Online Workshop

Dr Eleni Stroulia is a Professor of Computing Science, the Director of the AI4Society Signature Area, and the Acting Vice Dean of the Faculty of Science, at the University of Alberta. Her research addresses real-world problems, adopting AI and machine-learning methods to improve outcomes.
From 2011-2016, she held the NSERC/AITF Industrial Research Chair on Service Systems Management and has played leadership roles in the numerous national and international projects. She has been recognized with a McCalla professorship and a Killam Award for Excellence in Mentoring. She has co-authored more than 300 publications and supervised more than 60 graduate students.

Mrs Carys Hansed is a senior specialist MSK and orthopaedics physiotherapist with 10 years experience in the NHS and 4 years in the private sector. She is the co-founder and Specialist Physiotherapy Lead at Denton Physio Technology and has a passion for the role in which digital can play in transforming patient pathways to enhance the recovery of the individual but also empower physiotherapists. Denton Physio Technology is partnered with re.flex (a device for tele-rehabilitation) to introduce this advanced technology to the UK market.

Mr Simon Wong is the Chief Executive Officer of the Logistics and Supply Chain MultiTech R&D Centre (LSCM). The Centre was established in 2006 by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.  It aims to strengthen the local logistics sector and related industries by providing a one-stop resource for applied research and technology transfer, and to reinforce cooperation between the industry and research institutes, to bring about meaningful and significant benefits to the industry and the community.

Ms Grace Chan has worked in the social welfare arena for over 25 years. She is the Business Director of the Hong Kong Council of Social Service, and also serves as a member of Board of Directors and the International Vice President of the International Federation on Ageing. 
Ms Chan was invited as a member of the Strategic Advisory Group for the WHO Global Network of Age-friendly Cities and Communities in 2013. She is a former member of the Elderly Commission, and also sits on some committees and boards in the statutory bodies of Hong Kong. Her areas of expertise include long-term care, age-friendly cities and communities, elderly participation, lifelong learning, and innovation and technology for ageing. 
Ms Chan took the lead in the development of several innovative services, including Gerontechnology Platform, Jockey Club "age at home" Gerontech Education and Rental Service, and Stair Climbing Service, etc. In 2019, she was awarded as Ageing Asia Global Ageing Influencer, in honouring the outstanding achievements of the most influential leader impacting ageing in the Asia Pacific.

Mr Claudiu Leverenz founded munevo in 2018 after graduating from the Technical University of Munich in Germany. Munevo empowers people with disabilities by using innovative technologies. People that are impaired by ALS, MS, etc. or spinal cord injuries are limited in their legs and hands. With munevo DRIVE they can steer their wheelchair by using head movements via smart glasses. 2017 he was nominated on Forbes 30under30 list in Healthcare. Since 2018, he joined Global Shapers, an initiative by the World Economic Forum, to support social projects. He serves on the board of foundations and speaks at events such as the WEF Annual Summit in Davos.

Following her passion to address accessibility issues after a visit to a long-term care facility, Dr Pooja Viswanathan completed her trans-disciplinary doctoral and post-doctoral research, with her work spanning across several areas including computer vision, artificial intelligence, robotics, user-centred design, assistive technology, and mixed methods research. She has published several peer-reviewed conference and journal articles on “smart” wheelchairs.
Throughout her academic career, she secured competitive grants and earned prestigious scholarships/fellowships from several organisations in the US and Canada, including Google. She is Founder and CEO of Braze Mobility, a company that developed the world’s first blind spot sensors for wheelchairs.

Ms Sara Smolley is the co-founder and Head of Partnerships at Voiceitt, a digital health startup that has developed a unique speech recognition technology to help people with disabilities live more independently. Ms Smolley's academic background and her growing career in impactful technologies have been driven by her passion for combining high-ambition entrepreneurship with positive social impact.
Having grown up in South Florida, US, she moved to Israel after spending 5 years in Asia – at a biotechnology startup in Hong Kong; and in various corporate and startup environments in Seoul, South Korea, where she also completed a Global MBA. She holds an Economics degree from Barnard College at Columbia University in New York City, US, where she co-founded the Columbia Chapter of Net Impact, the international nonprofit which strives to orient business principles toward sustainable social goals. She now leads Voiceitt's business development, grant writing, and strategic partnerships.

Mr Joe Velderman serves as Vice President of Innovation at Cypress Living – supporting Cypress Cove and Cypress at Home. As VP of Innovation Mr Velderman has an external focus, leading IT-powered digital innovation, while building and supporting the innovation capabilities of the organisation. In addition to the innovation efforts, he is responsible for all technology operations within the Cypress brand; guiding strategy and direction for all infrastructure, enterprise applications and data initiatives.

