers to centralised facilities for recycling, offering a simple, clean and hygienic solution to the collection and shipping of food waste.

The awards presentation ceremony of the City I&T Grand Challenge was successfully held on 16 October 2021, with HKPC representatives receiving their commendations from Mrs Carrie Lam, Chief Executive of the HKSAR. For more information about the competition, please refer to: https://citytechgc.hk/en/.

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Mrs Carrie Lam, Chief Executive of the HKSAR (left), presents the winner trophy and cheque of the Champion of the Open Group (Environmental Sustainability) category of the first-ever City I&T Grand Challenge to representatives of R&D team of Food TranSmarter, Dr Anthony Ma, Principal Consultant (centre) and Dr Vinci Lee, Senior Consultant (right), Green Living and Innovation Division of HKPC

HKPC’s R&D team, led by Mr Du Yonghai, General Manager (second from right), and Dr Anthony Ma, Principal Consultant (centre), of Green Living and Innovation Division, has been crowned the Champion of the Open Group (Environmental Sustainability) category and won the Most Favoured Award at the City I&T Grand Challenge for its Food TranSmarter.

The double award-winning Food TranSmarter offers a simple, clean and hygienic solution for food-waste-to-energy.