[FEATURED NEWS] Come together – Homecoming at the inaugural HTX Convention

The inaugural HTX Convention that took place on 22 March 2023 was the first event of the year which brought together Xponents from their offices and labs across the island.

For a full day, Xponents got to catch up with friends and colleagues they might not have had the opportunity to meet in person in a long time. While waiting for the convention to begin, Xponents got together over breakfast and group photo-taking sessions. 

In his opening address, the Chairman of HTX’s Board of Directors, Aubeck Kam Tse Tsuen, shared his thoughts on the HTX values. Through teamwork, the diverse community of Xponents are united behind their common mission. Xponents also need to fulfill their mission with urgency. One good example was when HTX delivered a border management system to ICA at short notice during the COVID-19 crisis. In addition, as HTX projects are high-stakes endeavours, Xponents need to be clear-headed about the risks of failure and must always be on the lookout for better ways to achieve their mission.

HTX Chief Executive (CE) Chan Tsan shared with Xponents his twist on Yoda’s famous dictum “Do or do not, there is no try.” Xponents must try, and even as they do everything they can to succeed, they must be prepared to fail. To change Xponents’ mindsets about failure, HTX has introduced the Undaunted Award to celebrate Xponents who have persevered towards fulfilling their mission despite failures along the way.

While the theme of the convention was Innovation in Motion, all the values – Teamwork, Empathy, Foresight, Exuberance, Innovation, and Mission – were celebrated. In a surprise event, colourful balloons representing the values were released among the audience to be bounced en masse to the Xponents assembled on stage who had been selected by their colleagues as exemplifying these values.

Once the balloons were brought off stage, the assembled Xponents then led the audience to perform the Six Values Poses.

HTX’s Chief Innovation Officer (CINO) Ng Pan Yong next took to the stage to share his presentation memorably titled Innovate Everything Everywhere All at Once. He highlighted the failure taboo which is a major blocker of innovation: Xponents are not sure that they will be rewarded for failure and hence they are unwilling to take risks.

To change mindsets, Xponents need to see that risk-taking is indeed rewarded in their work. The Undaunted Awards are a good start as they show that the leadership is serious about risk-taking even if the attempts fail.

Mok Shao Hong, Deputy Director (Innovations), Partnerships, next shared with Xponents the coming launch in May 2023 of Hatch, HTX’s tech startup incubator. Assistant Chief Executive (ACE) Sean Tan and Trevor Heung, Engineer (Autonomous Vehicle Solutions), also gave Xponents a preview of TechX Summit (TXS) 2024, which HTX will be conducting in partnership with Milipol Asia-Pacific, the leading international exhibition for public safety.

Showing that Xponents also have talents in the artistic arena, the next hour showcased the musical talents of the HTX band Coffee Break, with CE and the directors joining the performance! CE dedicated his rendition of Elvis’ iconic song “Can’t Help Falling in Love” to all Xponents, and his performance was set to a backdrop slideshow of happy groups of Xponents at various HTX events from the past three-and-a-half years.

Following the musical coffee break, CINO led a mini-Pitch Day event where several teams pitched their innovative solutions to a panel of judges.

Q Team’s Q Stick project won the Most Innovative Award and their JEDI project won the Best Pitch Award. The audience was given the opportunity to vote for their favourite team, and Deus Ex Machina from Platform Systems won the Most Popular Award for their solution to solve the air lock problem on coast guard patrol boats.

Two other teams won Undaunted Awards: a joint team from Corporate & Finance, Ops Systems, and Human Resource won the award for their innovative use of Microsoft List for onboarding new Xponents, and a team from Sense-making and Surveillance won for their efforts at developing a gait recognition system.

The inaugural HTX Convention hence ended with Xponents gaining a renewed sense of camaraderie and appreciation for the HTX values. The convention also re-energised Xponents for coming events like the launch of Hatch and TXS 2024.