Dr Ben Yip
PhD Graduate (2011) from the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences
Dr Ben Yip graduated with a PhD in Occupational Therapy from PolyU's Department of Rehabilitation Sciences in 2011 under the supervision of Prof. David Man. He has successfully completed numerous research and development (R&D) projects that are of high applicability and sustainability and is leading companies in impactful knowledge transfer. He set up his own company, C2 Innovations & Research Ltd., in 2011, and jointly developed the virtual reality-based rehabilitation system "VRehab" with Prof. Man as a result of his PhD research. In February 2020, Dr Yip also became CEO of Rehab-Robotics Co. Ltd., a Hong Kong-based medical-grade device manufacturer with ISO 13485 certification founded by PolyU occupational therapy alumnus Mr Michael Tsui.
Among Rehab-Robotics Co. Ltd.'s innovative hardware- or software-based rehabilitation products is the internationally award-winning "Hand of Hope" (HOH), a robotic glove system for post-stroke hand-function rehabilitation, which was jointly developed with PolyU biomedical engineering scholars in 2010. Dr Yip's vision of "Development for the better living of mankind" has led to the evolution of a portable and more affordable version 2.0 of the HOH. Spurred by the global COVID-19 pandemic, Dr Yip's team has quickly upgraded the HOH system with an add-on distance-training capacity to benefit clients around the world. He aims to launch version 3.0 of the HOH in 2021 with intelligent medicine, Big Data and cloud-based capabilities.
Dr Yip personally owns one patent, and has facilitated four company-owned patents, four patents under application, and more than 10 worldwide trademarks. He has won four licence agreements with PolyU. Dr Yip continues to lead the company's worldwide sales and marketing in more than 15 countries with 10 local and international distributers, and plans to broaden the company's scope to developing rehabilitation products for the home and for the gerontechnology equipment rental market.
