TecHKU » Kevin Cureau

Easy Taxi: Cab Hailing Made Simple

Kevin Cureau — Sun, 09 Mar 2014 16:00:47 +0000

by Kevin Cureau | Photo Credits: Rae Lee, Arjun Bharadwaj | 10 March 2014

Easy Taxi is an app for smartphones that allows you to book a taxi with just the tap of a finger. The goal is to connect drivers and passengers and create a more convenient way to get taxis. In the four months they have been in Hong Kong, Easy Taxi has signed up over 6,000 taxis and their app has been downloaded more than 125,000 times.

Now people might wonder why they would need an app to call a taxi when they can just go outside and hail a taxi. Hong Kong has over 18,000 taxis and in the span of 5 minutes, 50 of them will pass by you. But have you ever experienced that moment when it’s raining a lot and you’re trying to get a taxi but none of them are available and there’s a long queue at the taxi stand because everyone wants a taxi?

That’s when this app comes in.

The app uses GPS technology to accurately pin-point your location and find an available taxi near you by sending a request to all vacant taxis nearby. Once a taxi accepts the ride, you can follow the location of the taxi and watch it arrive in real-time. Taxis take 5 to 6 minutes on average to arrive and the meter of the taxi will only start once you get in the car.

To ensure quality and security of the service, each taxi driver is screened by Easy Taxi. The company collects the driver’s name, license number, taxi information, photo and other relevant details and verifies them with the government.

Taxi Anyone?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7duGwgsw20&w=350&h=250]

Once a taxi is booked, you will receive all the driver’s information so you know which one is coming to pick you up. Having all this information will also allow you to quickly contact the taxi if, as it tends to happen from time to time, you ever leave something in the vehicle.

Easy Taxi Visits HKU

Easy Taxi was present last week at The University of Hong Kong for “The Future of Technology” conference. Blake Larson, the Managing Director for Easy Taxi in Asia, says that it’s all about improving efficiency. “What we are doing is trying to educate people of a more convenient way… we are making the taxi acquisition process for passengers much easier because we provide them the certainty and the security that they don’t necessarily get if they just walk out to the curb to find a taxi.”

Taxi drivers in Hong Kong are unique, some of them will refuse to take you because the destination where you want to go is too far for them. That is technically illegal in Hong Kong but a lot of taxi drivers will do that. With the app, since you give all the details of your destination beforehand, you are guaranteed to reach your destination wherever that might be.

Blake Larson and Easy Taxi at HKU

Questions for Easy Taxi?

Easy Taxi might be the ideal solution to the struggles that people have with taxis in Hong Kong, but it also raises some questions.

Will the app make people use taxis more often? With Hong Kong’s highly efficient transportation system, with the MTR, double-decker buses, red minibuses and green minibuses, you really only take a taxi when you carry big items with you or when you want to get somewhere faster, and taxis are more expensive.

What if a destination is too far and not convenient for taxi drivers? They can choose not to accept the ride and you are stuck with the same problem you had without the app – nobody wants to drive you. How will Easy Taxi solve that issue?

For people living in the countryside, taxis are not as common as on the Hong Kong island. If they want a taxi, they book it in advance but it takes 20 minutes to reach them. Will Easy Taxi be a way to speed up that process for these people?

Young and Full of Potential

Easy Taxi is still a young app but it is growing rapidly. They are setting up partnerships, with Octopus for example, so that the app becomes an everyday part our lives in Hong Kong. Lots of new features like in-app payment, advanced booking and direct messaging with drivers are in the works to improve the user experience.

Easy Taxi is present in 28 countries in more than 100 cities and is available for iOS, Android, Windows phone and Samsung AppStore.

About the Author

Kevin Cureau Follow @KevinCureau

Master of Journalism

kevin.cureau@gmail.com

Up Close and Personal with Prof. Tien

Kevin Cureau — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 05:59:03 +0000

by Kevin Cureau | Interviewer: Sundararaja N. Valiyapan and Donald Lam | Photo Credits: Kevin Cureau | 2 December 2013

At The University of Hong Kong (HKU), Professor Norman C. Tien is in his second year as the Dean of Engineering. Students might not see him often but he holds the most important seat at the Faculty of Engineering. He sat with TecHKU to talk about his past experiences in the US, how they affected him, and what expectations he has for HKU’s engineering students. He also shares with us his vision to make robotics the next big thing in Hong Kong in The Man Behind Hong Kong’s Robotics Revolution.

A Different Mindset

In the past several decades, the U.S have been the biggest player concerning innovations and technology. Many companies on the West Coast like HP and Apple, which started in a garage, went on to became the leaders in their fields.

