Youthful Vitality

By Yan Wei

From a small apartment to a full house. Hong Kong entrepreneur Kenny Tam highlighted the change in his life with this one sentence when speaking about the benefits reaped from the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area（GBA） initiative.

“Given the skyrocketing prices in Hong Kong， I could afford to rent an apartment of merely 200 square feet （18 square meters） years ago. Today， I live in a house in Guangzhou for almost the same amount of rent，” Tam said.

While more comfortable housing is a factor that beckons young people from Hong Kong and Macao to GBA cities on the mainland， a more important consideration is professional pursuit. Greater regional integration and favorable government policies create more and better opportunities there， and they work hard to seize them.

Fulfilling aspirations

Tam was active in the information technology （IT） sector for more than 10 years in Hong Kong before setting up his own business on the mainland. Inspired by the swiftly changing IT landscape including mobile payment solutions and the digital sharing economy， he decided to cash in on the emerging opportunities.

In November 2018， Tam started a company in Guangzhou， capital of Guangdong Province. The company， based in a commercial hub designed to host Hong Kong and Macao startups in Nansha District， has developed a smart wine-vending machine. With the machine， people can purchase a glass of wine by scanning a QR code. If deemed worthy of their taste buds， they can also buy a whole bottle.

The smart cabinet can hold 45 bottles of wine. After a bottle is opened， the flavor of wine in it remains intact for 15 days thanks to a technology limiting oxygen exposure. In addition， an artificial intelligence system can keep record of user preferences.

The machine is available across cinemas and tourist destinations in Guangzhou. Tam and his team now focus on making it more cost-efficient and forging partnerships with leading hotels. “Our survey shows huge market potential， with a demand for 20，000 to 30，000 machines nationwide，” Tam said.

The local government provided housing allowances and assisted the company in its fundraising efforts—moves that Tam said helped his team develop the machine in about six months， much shorter than the time it would have taken to launch a similar product in Hong Kong.

Nansha is located in the geographic center of the GBA， with Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions （SARs） as well as the other eight mainland GBA cities less than 100 km away. It takes only 48 minutes to travel from Guangzhou to Hong Kong by highspeed train and， in addition， there is a large sea port for international shipping.