A good design could help improve the quality of life in a city, taking it to the next level of building a sophisticated, metropolitan culture. Hong Kong is beginning to appreciate this. It’s evident in the niche but steady customer base supporting eateries like Grassroots Pantry and Mana!, who serve organic food-based artisanal cuisine while promoting the values of sustainable living. It also shows in the popularity of more mass-market products like the mBots (mini robots controlled through coding), developed by the Shenzhen-based educational tools specialist Makeblock that thousands of children in over 600 Hong Kong schools are using. School curriculums are being redesigned to accommodate computer coding and artificial intelligence-assisted learning.

The successful resolution of form and functionality in a design is often the result of a joint effort between people from diverse fields. Design-oriented education programs “should not be confined to nurturing artists, designers or architects,” said Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor in her maiden Policy Address in October, advocating interdisciplinary collaboration.

Such cross-pollination of ideas and sharing of resources is not uncommon in Hong Kong. For example, the Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparels (HKRITA) teamed up with the Hong Kong Sports Institute to develop training and competition outfits for the rowing team sent to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. “The costume now weighs less than 100 grams,” says Yan Chan, the director of HKRITA.

Even as the buzz about a coming Fourth Industrial Revolution does the rounds, one wonders if Hong Kong with its amazing plethora of design brains is ready to take advantage of the growth opportunities the turnaround is likely to create.

Chan of HKRITA — an institute which has produced items such as GPS tracking-enabled jackets for elderly people and 3-D brassieres for prosthetic support — agrees that marketing these products on an industrial scale is not easy.

“Only big brands could do it, by first promoting the newly developed customized product and receiving bulk orders as a result,” says Chan. “We create a prototype which the 3-D printer copies and in the long run the costs are much cheaper,” she adds, outlining the possibilities of an industry-institute tie-up.

The multinational clothing brand H&M is supporting HKRITA’s project for upcycling used materials. “The investment is directly from the H&M Foundation. This benefits the whole textile industry,” says Chan. “Then the intellectual property, the research and development and the brain informing the technology are all from right here in Hong Kong.”

Service design is hot

Eric Yim, chairman of Hong Kong Design Council, who started DesignXcel — an annual coming together of the design schools across the city to showcase their work to prospective buyers — says the field of opportunities for the city’s design graduates is growing.

Then, he hastens to add, every design professional from the city cannot expect to find a job “necessarily on the same street where one lives”.  “There is the Chinese mainland to tap, and the ASEAN countries, the second-largest market for Hong Kong,” he suggests.

Yim would like the new design professionals in the city to try and expand their horizons, not just spatially but also in terms of looking beyond the disciplines they might have trained in.

“Ninety percent of Hong Kong industries comprise the service industry,” says Yim. “There are a lot of opportunities for designers in service designing. In the hospitality industry, service design is applied long before the client actually steps into the property. It’s about the experience one can deliver before, during and after the service.”

As an example he cites Common Ground, a coffee shop in Central. Tucked away in a shaded nook as one walks up the steps of Shing Wong Street, the cafe is about making value additions to the experience of coffee drinking in a classy, understated way. Common Ground is the brainchild of brothers Caleb and Joshua Ng, who gave up a career with Merrill Lynch in California to start a food consultancy in Hong Kong. “They make the coffee in front of the customers and talk to them personally, about the journey of a coffee bean,” says Yim. The brothers’ background of studying economics at the University of California, Los Angeles seems to have helped. “They know how to position themselves as coffee ambassadors,” says Yim.

Such attempts at giving what’s essentially a business transaction the top-spin of community bonding may not be that new. The model could be traced back to the traditional tea-house culture in China. By the time the Fourth Industrial Revolution makes mass-customization affordable, each consumer will be looking to buy personalized goods which would, ideally, reflect who he is. By subtly linking up coffee history with a traditional Chinese ritual, the brothers Ng have already taken a few steps down that road.

Bespoke in the digital era

The idea of bespoke has changed in the post-mass-production era. To breathe fresh life into Hong Kong’s small bespoke tailoring establishments, which had begun losing customers to branded clothing, HKRITA evolved a standardized measurement system. “We call it paper patterning system,” says Chan. “It’s an aggregate that helps translate physical measurements into the paper pattern without having to measure up the wearer. You’re allowed one fitting and it usually works.”

“This is a way of combining handed-down knowledge with high technology and translating these into the end products which cost less than bespoke,” she adds.

