HONG KONG, Oct. 25, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Asia Health Innovation Summit 2024, hosted by global venture accelerator Brinc, as part of StartmeupHK Festival 2024 and curated by InvestHK, attracted a full-capacity in-person attendance of more than 500 at AWS in Tower 535, Causeway Bay, as well as a global livestream audience of over 800 yesterday.
The fourth-annual Asia Health Innovation Summit solidified the event's position as a premier gathering for industry leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, and professionals in the region's health-innovation space. Aimed at driving bolder ideations and cross-sector collaborations, the event featured a full day of on-stage panel sessions with 35 speakers from Hong Kong and overseas, networking sessions for all attendees to directly connect, private roundtable sessions, as well as founder booths at the Startup Marketplace.
"Innovation is not just a goal," said Guillermo Ginesta, Managing Director of Brinc, "it is a necessity." He said Asia's healthcare systems are under pressure due to rapid population growth, aging demographics, and urbanization. "The future of healthcare in the region hinges on collaboration, innovation, and most importantly, action," he added. "At Brinc, we focus on empowering startups that can address these urgent needs."
In his keynote speech, Professor Dong Sun, JP, Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry for the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, said the city was accelerating ahead to become an international innovation and technology centre, as well as a health and medical innovation hub — that was also renowned as one of the world's fundraising leaders for biotechnology companies.
As part of his opening speech, Invest HK's Head of Innovation & Technology Andy Wong emphasised Hong Kong's thriving ecosystem of startups, research institutes and talent. He also noted AI's emergence as a game-changer in healthtech, accelerating advances in drug discovery, surgical operations, gene editing, health services, and more.
The transformative potential of AI in health-innovation and healthcare was a highlight panel in the summit's agenda. It was also a key theme woven throughout the entire day of lively speaker discussions — that included trending topics such as harnessing Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area's startup ecosystem for global expansion, the importance of FemTech in transforming women's health, and the role of smart-ageing technology in the longevity industry.
Founders from companies — such as AILSI, Blissmi, Greater Bay Biotech Ltd, Ironmind.ai, OM HealthHub, Sol, Well Being Digital (WBD101), and Zupe — highlighted the vast opportunities available within Hong Kong's startup ecosystem to build a healthier Asia. They also reiterated the city's solid R&D foundation, benefits of its strategic location within the Greater Bay Area, a supportive regulatory environment, and the fast-moving advancements in the local academic and research fields.
Amid the current market conditions, many speakers underlined that investment opportunities remain abundant, particularly for startups exploring new, innovative approaches. Accelerator programs, government grants, and strategic collaborations were highlighted as critical avenues for attracting funding and driving expansion success in the sector.
The 4th Asia Health Innovation Summit event concluded with closing remarks from Jayne Chan, Head of Startups, InvestHK. She reinforced Hong Kong's unique role in fostering collaborations and leading healthtech development in the Greater Bay Area, exemplified by the establishment of The Chinese Medicine Hospital of Hong Kong. "Its cultural and scientific synergy gives Hong Kong a distinctive advantage in fostering innovations that ultimately benefit the health and wellbeing of everyone," she said.
Brinc wishes to thank all panel participants of the Asia Healthcare Innovation Summit 2024 event:
Fostering Collaborative Innovation for a Healthier Asia
Harnessing Hong Kong and GBA/SEA's Startup Ecosystem for Global Expansion
Breaking Barriers: The Role of FemTech in Transforming Women's Health
Smart Ageing: The Role of Technology in Promoting Longevity
From Strategy to Impact: Driving the Future of Healthcare with Digital Innovation
Digital Wellness: Revolutionizing Wellbeing and Mental Health with Technology
Market Update: Funding Strategies for Early-Stage Health-Tech Startups in Asia
AI Empowering Healthcare: Transformative Technologies in Asia
Roundtable Hosts
CONTACT: Merie Browne, merie.browne@brinc.io
** The press release content is from PR Newswire. Bastille Post is not involved in its creation. **
Brinc Hosts Its 4th Successful Asia Health Innovation Summit 2024, as Part of StartmeupHK Festival, Curated by InvestHK
Brinc Hosts Its 4th Successful Asia Health Innovation Summit 2024, as Part of StartmeupHK Festival, Curated by InvestHK
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 1, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Bifrost AI, a Generative 3D Data platform, raised $8 million in Series A funding to meet the growing demand for AI training data and 3D simulations. Its physically accurate data generation engine provides the vast real-world scenarios crucial in rapidly training, testing and adapting models in AI and Robotics. The round was led by Carbide Ventures, with participation from Airbus Ventures, Peak XV's Surge (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA), Wavemaker Partners, MD One, and Techstars. The capital will be used to accelerate the commercialization of Bifrost's product for heavy industries such as aerospace, maritime, manufacturing, and national security.
