George Hara is an archaeologist and successful entrepreneur. While he was a graduate student at Stanford University in 1981, George founded a successful startup developing fiber optics display systems. He then founded DEFTA Partners in 1985, under which he has funded and led many early-stage technology companies in the US, Europe and Israel to success, including the first gene therapy company Viagene, the first RNA-based therapy company IONIS Pharmaceuticals, and the first bioinformatics company Arris Pharmaceuticals.

George Hara and his DEFTA Partners have a long history of commercializing R&D achievements from universities and to create new industry. George founded DEFTA Hong Kong Office in 2016, to invest and to foster next generation of entrepreneurs, to promote collaboration between Hong Kong and Japan, and to make Hong Kong China’s international innovation and technology hub.

George Hara moved to Hong Kong, and DEFTA Hong Kong has been built since then. His vision is to make the new technologies and treatments accessible to patients, and thus create a thick layer of healthy and well-educated middle class. He has contributed his exceptional capability of transferring fundamental research into creation of new bio-industry in Hong Kong and GBA, promoting Hong Kong to be the unique and supreme innovation center in the world.

He always supports and services for the development of Hong Kong. He is the Special Advisor for Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation, International Advisor to the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. In recognition of his contribution to Hong Kong, he is appointed the Honorary professor in the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

In the public sector in Japan, George has held roles of Senior Advisor to the Minister of Finance, Deputy Chairman of the Expert Panel of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, the Prime Minister’s Special Commissioner on the Government Tax Panel, a Member of the Industrial Structure Council of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and a Member of the ICT council of the Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications. Under his vision of Public Interest Capitalism, and through these roles, George works to build a framework to commercialize and industrialize new technologies and to rebuild the country’s fiscal health while reducing the tax rates and increasing tax revenues at the same time.

DEFTA Partners (Hong Kong) | 24/F Bank of America Tower, 12 Harcourt Road, Central, Hong Kong

George’s public service record includes serving on the board of directors of San Francisco University, Zoo, and Opera, where he helped revitalize these organizations. He is also a respected advisor to heads of state, governments, and international organizations. George serves as special Advisor to the Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister of Japan, Global Agenda and Meta Council Member of the World Economic Forum, and Chairman of the Alliance Forum Foundation, a 501(c)3 organization in a Special Consultative Status with the UN ECOSOC that conducts many initiatives in the areas of anti-malnutrition, microfinance, new industry creation, and Public Interest Capitalism. In Yokohama, Japan, George established the Hara Model Railway Museum, which he dedicates to his late father Nobutaro whose lifelong hobby was to build and collect models of trains from around the world.

He has also previously served on the boards of the San Francisco Opera, University of San Francisco, Tokyo Foundation, Japan Society and the Hara Research Foundation.He is also the author of numerous articles and publications, including a Japanese best-seller entitled 21 Seiki no Kokufuron (An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations in the 21st Century), published by Heibonsha in 2007, and Atarashii Shihonshugi (New Capitalism) published by PHP Institute in 2009.