Co-organized by the Intellectual Property Department (IPD) of the Hong Kong SAR Government, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) and City University of Hong Kong (CityU), AUTM-ISTA Professional Development Conference was held on 29 July to 2 August 2019. The 5-day conference consisted of two parts: AUTM Standard Course and ISTA Workshop.

The Mini-TOOLS Course is based on the standard Technology Operations and Organization Licensing Skills (TOOLS) Course with content irrelevant to the Asian context omitted.

30 practitioners from 12 institutions including Fudan University, Nanjing University, Peking University, Renmin University of China, Sichuan University, South China University of Technology, Southeast University, Sun Yat-sen University, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Tongji University, Zhejiang University and Toushi Group actively participated in the activity.

The two AUTM standard course modules provided a good understanding of the overseas’ best practices while the supplementary course guided by Prof. Rongxiang ZHAO of Zhejiang University offered in-depth discussion on adopting the principles in the local context. Dr David AI of Hawaii University and Dr Alwin WONG of PolyU also attended the workshop as guest speakers.