The ways of marketing bespoke merchandise are changing too. Anna Garner, who sells individually commissioned bespoke items of household decor, handcrafted by some of the finest artists and designers from Europe, through her online portal — the Garnered, recently opened a pop-up retail store for just a month in Hong Kong’s Landmark. The idea was to humanize online shopping, to renew the appeal of touching before buying.

“We sell online, which is usually such a fast convenient way to shop, but in many cases, our products are made to order and therefore require a lead time of up to six weeks,” says Garner. “So despite being in a fast-paced online environment, we offer our customers a ‘slow’ pace and encourage the enjoyment in that slowing down. In fact, people stepping in during our workshops at the Landmark pop-up commented on how meditative it was.”

She is looking to livestream interactive sessions between designers and interested customers in the future. “The possibilities of new digital marketing are infinite, and I find this contrast with the more traditional crafts and methods we are working hugely dynamic and exciting,” Garner adds.

Learning from the mainland

Some of the defining features of the Fourth Industrial Revolution include a fusion of technologies that overlap the categories of physical, biological and digital, creating designs that are a product of avant-garde thinking and the application of emerging technology breakthroughs.

Fai Au, the founder and principal of O Studio Architects, says Hong Kong is way behind the mainland, where using robotic technology in construction is not all that rare. “There are very strict regulations to abide by. If you want to bring in new material to Hong Kong, it has to meet the fire safety standards,” says Fai.

Fellow architect Chan Lai-kiu, however, points out that the paucity of space and high-density architectural constructions in Hong Kong make such stringent regulations a necessity.

She hastens to add that this is probably an opportune moment for Hong Kong to catch up with the technical strides made on the mainland and indeed elsewhere. “I see the current government as quite progressive, adventurous and open to new technology and new trends. So we are in a good time to try out these experiments,” Chan says.

The growing demand for robots for industrial use on the mainland raises the somewhat discomfiting specter of a time when there will be room at the top tier, only for innovators and policymakers. Human beings will no longer qualify for the blue-collar — and even a substantial section of white-collar — jobs.

Could this result in creating more social inequities than we are saddled with already?

Yim says the need of the hour is to inform and educate young people that there won’t be any jobs in the middle tier by the time they are ready to enter the job market. In fact, we should start giving them a clear picture of the changing circumstances from Primary One right now, he suggests.

Lee Ho-yin, who heads Architectural Conservation Programs at the University of Hong Kong, says that the Fourth Industrial Revolution might in fact be harnessed to achieve greater societal harmony.

“The development in effective e-commerce, online shopping and e-payment enabled by the Fourth Industrial Revolution will free small retailing businesses from renting shops, connecting them to non-labor-intensive autonomous delivery systems, like AI-controlled drone delivery, and enable them to adapt to change in market demand more quickly through mass data,” he says, citing the successful mainland business models of Alibaba and Taobao as examples.

The growth of home-based small retailing businesses, says Lee, will help bring down the astronomical rents of spaces in shopping malls and office towers. “This means more urban land can be freed up for public housing and affordable home offices as well as leisure and recreational uses, which will improve the quality of living and the design quality of the built environment.”

And this is good news for conservation, he adds. “Reduced demand for costly redevelopment in the urban areas will make refurbishing old buildings more cost-effective than demolishing them and redeveloping the site. If all of these happen, I can only foresee a society with more fair income distribution and social stability.”

If Hong Kong is all set to become Asia’s design mecca, will it also touch the lives of every person living in or passing through the city?

Singapore is among the 25 countries best positioned to benefit from the rise of advanced manufacturing and smart factories, according to a new report from the World Economic Forum (WEF).

The report analysed 100 countries and economies to see how they might benefit from the Fourth Industrial Revolution – or Industry 4.0 – and the rapid rise of new manufacturing technologies.

Singapore was identified among 25 “leaders in manufacturing today that are also well positioned for the future of production”.

The Republic came in second globally – after the United States – in the report’s “drivers of production” ranking, which measures key enablers that help a country take advantage of Industry 4.0. It ranked 11th in the “structure of production” category, which measures the scale and complexity of a country’s manufacturing sector.

Other countries in the top 25 include Japan, South Korea, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Britain and the United States .

Leading countries have a first-mover’s advantage, the report said, noting: “Those that most effectively push the frontier and convert readiness into actual transformation can reap tremendous benefits.

