Hong Kong just won back ‘Asia’s biggest’ tech conference

Rise, an annual tech conference whose recent speakers have included executives from Uber (The event next March will be staged in-person. Hong Kong Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Edward Yau touted this as “a testimony of Hong Kong’s success to containing the pandemic and keeping infection rate among the lowest in the world, thereby giving international event organizers confidence that they can stage their events here safely.” “I’m very excited,” he said in a statement Thursday.Paddy Cosgrave, co-founder and CEO of Rise, noted in a statement that the event had “grown to what it is today after five successful years in the city.” Rise is billed as Asia’s largest tech gathering, and attracted some 16,000 attendees and more than 350 speakers at its most recent conference in 2019.The news comes as Malaysia is struggling to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, with the number of known cases doubling about every two months, according to In recent months, the city’s government has faced strong criticism for granting certain exemptions, such as one last month that allowed the actress Nicole Kidman to skip quarantine. The Oscar winner entered the city in August to film a series for Amazon (AMZN). In May, officials also received pushback for allowing some top finance executives to apply for exemptions. Critics argued that the policy was elitist, while the government said it was to “maintain Hong Kong’s status as an international financial center.” Recently, though, HSBC Chairman Mark Tucker reportedly spent three weeks in isolation in the city.— Hanna Ziady, Diksha Madhok and Carly Walsh contributed to this report.