The culture of taking risks is embodied in the american culture of innovation. In the technology sector in areas like Boston or San Francisco, investors tend to take bigger risks and people are more entrepreneurial about their research or projects.

‘‘If you haven’t done two startups and failed both times, you’re not good yet’’ said Prof. Tien. Even with a failed attempt, there is still a chance of people investing in you. Failing at a startup is almost like a badge of honor that you took good risks. If you haven’t failed yet, you don’t have enough experience yet.

This incredible culture that catalyzes innovation is not present everywhere even within the US. During his tenure at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, Prof. Tien noticed that the Cleveland mindset is different than the one in Silicon Valley.

‘‘If you fail once [in the Cleveland area], people tend not to invest in you again.” said Prof. Tien. In Hong Kong, the perception is somewhat similar.

The culture in the U.S is more independent, they encourage people to try and experiment things. Asia is trying to close the gap, but the U.S still has an incredible lead. Prof. Tien noted that the young people across the border in Mainland China are also increasingly active and risk-taking. Hong Kong have to catch up in this respect.

Life and Death of a Startup

Prof. Tien had his own share of dabbling in the US startup culture as well. At the end of the 1990’s while working at Cornell University’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, there was a big optical telecommunications boom. Millions of dollars were being made by companies such as Xros, Nortel and Corning.

Prof. Tien’s field of interest is in the design of microelectromechanical components (mems) which are necessary for routing communications in the optical telecommunications systems.

That’s when he created his company AIP Networks with two colleagues.

The opportunity, the industry and the money was there so Prof. Tien didn’t think twice. They managed to raise almost US$ 10 million. They built prototypes, filed patents and hired 25 employees.

Everything seemed to be on a good path; until the whole bubble burst and the industry crashed in 2001. US$ 2.8 trillion were lost by people in that bubble burst.

With no market left for AIP Networks, and with around US$ 4 million left in cash, their investors voted to merge with another company, Optoplex. But with Optoplex only wanting the money from AIP Networks, after the merger all prototypes were discontinued and the patents were forgotten and AIP ceased to exist.

If we follow the startup mindset from the Silicon Valley, that’s the first failed experience. So you must be wondering, did Prof. Tien then have a second startup?

Prof. Tien decided instead to go back to academia.

But the whole startup process brought him a lot of experience and insight that he now tries to incorporate into academia. He said that academia is a very competitive environment and Universities are competing just like companies in the market place. HKU has slipped in the rankings but just because other universities are moving fast and changing the landscape.

‘‘You have to be adaptable. You have to look at where your market position is, you wanna look at what your signatures might be, what’s gonna be your core projects and core strength that you wanna emphasize and then you have to put your structure, your organization and your culture in the right mode to move fast. These are all corporate types of things, we just translate them into academia’’ said Prof. Tien.

‘‘It’s not too much about making money, it’s about how to improve the teaching, the researches, how to be more reputable because at the university, reputation is the currency.’’

Forming Students

Prof. Tien has some ideas for the Faculty of Engineering and its students. He thinks that students should start thinking like entrepreneurs.

‘‘We are going to try to inject more innovation into the curriculum here. So one of the things we are trying to work on is to see if we can develop maybe an innovation project that in the long term every engineering student at HKU would have to partake in.”

“We will keep looking at our curriculum and work on improving it to put more design experiences and team orientated activities, to bring more communication skills, you know the elements that students need to be competitive in the world.”

“I do encourage students to have dreams and if possible to have the opportunity to pursue them. If one always keep dreaming and keep looking for an opportunity to accomplish, achieve one’s dream, I think it’s pretty important.”

“I’m here to help the Faculty of Engineering keep moving up. The best way the faculty can do that and make an impact in the University is to be relevant to what’s happening outside and if one is relevant to what’s happening outside, it will also help Hong Kong. No question that would be the goal, to make an impact.’’

Following his Father’s Footsteps

Prof. Tien’s father, who was a former Chancellor at UC Berkeley, headed a commission after the handover to ameliorate the then almost non-existent innovation landscape in Hong Kong. Many scientific R&D entities such as the Innovation Technology Fund, ASTRI (Applied Science and Technology Research Institute) were created thanks to his father and the commission.

With success running in his family, Prof. Tien wants to do the same and follow into his father’s footsteps and with distinctions such as a National Science Foundation CAREER award, the Chang-Lin Tien Education Leadership Award, many publications as well as several prior positions in famous institutions, the HKU Faculty of Engineering is in very good hands.

Prof. Tien was appointed the Dean of Engineering in June 2012. Before that he served as Dean of Engineering at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Previous academic positions saw him work at UC Davis, UC Berkeley and Cornell University.

About the Author

Kevin Cureau Follow @KevinCureau

Master of Journalism

kevin.cureau@gmail.com