Mdm Low Mui Lang is Executive Director of The Salvation Army Peacehaven Nursing Home. Peacehaven operates a 430 bedded nursing home with 4 daycare centres ranging from Integrated Home & Day Centre, Senior and Dementia Day Care Centres. Peacehaven in her endeavour also forges forward in creating a new model of care for Person Living with Dementia (PLD) known as Jade Circle that includes a modern gaming activity centre, training centre for lifelong learning beside the apartment for PLD.
Always looking to solve problems, she actively participates and trials innovations inclusive of face recognition for fall detection and monitoring of resident’s movement thereby empowering older persons to ambulate and keep active.

Beatrice Teo is the Director of Amazing Speech Therapy Pte Ltd (Singapore) and Amazing Speech Therapy Sdn Bhd (Malaysia).  Beatrice has worked as a Speech Therapist for 10 years and has helped many patients achieve success in their rehabilitation.  She is passionate and specializes in working with people with swallowing difficulties.  She is well known in her industry for her clinical skills, determination and innovation.  Beatrice also has strong networks with many renowned doctors and healthcare professionals.

Ms Kuniko Masuda is a certified dietitian and a council member of the Japanese Society of Dysphagia Rehabilitation. She also serves as a part-time lecturer at the Department of Health and Medical Sciences, Kanagawa Institute of Technology, Japan. After working as a hospital dietitian, she has been working at a special nursing home for the elderly in Kawasaki City since 1995. Her research focuses on the importance of “eating through the mouth” in supporting dietary care for the elderly.
She is involved in the development of dysphagia food products for several Japanese companies. She has also published many books on dietary care for the elderly and educates the public and dieticians about the importance of dietary care.

Eric Lau, Director (Services) of Hong Kong Red Cross (HKRC).  Eric is a registered social worker with over 18 years extensive managerial experience in community and rehabilitation services.  He joined HKRC in 2012 and he has developed different new initiatives including the first blended learning first aid training course in Hong Kong, 6 blended training courses were developed within 2.5 years.  Eric has lots of achievements in community resilience including the launch of mobile disaster preparedness education truck and VR games in Hong Kong.  Eric also contributed the community health and hygiene promotion programmes.

Ms. Wing-yin Wu is the Service Director (Elderly Services) of Evangelical Lutheran Church Social Service Hong Kong.  Ms. Wu obtains Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Social Work and Master of Arts in Social Work (Family-centred Practice and Family Therapy) from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.  She has over 20 years of experience in elderly services.  She engages in management and development of various elderly services, leads cross-unit teams, opens up and manages self-financing Projects.  She established ‘ELCHK, Smart Club’ dementia specific training units, designed and produced training materials 「本地薑」華文創智系列for the Chinese elder with dementia.  She also developed and provided dementia care training for professional and supporting staffs.

Ms Jenny Choi holds a Bachelor's Degree of Social Science (Social Work) and Master's Degree in Gerontology. She is currently working as the Senior Manager of Continuing Care in St James' Settlement. Having nearly 20 years of experience in serving elders, she is still ambitious for serving our elders in Hong Kong by developing innovative projects, like '656carer.com' to echo the changing needs for elders and their carers.

Dr Elsie HUI is a Consultant at Shatin Hospital and Prince of Wales Hospital, and Deputy Chief Executive of Shatin Hospital. She is also the Service Director of Community Outreach Services and General Out-patient Clinics in New Territories East Cluster. As a honorary faculty member of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Dr Hui teaches at undergraduate and postgraduate level. Her research interests include end of life care, frailty, nutrition and feeding in the elderly, and use of innovations to support the cognitively impaired. 

Dr Lou has studied widely on family caregiving, active aging, and their health impacts. Examining Chinese family caregivers’ mental health and financial impacts were pioneer studies that generated high impact publications. Recently, Dr Lou’s study extended to examining positive and/or resilient capacity of the family caregiving in Chinese context including studying secondary caregivers, social support, roles of domestic helper, and effective intervention strategies. Dr Lou also pioneered three mobile applications targeting volunteers, social workers, and stroke families respectively. Dr Lou is a Member of Elderly Commission, Community Investment and Inclusion Fund, Statistics Advisory Board, and Elderly Academy Development Foundation.

Dorothy is Project Manager of Jockey Club “age at home” Gerontech Education and Rental Service at the Hong Kong Council of Social Service. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Social Policy and Administration from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (with First Class Honours); and Master of Philosophy (Social Science) from The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology. She has been working on projects related to social security systems, long term care service options, adoption of Gerontechnology and social support for carers etc.