Caring Communities for MIP Campaign
Building a Smart IoT City to Support Fast Search for MIP (Mentally Incapacitated People)
The Caring Communities for MIP Campaign (CCMC) is an AIoT-enabled community safety platform designed for supporting people who have potential risks of missing and their caregivers. The project addresses a key limitation of conventional GPS trackers: reliable location information is often difficult to obtain in indoor, dense urban and environments with weak or unstable signals.
Team Members
- Prof. Shueng-Han Gary CHAN — Principal Investigator / Project Advisor
- Mr. Zhongming LIN — Project Lead, System Architecture and Product Development
- Dr. Guanyao LI — Researcher, Spatiotemporal Data Processing and AI Algorithms
Core Technology & Architecture
CCMC brings together a wearable Smart Tag, mobile application, cloud-based location intelligence, and a vast network of Angel Boxes deployed across the community.
The Smart Tag integrates multiple positioning and communication technologies which include GNSS, Wi-Fi, cellular and Bluetooth sensing. The system dynamically combines available signals to provide useful location clues while maintaining a minimal power consumption for long-term daily use.
The Angel Box acts as a fixed sensing node throughout the community. When a CCMC Smart Tag is being detected nearby, the system can generate venue-level location information and deliver relevant clues securely to the registered caregiver in a missing-person incident.
By connecting families, NGOs, universities, property managers, commercial venues and community partners, CCMC transforms localization technology into a scalable community-based guardian network. The uniting of technology and community efforts can protect vulnerable people and help bringing every missing person safely back to home.
Technology Highlights
- Multi-source Positioning: Reliable clues in complex place.
- Fast Deployment Expansion: Connecting new community nodes quickly.
- Long Lasting Guardian Power: Compact, minimum maintenance.
- Privacy and Authority Permission Protection: Privacy and permission protected.
Impact & Metrics
CCMC has moved beyond laboratory prototyping and has been deployed in real-world community settings across Hong Kong.
- 3,800+ families have been supported through the CCMC programme.
- 58,000+ mobile app downloads have been recorded.
- 200+ Angel Boxes have been deployed or operated within the network.
- 300+ successful missing-person cases over the course of the project.
Milestones & Status
- 2019 – Initial CCMC concept and pilot community-based missing-person technology.
- 2022 – Introduction and deployment of Angel Box community sensing concept. Project received recognition through the Hong Kong ICT Awards.
- 2023–2024 – Expansion of wide-area sensing and community connectivity trials, including collaboration with public-sector and community partners.
- 2025–2026 – Deployment and development of the new-generation Smart Tag and Angel Box with improvements in connectivity, power consumption, installation flexibility and system reliability.
Awards
- Hong Kong ICT Awards 2025 - Cert of Merit
- Geneva Inventions 2023 - Gold Award
- 2023 Asia International Innovative Invention Award
- Hong Kong ICT Awards 2022 - Gold Award
Media Coverage