“True transformation is still nascent, but leading countries are at the forefront of designing, testing and pioneering emerging technologies. Many have developed government-led strategies to capitalise on the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

The 25 leading countries already account for over three-quarters of global manufacturing value-added, the report noted.

It added that Singapore’s manufacturing capabilities “have evolved considerably, with strong competencies today in high-value areas of manufacturing such as research and development and product design”.

But it also pointed out no country was fully ready, let alone harnessed the full potential of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in production.

Lim Kok Kiang, assistant managing director of the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), said the Republic’s strong showing reflects efforts to build an ecosystem to drive the adoption of advanced manufacturing among large and small firms here.

EDB launched a set of guidelines last November to help manufacturers build smart factories of the future. Called the Singapore Smart Industry Readiness Index, it was developed in partnership with German manufacturer TUV SUD.

“Transformation is a multi-year journey, and more needs to be done. It is important that we continue working closely with companies, trade associations and unions to improve our competitiveness and ensure our workforce is well equipped to support and enable the future of production,” added Lim.

Representatives from the giant social network travelled to The Hague for Thursday’s unprecedented talks at Europol’s headquarters in the city, officials said Friday.

They were also joined by Instagram officials and police from Britain, France and Belgium, aiming “to identify and secure the swift removal of terrorist and violent extremism content uploaded” on both platforms, Europol said in a statement.

The European police agency has been working with Facebook for the past two years on “reducing access to online propaganda,” Vincent Semestre, the head of Europol’s Internet Referral Unit, told AFP.

Part of the aim was to find ways of dealing with new trends as well as “how to defend themselves against this kind of abuse”.

Facebook has said it is committed “to remove terrorists and posts that support terrorism” whenever they become aware of them and “make their platforms a hostile place for terrorists.”

Semestre said that while 99 percent of such posts are identified and stopped “we are really looking into how propagandists are moving around these countermeasures that Facebook has put in place.”

With the Islamic State on the brink of defeat in Iraq and Syria, its digital presence has also shrunk.

But Semestre warned that as the caliphate’s “production capacity” has diminished its “community has taken on board part of the responsibility to create the content.”

This was particularly hard to detect for computer programmes.

“If you this afternoon photoshop and put a mash-up of 10 videos and six pictures on a pdf, you will create a new content that no machine in the world ever saw before,” he said.

“It’s really a never-ending, evolving” battle which is also moving across platforms.

The talks also aimed to help Europol find possible leads to “trigger an investigation.”

They came as the giant social network announced a major change in how its news feed works, saying it would give friends and family priority over advertisers and media posts.

After months of staunch denials of abuse, the army on Wednesday said a probe found four members of the security forces helped kill 10 Rohingya militant suspects at Inn Din village on September 2, leaving their bodies in a hastily dug pit.

Some 655,000 Rohingya have fled western Rakhine state to Bangladesh since August, carrying with them consistent accounts of atrocities by Myanmar’s army.

Rights groups have accused Nobel Laureate Suu Kyi of failing to condemn the widespread abuses during the army crackdown, which followed raids by militants from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA).

After meeting the Japanese foreign minister on Friday Suu Kyi raised the army’s admission of involvement in the Inn Din killings as a “new step taken by our country”.

“In the end, rule of law in the country is the responsibility of that country. It is a positive indication that we are taking the steps to be responsible,” she added, according to a report carried by the Global New Light of Myanmar.

Myanmar’s army has a grim track record of rights abuses chiselled out across the country over 50 years of rule.

Observers hoped the emergence of Suu Kyi’s civilian government in 2016 would see the army ease up on its notorious “scorched earth” approach to rebellion and conflict.

The unrelenting Rohingya crackdown banished those hopes.

Amnesty International has called the summary killings at Inn Din “the tip of the iceberg” in terms of atrocities carried out since August and urged a wider, impartial probe.

But the conflict area of Rakhine remains locked down to media, aid agencies and UN investigators.

ARSA, the Rohingya militant group, “wholeheartedly” welcomed the army’s admission saying it validated the wider allegations of abuses including a campaign of rape and murder and the systematic torching of villages.

“These 10 Rohingya innocent civilians found in the mass grave… were neither ARSA members nor had any association with ARSA,” it said in a statement circulated on Twitter.

The UN and US have accused Myanmar’s army of ethnic cleansing, with the UN rights chief saying it may even be guilty of genocide.

Myanmar refutes the allegations, blaming militants for causing the violence and the international media and aid agencies for spreading false information due to a pro-Rohingya bias.

