Hong Kong start-up boosters and doubters lock horns at StartmeupHK festival
In the first of a two-part series examining the city’s expanding start-up ecosystem, we look at the annual festival and talk with its key speakers and local enterprises and investors
Brett King wears many hats: he’s a best-selling author, radio host (his show and podcast Breaking Banks is the top-ranked fintech (financial technology) show, start-up founder (CEO of mobile-based banking app Moven) and a contributor to The Huffington Post and BBC.
He’s also very tired, which is not surprising considering his gruelling schedule the past few weeks has included stops in the US, Kenya and Europe.
“One day my body will tell me that I have to stop,” says Australian-born King from his base in New York. “I told my agent the other day that I was feeling overwhelmed and he replied, ‘dude, look at your schedule’.”
King, 48, has big shoes to fill. Last year, festival-goers were heard key speaker Elon Musk, the billionaire businessman behind Tesla Motors and SpaceX.
“I have a few duties while in Hong Kong: to speak about the major technologies that are going to affect our lives in the next 20 years, and how they will disrupt society, health care and education. I’ll also be talking about my latest book [Bank 2.0: How Customer Behavior and Technology Will Change the Future of Financial Services] and about how China is becoming more representative of what fintech can do – more so than what we are seeing in Silicon Valley.”