Academic sees IT as industry key
GLENN MULCASTER
05/13/97
South China Morning Post
Page 3
(Copyright 1997)
An academic who headed one of the research teams investigating Hong Kong's manufacturing
base for the recent Made By Hong Kong report believes the IT sector will be important not
only as an industry itself but as a strategic support for other sectors.
Professor Victor Zue , who led the IT research team on behalf of the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT) business performance centre, will return to the territory this month
for a seminar to mark the 50th anniversary of Dah Sing Bank.
Prof Zue and Professor Michael Dertouzos, who recently published a book What Will Be: How the
New World of Information Will Change our Lives, will headline the seminar presented by seven
technology professors from MIT's laboratory for computer science.
The list of speakers includes Jean-Francois Abramatic, chairman of the International World-Wide
Web Consortium (W3C), who will address the seminar on direction of the Web.
"Hong Kong is in many ways well suited to further IT development," Prof Zue said. "I have
spoken to {Dah Sing Bank chairman} David Wong, who is an MIT alumnus and a friend of Prof
Dertouzos and mine, about this and he thought it might be a good thing to raise the awareness in
Hong Kong of the importance and future of IT."
Although Prof Zue's team spent more than 60 working days in Hong Kong investigating aspects of
the Hong Kong industry, he said the seminar on May 29 would not deal with contents of the Made
by Hong Kong report.
"The purpose of the seminar is to share with key executives and decision makers our view of IT,
where it is and where we are heading, in a number of areas," he said. "It is not our intent to
track the relevant recommendations made in the report."
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