“Entrepreneurship is making failure, if you need one thing to take away, then is ‘don’t regret, do it ’”
- Serena Pau
*Up to the speaker session, Serena was the Head of Development (Tech and Product), CLP Innovation Hub.
Serena is a full-stack product management specialist whose focuses has been on agile and IoT product development. Before joining CLP Innovation Hub to build Smart Energy Connect, she has an IOT wellness startup called Ozmo.
Before the entrepreneur life starts, Serena joined different companies including SGS and Hong Kong Trade Development Council. Next, she backed to Wings Product Workshop, which is Serena's family business founded in 1980, as a board of management leading around 150 employees.
In 2014, Serena has her first start-up. Ozmo is a smart bottle and water app that works with your Fitbit and Garmin Watch. By taking various roles (CEO, CFO and COO), she has hands-on experience in strategic planning, business development, financial modelling, legal compliance, product development as well as the formation of team culture, also practical skills such as interaction design, namely, UX and Google surveys. Moreover, Ozmo has won the ICT Smart HK Award. In quarter 2/3 of 2016, the product was delivered after the Kickstarter period. This is a milestone, which means that if Ozmo cannot raise funds, it comes to an end. Starting with design and engineer close down in December 2017, and sales and marketing people are the last people to leave the company, Ozmo has been a humbling experience from thinking about failure for Serena.
After closing down Ozmo, she is working in CLP Innovation Hub since 2018. CLP Innovation Hub is a start-up accelerator within China Light and Power (CLP), a major utility in Hong Kong. With this background, CLP Innovation Hub delivers energy solutions by working with startups and solution providers on enterprise-level products. Serena built Smart Energy Connect there, an Energy solution platform for sustainable businesses to enhance energy efficiency, allowing startups and solution providers to work closer.
In the speaker session, Serena showed a virtual tour on energy usage solutions (achieving automation, building management system, sensors to various hubs and the cloud, room booking system and optimized energy usage, testing electronic and electrical goods and metering).
With the help of CLP Innovation Hub, CLP replicates the success of startups as a large company, for instance, creating an energy app store, sourcing products instead of building products and modernizing merchandising.
“Thank you, Serena, for the great tour of the CLP office and the sharing. I was grateful to be able to hear her share so candidly about the thoughts and processes behind how she ended her business. I strongly agree with her opinion on how important it was to know when to stop though it is something that is truly difficult to determine. Hearing about how she decided it was time to stop was thus very helpful in learning about this process. I was also especially inspired to hear about her thoughts on the learning process. Her confidence in learning anything within 4 years and the #fearlessness she showed in exploring areas beyond her field provided a new perspective for me. While I have always been excited to learn new things and pick-up new skills, I have not always had the courage to dive into a project I was unfamiliar with. Hearing about Serena’s method of learning and entering a new field of interest helped me better understand how I may better prepare myself to take on new projects. The #resilience Serena showed as she moved through the different working phases in her journey was also very inspiring. I hope to be able to also apply such a strong and positive mindset to tackle the future projects that come my way.”
Sylvia Soh - Student from ENTR1001
“Thank you Serena for the wonderful sharing as well as the virtual tour at CLP Innovation hub! Truly a breath of fresh air to be able to witness the birthplace of so many innovative tech products that are focused on energy efficiency! The part that inspired most about Serena’s sharing was when Eric asked her how she learnt so quickly about new technology, and Serena gave an unorthodox response – through learning the German language. It was bewildering at first but when Serena explained, it gave me an entirely new perspective towards learning. Serena explained that learning the German language allowed her to grasp and understand new concepts and ideas faster. This taught me that as long as we are passionate about something and pour our hearts and souls into it, not only will we enjoy the process, but also learn new skill-sets and mindsets that are transferable and applicable to other areas in life. Focus on the process instead of the destination, as that is where the most valuable lessons are learnt. Serena has truly exemplified the power of #curiosity and #passion. Thank you HKUST for organizing this virtual tour and I hope there will be more in the future!”
Chok Hao Ze - Student from ENTR1001
Find out more about the visual record of this class on MIRO:
Read more on how student think after the session:
