WBD101 is the First Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) and First Company from the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) on the list of DLRIs
HONG KONG, October 23, 2019 /Neptune100/ — To encourage enterprises to conduct research and development (R&D) activities locally, the HKSAR Government passed a law in Oct 2018 to allow tax deduction on expenditure incurred on qualified R&D activities. As part of this tax deduction initiative, the Commissioner for Innovation and Technology (CIT) is empowered to designate any Hong Kong corporation undertaking qualifying R&D activities under the DLRI tax deduction scheme. To obtain this designation, the entity must be able to demonstrate a high level of research and development capability backed up by the right technical capacity, experience and competency in the relevant domains.
In Oct 2019, CIT officially named WBD101 as a qualified Designated Local Research Institution, making it the first SME and the first company with headquarters in HKSTP to achieve this esteemed status.
WBD101 has been developing non-invasive sensing technology since its inception, headquartered at HKSTP. The company has won numerous international and local awards for its pioneering technology including the 2016 GSMA GLOMO Awards at the Mobile World Congress for the Best Wearable Mobile Technology, the Gold and Special Award at 43th International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva and the 2016 Hong Kong ICT Awards.
This non-invasive sensing technology, ActivHearts™, has been used in many consumer earbuds such as the JBL Reflect Fit, Pioneer SEC-S801BT, Cleer Edge Pulse, BeemUnited BeActiv and the EP-017 from Vimai. It has successfully transformed the earbuds into a Hearables where the consumers can enjoy music and get audio coaching while having their heart rate tracked. The ActivHearts™ technology also shows great promise for healthcare and medical applications such as in personal sound amplification and hearing aids products, where biomarkers including dynamic heart rate, inter-beat intervals and motions can be measured.
“WBD101 has been playing an active role in exemplifying substantial value that R&D could deliver. In this respect, it is with tremendous pleasure to see WBD101 successfully listed as a DLRI. We hope that more partner companies like WBD101 will be listed as DLRIs very soon. WBD101 started as an incubatee in HKSTP and over the years, it has become one of the most promising startups in the Park. HKSTP is proud to be part of WBD101’s success,” says Mr. Albert Wong, CEO of Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation.
“With all the concerted effort from the WBD101 team, it’s great to see that WBD101 is again at the forefront of Hong Kong’s R&D initiatives! For a start-up to be accorded with the status of Designated Local Research Institution is a great recognition. This speak volumes about the stellar team at WBD101! I am confident that WBD101’s success will rally more Hong Kong companies to dedicate more resources on R&D and technology commercialization to benefit the state of the art and the community as a whole,” says leading technology lawyer Mr. Nick Chan MH, “WBD101 is a great role model for companies in Hong Kong and also those in other parts of the Greater Bay Area.”
“TCL Entertainment Solutions (TES) has been devoted to establish TCL as a leading brand globally in the Headphones, Audio, Accessories and Smart Home categories,” says Ms. Rachel Lee, Director of Marketing and e-Commerce at TCL Entertainment Solutions, “We are very pleased to count WBD101 as a trusted technology partner and its appointment by the HKSAR government as a DLRI affirmed our belief that its sensing technology is really at the forefront of the sensing technology.”
“With a team of dedicated postgraduate engineers, WBD101 has devoted more than hundreds of engineering man months to our sensing technology including ActivHearts™ and Mogo™,” says Mr. Wallace Wong, Chairman and CTO of Well Being Digital Limited, “This designation is a testament to the quality of our R&D work. We hope that more companies Hong Kong would engage in innovation especially in the fitness and healthcare hearable segments.”
Well Being Digital Limited as DLRI.
About Well Being Digital WBD101
Founded in 2012, WBD101 is a Hong Kong based company whose first patents are dated back to 2008, incubated by the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP), it has offices in HKSTP and Shenzhen so as to provide very timely support to B2B customers during their product designs, testing and production stages. WBD101 focuses on very sophisticated SmartBody™ Sensing Technology. Over the years, WBD101 won numerous international awards including the Best Wearable Mobile Tech Awards at the Mobile World Congress 2016, Special & Gold Awards at the 43rd Geneva Inventions Conventions and 2016 WITSA Global ICT Award.
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