HKPC, IBM partner to launch Hong Kong’s first cloud computing application for education

By eGovAsia Editors | Dec 1, 2010

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HONG KONG – The Hong Kong Productivity Council (HKPC) and IBM recently unveiled the HKPC-IBM Education Cloud Pilot, the first cloud computing application for the Hong Kong education sector. 

Based on a solution developed by IBM China Development Lab, the pilot will be running in the Productivity Training Institute (PTI) of HKPC for six months to improve educational results and efficiencies, and eventually be extended to other Hong Kong educational institutions.
 
“Cloud computing, an emerging IT consumption and delivery model, offers Hong Kong tremendous opportunities to improve productivity and enhance competitiveness,” said Dr. Samson Tam, Deputy Chairman of Hong Kong Productivity Council and Legislative Councilor.
 
The Education Cloud is a scalable cloud computing platform that allows learning institutions to put their computing resource intensive courses on the cloud, and enables students to study outside the classroom at their own pace.

It was developed in China Cloud Computing Lab, part of IBM China Development Lab and a member of IBM’s global network of twelve cloud labs.
 
With this platform, teachers will have bigger flexibility in designing the course and interacting with students online, and improving course materials through collaboration. In addition, IT administrators will benefit from virtualization and automation capabilities of cloud to optimize resources, reduce costs and enhance productivity.  

“We are confident that the pilot will bring tremendous benefits to both teachers and students,” said K T Yung, General Manager, IT Industry Development of HKPC. “Our vision is to extend the Education Cloud to other continued learning institutions for greater collaboration and sharing."