The Rohingya are reviled in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where most are denied citizenship and described as “Bengalis” — or Muslim interlopers from Bangladesh.

The 87-year-old man was “located by a search and rescue team in his residence,” said Bill Brown, the sheriff of Santa Barbara county.

Rescuers are continuing their search operations, with the missing now believed to number six, including a two-year-old girl.

Heavy rain on Tuesday, which followed 10 months of drought, sent sticky mud and debris flowing from the hills into Montecito.

In addition to the dead and injured, 65 houses have been destroyed while another 462 sustained damage.

Terrifying wildfires forced people to evacuate in December, and the mudslides struck just two weeks after they returned.

The fires burned most vegetation, leaving perfect conditions for the latest disaster to unfold.

In a joint declaration at the 4th ASEAN-India Ministerial Meeting on Agriculture and Forestry here, they also sought cooperation on exchanging expertise as to promote enhanced resilience of natural systems, and improve the adaptive capacities of people to cope with environmental hazards.

“We supported the prioritization of joint collaborative projects in the areas of (i) Agroforestry interventions for livelihood opportunities, (ii) Demonstration and exchange of farm implement and machinery, and (iii) Genetic improvement of parental lines and development of heterotic rice hybrids,” it said.

“We look forward to the implementation of more capacity building programmes in 2018 on the empowerment of ASEAN and Indian women through cooperatives, and managing food security and price volatility”.

As a part of Medium Term Plan of Action for ASEAN-India Cooperation in Agriculture and Forestry for 2016-2020, they said: “We underscore the importance of addressing climate change as it negatively impacts food security.”

The declaration also sought implementation of the 3rd exchange visit for farmers between ASEAN and India in order to provide opportunities for ASEAN and Indian farmers and fishers, including young and women farmers, to learn and develop more efficient farming practices and management skills through information sharing.

The 5th ASEAN-India Ministerial Meeting on Agriculture and Forestry will be held in Brunei Darussalam in 2019.

Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Myanmar, Malaysia Laos and Brunei are the members of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations).

The boy’s father and younger sister are still missing.

Thai Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Bussadee Santipitak yesterday said: “The Consulate Office [in Los Angeles] checked the list of 17 victims released by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office and found a name that could possibly be that of a Thai. The name was then compared with our documents and it was confirmed that he is a Thai,” she said.

Victim Peerawat Sutthithepn, 6, was born in Khon Kaen province, Bussadee said.

The Consular Office is trying to contact his relatives and friends to offer assistance. Information from the victim’s relatives in Thailand suggest Peerawat’s mother is safe but his father and his three-year-old sister are still missing, she said.

Agence France Presse reported that authorities in California were on Thursday still searching for eight missing people. It is not yet clear whether the number included Peerawat’s father and sister.

Heavy rain on Tuesday, which followed 10 months of drought, sent sticky mud and debris flowing from the hills into Montecito and other towns in Santa Barbara County, northwest of Los Angeles.

“It was a scary night,” said local resident Jane Barret. One of her doctors, the leader of her son’s scout group |and an old neighbour are among the dead.

She said “it will take a lot of time” to get over the natural disasters that have struck the area over the past two months.

Terrifying wildfires forced people to evacuate in December – with the mudslides striking just two weeks later.

The shallow quake struck some 40 kilometres (24 miles) west of the town of Pyu, the USGS said. It was followed by three weaker tremors in the region, all of magnitudes 5.3, the survey reported.

“There is a low likelihood of casualties and damage,” USGS said, but noted that residential structures in the region are typically vulnerable to earthquake shaking.

The epicentre was located in a sparsely populated region between the capital Naypyidaw to the north and commercial hub Yangon to the south, at least 150 kilometres from each.

Earthquakes are relatively common in Myanmar, where six strong quakes of 7.0 magnitude or more struck between 1930 and 1956 near the Sagaing Fault, which runs north to south through the centre of the country, according to the USGS.

A powerful 6.8-magnitude earthquake in the ancient capital Bagan in central Myanmar killed three people in 2016, also toppling spires and crumbling temple walls at the tourist destination.

In November 2012, another powerful 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck the centre of the country, killing 26 people and injuring hundreds.

The impoverished Southeast Asian nation has a strained medical system, especially in its rural states.

The breakneck pace of development in Myanmar’s cities, combined with crumbling infrastructure and poor urban planning, has also made the country’s most populous areas vulnerable to earthquakes and other disasters, experts say.

