LicenCheck is a free service that provides a searchable interface to data provided by the Hong Kong Food and Environmental Hygiene Department. Hong Kong requires operating restaurants to maintain valid licenses. But in Hong Kong's fast-moving economy it can be difficult to keep up with changes in restaurants and licenses. This application was designed to help the civil servants that enforce licenses and the general public that wants to validate the status of their local eateries. LicenCheck was developed by Alfred Lai, Ding Lam, Ron Tam, and Solomon Yan, students at the Institute of Vocational Education (IVE) in the Department of Multimedia and Internet Technology, with support of the IVE Cloud Innovation Center, and collaborating with Open Data Hong Kong. Further funding for this project comes from Amazon Web Services in the form of an Education Grant Award.

1. LicenCheck (查牌)
with Open Data
Project Sharing
@ Hong Kong Open Source Conference 2013
Cloud Innovation Centre
Open Data Hong Kong
(IVE-LWL)
(ODHK)

2. Team Members
Developers:
●
●
●
●
Alfred Lai
Ding Lam
Ronald Tam
Solomon Yan
Year 2 students, HD in Computer Systems Administration, IVE(LWL)
Advisers:
● Mr. Cyrus Wong
Data Scientist, Cloud Innovation Centre - IVE(LWL)
● Mr. Scott Drummonds
Ecosystem Coordinator, Open Data Hong Kong

3. Open Data Hong Kong
What is Open Data?
How can Open Data help us?
What Open Data exists in Hong Kong?

4. News
(4 of 31 SUBWAY is unlicensed, FEHD just let it go)
SUBWAY 31店 4間無牌 食環署僅票控了事
http://lifestyle.etnet.com.hk/column/index.php/features/news/18878?locdes=content

5. Statistics

6. If you have meal in unlicensed
restaurants...
● Health & Safety
● Complaint
● Insurance

7. Background
● LicenCheck is a free interface to FEHD Data
● The data change fast
● help civil servants and general public lookup valid
licenses

8. Technology
AWS Cloud Technology
●
●
●
●
●
EC2
RDS
Route 53
S3
CloudWatch
- Elastic Compute Cloud
- Relational Database Service (MySQL)
- Scalable Domain Name System
- Scalable Storage in the Cloud
- Provides monitoring for Cloud Resources
Automation Program
● Java 1.7
● Google Apps API for Apps
Webpage
● Google Maps API V3

9. System Overview

10. Demo
LicenCheck
http://chapi.data-hk.com

11. Problems we faced
1. Address Format
'SHOP NO. 22, G/F, EASTWAY TOWERS, 59-99 SHAU KEI WAN
MAIN STREET EAST, HONG KONG'
= Hong Kong
2. Address Conversion
- Limitation of Google Geocoding API
20,000 / 2500 = 8 days

12. Best Geocoding Algorithm
SHOP 27, G/F, ALDRICH GARDEN, 2 OI LAI STREET, SHAU KEI WAN, HONG KONG
Separate
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
SHOP 27, G/F, ALDRICH GARDEN, 2 OI LAI STREET, SHAU KEI WAN, HONG KONG
ALDRICH GARDEN, 2 OI LAI STREET, SHAU KEI WAN, HONG KONG
2 OI LAI STREET, SHAU KEI WAN, HONG KONG
SHAU KEI WAN, HONG KONG
HONG KONG
A
B
C
D
E
Google API
A = 4, B = 7, C = 5,D = 4,E = 1
B
(14 * 20,000 / 2500 ) = 112 days

13. 3. Too many restaurants within small area

14. Solution - MarkerClusterer

15. What we want
● License Valid Period
○ to check whether the license is outdated

16. Surprising Results
OpenRice v.s. LicenCheck
Total no. of restaurants in OpenRice: ~21,000
Total no. of licensed restaurants:
~18,
000
????

17. Concerns
1. Data Accuracy
License information does not match the real
license status due to time delay.
2. Ease of Use
3. How Useful?

18. Further Development
● LicenCheck
○ Mobile Apps
○ Liquor License
●
...
●
...
It’s just the start!

19. What’s next?
LicenCheck
is
a sub-project under
Hong Kong Data Platform

20. Vision
1.
2.
3.
4.
Centralized Data Platform inside Cloud.
Using public data.
Extensible for future data, and
Archived, consolidated data through a common
API.

21. Hong Kong Data Platform Users
1.
2.
3.
4.
Developer
- Using Data API
Data Analyst - Export Data to Excel
Researcher - Big Data Dump with S3.
Citizens
- Simple Reports and Statistics

22. Features
●
●
●
●
●
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Automatically Data Capture
Transform Data into Unified Format.
Data Visualization
Intelligent Data Analysis
Data Export
Generic API with Library Support for
Common Programming Languages.

23. Help Us
● Volunteers help to fix the improper format
address.
● Graphical Design (e.g. Attractive Icon)
● Legal Advices
● Any Suggestions / Comments

24. Finally Thanks To
Amazon Web Services
Give Education Grant Award to
Cloud Innovation Centre - IVE(LWL)
Wai-Chung Bastien @ ODHK
Help to set up a temporary sub-domain in “opendatahk.
com”.

25. Q&A
LicenCheck:
http://license.data-hk.com
or
http://chapi.data-hk.com
Email:
licencheck@gmail.com