Today's pressing challenges, such as labor shortages and escalating geopolitical tensions, primarily exist in the physical world. While AI has thrived in the digital realm, its potential in the physical domain remains untapped due to a lack of domain-specific training datasets. More than 95% of enterprises struggle to obtain high-quality training data at scale, often pouring millions into sensor deployments and dedicating months to manual data labeling—only to face uncertain outcomes. This struggle is one of the biggest barriers to effectively implementing AI systems in the physical world.
Bifrost's software platform changes this by allowing teams to generate datasets in minutes using simulated 3D worlds. This allows teams to build new AI capabilities faster than ever, teach robots how to solve real-world problems, and adapt to new objects, tasks, and environments in hours instead of months.
Bifrost's breakthroughs in Generative AI and 3D graphics allow users to create realistic, industry-specific data & scenarios at scale—no 3D expertise needed. Designed for AI developers, the platform offers fully controllable real-time 3D worlds in supercharged Jupyter notebooks. Traditional 3D simulators often fail to deliver realism, while 2D generative AI lacks the nuanced control necessary for sophisticated applications. Bifrost bridges this gap with a hybrid approach, combining an unprecedented level of precision with realism. Users harness a powerful Python library to program every element of their 3D worlds, from camera movements to environmental conditions, automating and fine-tuning their simulations with ease.
This has enabled their customers to build new Physical AI capabilities faster than ever. Autonomous boats that can safeguard shipping lanes from piracy, industrial robots that can assemble new parts with unmatched efficiency, and drones that can inspect thousands of electrical grids for defects—all without human intervention. These systems serve as a vital link that allows digital systems to engage with the real world.
After LLMs and image generators, Physical AI represents AI's most important frontier yet. However, building these systems is incredibly hard. Bifrost is making this process faster, cheaper, and more reliable, so teams can focus on what matters: solving real-world problems with AI.
"We work with some of the most technically demanding organizations in the world, solving some of the toughest problems. This includes major U.S. government organizations and leading enterprises in heavy industry. One example is NASA JPL, with whom we have been collaborating on several initiatives, including data generation engines for Moon and Mars exploration," said Charles Wong, Co-founder and CEO of Bifrost AI.
"The market for robotics and autonomous systems is rapidly increasing. In the future, AI development will rely increasingly on synthetic data instead of real data. We believe the Bifrost team is uniquely positioned to enable this opportunity by bridging the data , allowing systems to be trained more efficiently and quickly by an order of magnitude. We expect their approach will unlock new use cases and opportunities, enabling AI to transform our physical world", said Stephen Lee, General Partner at Carbide Ventures.
"As AI becomes increasingly prevalent, actively deployed across commercial and defense-related applications at an unprecedented scale, Bifrost stands out as a trusted partner, ready to support teams working on advanced robotics and autonomous systems," adds Thomas d'Halluin, Airbus Ventures Managing Partner. "We are confident that Bifrost AI will unlock exceptional value at the intersection of 3D generative AI, advanced simulation, and design, which is already being used by major U.S. government organizations and leading global enterprises in heavy industry."
"One of the fundamental challenges in AI and robotics is generalization—the ability to learn new skills and handle a variety of scenarios and tasks. Traditionally, adapting to new tasks could take months. But with Bifrost, that timeline has shrunk to just hours. This acceleration enables teams to build AI systems that can tackle a wider range of problems, unlock larger markets, and generate more revenue with less upfront data acquisition cost." Aravind SK, co-founder and CTO of Bifrost AI.
Read more about us at bifrost.ai
Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv-0ELTZWWY
Logo - https://mma.prnasia.com/media2/2545636/Bifrost_AI_Logo.jpg?p=medium600
Photo - https://mma.prnasia.com/media2/2545637/Maritime_Data_with_Annotation.jpg?p=medium600
** The press release content is from PR Newswire. Bastille Post is not involved in its creation. **
Bifrost raises $8M to accelerate AI's ability to solve problems in the physical world