There were no immediate reports of casualties on Friday.

Phuc was upbeat after attending the second Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) summit in Phnom Penh on Wednesday. There he had a chat with his Thai counterpart PM General Prayut Chan-o-cha on the sidelines of the LMC summit about preparations for the GMS summit. All six leaders of the riparian Mekong states have signalled their attendance to talk about infrastructure development around one of the world’s great rivers just two months after similar talks in Phnom Penh.

Prayut said Thailand was ready to work with Vietnam in organising the GMS summit. Phuc invited all leaders he met on the sideline of LMC, including Chinese premier Li Keqiang, to attend the Hanoi summit on March 29-31. Phuc hailed Thailand’s contributions to promoting cooperation in the Mekong sub-region and in the LMC framework, and asked Thailand to play a role in ensuring water resource security and sustainable use of Mekong water resources, according to the Vietnam News Agency.

Stressing the important principles of cooperation for the socio-economic development of member states as well as regional peace, stability and prosperity, the Vietnamese leader underlined stronger collaboration in effective and sustainable management and use of Mekong water resources.

The use of water resources in the Mekong River is a common concern of countries in the basin as upstream development projects have had severe impact on the environment and livelihoods along the river. Many hydropower dams in the tributaries and mainstream of the Southeast Asia’s longest river cause unnatural fluctuations of water flow.

Overriding priorities should be given to hydro-meteorological statistics and information sharing, cooperation in response to droughts and floods and joint scientific research to construct reservoirs along the Mekong River, Phuc told his colleagues at the LMC summit.

He added that cooperation was also vital for infrastructure development that facilitates flows of commodities, services and capital, and local people’s travel.

While the LMC has identified a wide range of cooperation in dimensions of politics, economics, and social needs in terms of the environment and water-resource management, the scheme has no clear regulation or protocol for water utilisation.

Only four countries in the lower part of the Mekong – Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam – signed the 1995 Mekong Agreement, the pact for river regulation and establishment of the Mekong River Commission.

As the country at the end of the river, Vietnam has suffered from a reduction in the volume and quality of fresh water, in parallel with salinity intrusion and drought in the Mekong Delta.

China has eight dams in the upstream of the Mekong, the stretch it calls Lancang. The Asian power said its reservoir are indeed useful for regulating the water flow, and point to their release of water from the Jinghong reservoir to help relieve drought as Hanoi requested in 2016.

Conservationists expressed their disappointment as the six leaders at the Phnom Penh summit did not address transboundary environmental impacts of development projects in the region. At the LMC summit, the six leaders reaffirmed the goal of building a Mekong-Lancang region of peace, stability, sustainable development and prosperity.

They reached consensus that the MLC should contribute more to promoting regional socio-economic development, narrowing development gaps among member states and supporting Asean Community building.

A memorial for 14-year-old Amy Everett, known as Dolly, who was once the face of the wide-brimmed Akubra hat, is being held Friday following her suicide on January 3 after constant harassment.

Her family launched the #stopbullyingnow campaign, which has rapidly spread on social media, and plan to establish the “Dolly’s Dream” trust to raise awareness around bullying, anxiety, depression and youth suicide.

“This week has been an example of how social media should be used, it has also been an example of how it shouldn’t be,” her father Tick Everett said in an emotional Facebook post.

“You will never know what (you) have until it’s gone,” he added.

Amy featured in past Christmas adverts for hat-maker Akubra, whose headwear is synonymous with outback Australia.

The company, whose Australian origins date back to 1874, said it was “shocked and distressed” by her death.

“To think that anyone could feel so overwhelmed and that this was their only option is unfathomable,” the company said. “Bullying of any type is unacceptable. It is up to us to stand up when we see any kind of bullying behaviour.”

One in seven Australian children are often subjected to cyber-bullying, according to the National Centre Against Bullying, and youth suicide in the Northern Territory, where Everett was from, is among the highest in Australia.

Everett’s family received an outpouring of support online.

“At nearly 60 years of age, I am bewildered by what is happening to our youth,” posted Facebook user Mondo Pace. “My niece was subjected to the same issues as Dolly – now 20 years of age, she still carries the scars.”

Another Facebook user Gav Morgan posted: “Words cannot describe the sadness I feel for the loss of your beautiful girl. The physical scars of bullying heal but the mental scars last much longer.”//AFP