Red Hat Honours Airport Authority and Hospital Authority for Pioneering Open Source Initiatives at the Red Hat APAC Innovation Awards 2024 for Hong Kong

Red Hat, Inc., the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, announced the winners of the Red Hat APAC Innovation Awards 2024 for Hong Kong today. Red Hat recognised the noteworthy milestones achieved by Airport Authority and Hospital Authority for their innovative use of Red Hat solutions to address the evolving needs of their customers.

In an ever-evolving global business landscape, the Asia Pacific region (APAC) remains resilient and is, in fact, in the midst of rapid growth. With its dynamic economies, diverse cultures, and vast consumer bases, APAC’s promising territories present growth opportunities for businesses big and small alike. Technology remains a pivotal factor in shaping the business landscape, helping enterprises scale and innovate. Embodying this year’s theme, “Unlock what’s next”, the Red Hat APAC Innovation Awards celebrates customers who have harnessed the power of open source technologies to drive transformation and innovation. These customers are recognised for demonstrating how enterprises can overcome the dual challenge of managing escalating infrastructure costs alongside evolving business demands. These awards also celebrate the achievements of 31 winners across all 11 countries, showcasing how businesses across the region have successfully leveraged Red Hat solutions to overcome challenges and pioneer new customer-centric solutions.

According to the Red Hat 2024 Global Tech Trends, the top funding priorities for businesses across the APAC region are building cloud-native applications, improving digital user experience and accelerating application/service delivery. These findings highlight the importance of innovative solutions in the awards’ five key categories that reflect areas that can empower organizations to navigate business challenges faced today: Digital Transformation, Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure, Cloud-Native Development, Automation, and Resilience. 

The winners were chosen for their outstanding use of Red Hat solutions, demonstrating significant contributions to their business objectives. Each organization exemplifies the transformative potential of open source technology, pioneering advancements in business processes, enhancing productivity, fostering innovation and fortifying resilience in the face of challenges. Their success stories underscore the pivotal role of Red Hat in empowering enterprises across the APAC region to achieve unparalleled growth through strategic deployment of open source solutions.

Category: Cloud-Native Development and Automation

Winner: Airport Authority Hong Kong

Airport Authority Hong Kong is responsible for the operations and development of Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA), aiming to strengthen HKIA as the leading international aviation hub and a key engine for the economic growth of Hong Kong. To cope with the future air traffic demand, HKIA is expanding into a Three-runway System (3RS). Foreseeing a surge in operational demand, the organization looked to modernize its applications, expand capacity and embrace automation to maintain its status as a global aviation hub.

To streamline operations and improve efficiency, Airport Authority Hong Kong implemented Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, to automate system patching and provisioning. It also helped to facilitate resource allocation, reducing manual effort and human error to fulfill standardization and security compliance. The organization was also able to deliver a smart travel experience to visitors of Hong Kong with the “My HKG” mobile app, providing real-time flight status, airport maps, public transport information and more.

Category: Cloud-Native Development and Automation

Winner: Hospital Authority

Hospital Authority is responsible for managing Hong Kong's public hospitals services, comprising 43 hospitals and institutions, 49 specialist outpatient clinics and 73 general outpatient clinics with a workforce of about 88,000 and over 29,000 beds. Recognising the importance of technology in healthcare, the Hospital Authority has been implementing various initiatives to enhance healthcare delivery through the adoption of technology, such as electronic health records, telehealth, HA Go and digital health solutions. Over the past 30 years, Hospital Authority has adopted various technologies to develop IT solutions that support growing demands in public hospitals and clinics. These technologies automate and streamline hospital workflows to improve operational efficiency and clinical safety, thereby enhancing patient outcomes. However, as the technical footprint has expanded, so has the technical debt, impacting Hospital Authority's ability to develop new IT solutions and requiring significant effort to maintain legacy systems.

The Hospital Authority then turned to Red Hat for their expertise in modernizing IT infrastructure with Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform. This supports agile delivery of new innovative IT solutions while being able to manage increasing workloads. The resulting efficiency has translated into cost savings and improved business agility to meet the growing demands of public healthcare.

Supporting Quotes:
Marjet Andriesse, senior vice president and general manager, APJC, Red Hat
“Despite the uncertain economic conditions in 2024, we have seen the remarkable milestones achieved by our customers. This year, we want to highlight the innovative strides of these organizations at the Red Hat APAC Innovation Awards 2024 as they leverage advanced technologies to drive business initiatives. Open source remains the key to help organizations uncover what is next and pave the way for success with the right tools and expertise.”

Lily Lai, Chief Information Officer,  Airport Authority Hong Kong
“With a vast and intricate infrastructure, including terminals, runways, cargo facilities and more at  HKIA, managing the complex infrastructure while ensuring operations remain seamless during the transition to automation posed a significant challenge. Like many large organizations, we had several legacy systems in place, requiring more careful planning when it came to integrating the systems with more modern tools. Introduction of the platform enables us to reduce operational costs, while increasing business agility and scalability of our infrastructure and services.”

Alex Lee, Chief Systems Manager,  Infrastructure Services, Hospital Authority
“Collaborating with Red Hat has been pivotal in our journey towards developing smart hospitals and enhancing healthcare delivery across Hong Kong. Red Hat’s expertise helped us implement a robust, scalable IT infrastructure that seamlessly connects our healthcare ecosystem – from hospitals to primary care providers – resulting in improved patient care, streamlined data sharing, and greater operational efficiency. Thanks to Red Hat, we are able to fulfill our SMART goals for the organization.”