Zexiang Li

Zexiang Li is a Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) professor of electrical engineering and founder of the university's Automation Technology Center, with academic roots at Carnegie Mellon and UC Berkeley . He is best known not as a scientist-entrepreneur himself, but as an institutional builder who backed student founders — most famously Wang Tao of DJI, whom Li supported with critical investment and team introductions when the company was near collapse . His broader footprint includes incubating DJI in the classroom, as well as companies like Liqun Automation and Exyn Technology through his 3126 lab, and Narwal and HAI Robotics through the XbotPark robotics base he built in Dongguan's Songshan Lake . By 2021, XbotPark had incubated over 60 companies with an 80% survival rate and roughly 15% reaching unicorn or near-unicorn status . Li has since expanded this ecosystem across multiple cities including Shenzhen, where he founded the Innox Shenzhen (Shenzhen Sci-Tech Innovation Academy) as a new experiment in 2022, and continues to emphasize "human transformation" over technology transfer as the core of hardware entrepreneurship .