Mr Herbert CHIA

Prof Herbert Chia has devoted his tireless effort to driving big data development in China over the past decade. He joined Alibaba Group in 2010 and later served as Vice President as well as inaugural Chairman of the Alibaba Data Committee. In 2014, he led Alibaba’s data team to win the “China Excellent IT Team” award in the “Excellent Chinese CIO” selection. During this period, he also served as Deputy Head of Big Data Standards Working Group under the National Information Technology Standardization Technical Committee.

Since 2016, Prof Chia has served as a big data consultant and expert for the municipal governments of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guiyang. In 2017, he was recognised as one of China's “China Top 10 Most Influential Big Data Entrepreneurs” by the State Information Center. In 2018, as one of 160 distinguished contributors, he was part of the official delegation led by the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong SAR to attend the seminar celebrating the 40th anniversary of the country's reform and opening up, during which he was received by President Xi Jinping.

Prof Chia authored the white paper advocating for the development of Hong Kong into an “International Data Port”. He was subsequently commissioned by the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies under the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office to complete the research report “Data-Driven Innovation and Development Planning for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area”, and  compiled  the “Urban Precision Data Decision-Making System Research” for the Beijing Municipal Government.

Born in Hong Kong, Prof Chia studied in the United Kingdom and Australia, then pursued advanced studies at the INSEAD Business School and School of Economics and Management of Tsinghua University. He has long been dedicated to research on digital transformation and is the author of bestsellers Human AI Collaboration《全民 AI -人機協作必備攻略》, The Big Data《決戰大數據》and The Nature of Data《數據的本質》, as well as the translator of the Chinese edition of Engaging Communities Through Data-Smart Governance《數據驅動的智能城市》.