The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) and Web Summit have announced that RISE, a tech event, will return to Hong Kong annually for five years running starting from March 2022.
The 2022 in-person conference will be held over three days from March 14-17 at the AsiaWorld-Expo. RISE, billed as Asia’s largest tech event, was first launched in Hong Kong in 2015, and has already held five successful versions.
Over the years, the event has attracted thousands of global tech founders, startups and investors to the city, such as Joseph Tsai, co-founder & executive vice chairman of Alibaba; John Collison, co-founder & president of Stripe; Peggy Johnson, CEO of Magic Leap; and Neil Shen, founding managing partner of Sequoia Capital China.
The secretary for commerce and economic development, Edward Yau, said: “I’m very excited to see RISE, a world-renowned tech event, returning to Hong Kong. This is a testimony of Hong Kong’s success in containing the pandemic and keeping the infection rate among the lowest in the world, thereby giving international event organisers confidence that they can stage their events here safely.
“I am sure the staging of RISE will showcase Hong Kong’s capacity to deliver amid the challenges posed by the epidemic, and connect our tech start-up ecosystem with that of the globe. I look forward to welcoming more world-class business events to Hong Kong, injecting new vigour into our economy.”
Paddy Cosgrave, co-founder and CEO of the RISE Conference and Web Summit, said: “We are extremely grateful for the support the city of Hong Kong has given RISE over the last five years, and we couldn’t be more excited to return in person in 2022. We’ve seen the region’s tech and startup economy grow from strength to strength since we launched RISE in 2015.”
Cosgrave continued: “We always intended to come back to Hong Kong at some stage. RISE has grown to what it is today after five successful years in the city. The event has now become an important nexus that connects the East and the rest of the world. CEOs and investors from around the world want a window into the region, and vice versa.”
HKTB’s chairman YK Pang said: “We welcome the return of RISE to Hong Kong for another five years in 2022–2026. The city’s state-of-the-art infrastructure and venues, complemented with a favourable business environment and unique travel experiences, are all part of the equation reflecting Hong Kong’s appeal for international business events.
“With Hong Kong’s strategic location in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, event participants can also capitalise on the multitude of opportunities in the region. With the strong commitment to hygiene and safety across all community sectors, the city is gearing up for a new milestone, and the HKTB will continue to make its best efforts to maintain Hong Kong’s status as The World’s Meeting Place.”
Chairman of AsiaWorld-Expo Ng Chi-kee added: “Hosting RISE in the coming five years bears an impactful significance to the recovery of Hong Kong’s MICE sector, as it marks the return of top-class international events to Hong Kong.
“With stringent anti-epidemic measures in place and our quality service, we will continue to work closely with organisers to deliver world-class events to maintain Hong Kong as Asia’s premier meeting hub and attract more international events to the city.”
ICCA has launched a new initiative – Net Zero Carbon Events – to connect the events industry globally to the rapidly growing movement towards net zero by 2050.
This initiative is hosted by the Joint Meetings Industry Council (JMIC). In November 2021, world leaders will meet in Glasgow, Scotland at COP26 to present how their countries will achieve the 50 per cent reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2030 in order to deliver on the Paris Agreement.
In advance of this meeting, for-profit and non-profit organizations from across all sectors are setting forth their own pathways towards this goal, and the ultimate goal of net zero by 2050.
Through this initiative, JMIC aims to link all stakeholders in the corporate, professional, academic and destination communities worldwide that have also committed to engagement in what is one of the biggest collective challenges today, and to invite those that have not done so yet to join.
The Net Zero Carbon Events initiative aims to bring together a wide range of industry stakeholders to:
The new initiative arises from the work of an organising task force initiated by JMIC members ICCA, AIPC and UFI joined by representatives of Emerald Expositions (US), ExCel (UK), Freeman (US), HKCEC (China), Informa (UK), Javits Center (US), MCI (Switzerland), Messe München (Germany), RX (UK) and Scottish Event Campus (UK) and it was born from a discussion with the UNFCCC secretariat — United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change secretariat — which is also supporting the initiative.
All interested parties are invited to join this journey at netzerocarbonevents.org. The aim is to grow this initiative that represents the events industry as a whole and provide a collaborative commitment everyone can act on.
James Rees, ICCA president, said: “ICCA is committed to driving sustainable development within the meetings industry and our global membership. We are proud to be a part of such an initiative which is becoming more important than ever and through collaborative effort with our JMIC partners, we look forward to playing a very active role in developing and implementing sustainable event strategies that are of the highest standards.