Media
HKU EEE AI Startup Fano Labs Receives
Grand Award of HK ICT Awards 2018
24 Apr 2018
Fano Labs, a spinoff company from the University of Hong Kong, and an artificial intelligence (AI) startup specializing in speech and natural language processing (NLP) technologies, has received the Grand Award of the Hong Kong ICT Awards 2018: Smart Business Award, with their project “Multilingual Artificial Intelligence Customer Service System.”
The HK ICT Awards, established in 2006, is considered the most prestigious award on Information and Communication Technologies in Hong Kong. Fano Labs has first won the Gold Award of the track: Solution for Business & Public Sector Enterprise, and then beat Gold Award winners of other tracks to win the Grand Award. The Grand Award Trophy was received at the Award Ceremony held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on April 4 2018, attended by the Chief Executive Mrs Carrie Lam, Secretary of Innovation and Technology Mr Nick Yang, other government officials and industry executives.
Fano Labs was co-founded in 2015 by Dr Miles Wen, a HKU Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) PhD graduate who is also a former Fulbright Scholar at University of California, Berkeley and Professor Victor Li On Kwok of Department of EEE. In November 2017, Fano Labs became the first HK startup ever invested by Horizons Ventures, the private investment arm of Mr Li Ka-shing, who is a leading investor in some of the world’s most innovative companies and disruptive technologies, including Facebook, DeepMind, Skype, and Siri.
In his acceptance speech, Professor Li said, “Fano Labs aspires to be the leading AI company, especially in speech recognition and natural language processing, not only in this region, but in the world. This award is a strong shot in the arm for us and we thank you for this encouragement.” Professor Victor Li On -kwok, BBS, ScD (MIT), is the Chair Professor of Information Engineering at HKU. He has received the Bronze Bauhinia Star, Government of HKSAR, China, in 2002 and was one of the awardees of Croucher Foundation Senior Research Fellowship.
About Fano Labs Limited
Fano Labs is a Hong Kong-based artificial intelligence startup specializing in speech recognition and natural language processing technologies. With the technical focus in Chinese dialects processing and analysis, Fano Labs helps enterprises conduct quality assurance and data mining in their call centers.
To be more specific, Fano Labs’ technology is used to listen back over all recorded call center agent interactions with customers. Recorded calls are checked over to ensure the agent has performed within the boundaries of the law (particularly around financial services) while recordings are used to evaluate staff, check on customer feedback and train new joiners.
Call center managers don’t have the time to check through them all, and that’s where Fano Labs steps in. Its tech goes through the call center’s entire log to tell the busy manager which ones they should listen to, rather than picking them at random.
Fano Labs also helps by picking out the key excerpts and helping call center managers ensure they are on top of each call they listen to.
Fano Labs is a spin-off from University of Hong Kong and operates both in Hong Kong and China.
Media enquiry:
Dr Miles Wen, Fano Labs (tel: +852 3543 1189/ email: miles@fano.ai) or
Ms Rhea Leung, Facutly of Engineering, HKU (tel: +852 3917 8519 / email: rhea.leung@hku.hk)
Fano Labs wins Gold Award of “Hong Kong ICT Awards 2018: Smart Business (Solution for Business and Public Sector Enterprise)”.