【Issue126】Lamia Sreya Rahman

Lamia Sreya Rahman (22/GS/JD; 23/GS/PCLL) is a Bangladeshi-Hong Kong woman who, after graduating from her undergraduate studies in American Studies and Criminology in Hong Kong, pursued a Juris Doctor (JD) and completed the Postgraduate Certificate in Laws (PCLL) at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). Rather than embarking on a legal career, she co-founded a startup to develop Seekr, an assistive device designed to empower people with visual impairments. “What you study is often not the most important thing, don’t let your major define your limits,” she reflects. “On my entrepreneurial journey, I’ve met countless successful individuals. What truly sets them apart is their relentless drive to solve problems by any means necessary. That persistence is the key to success.”

Lamia’s parents are from Bangladesh. In 1997, her father got a job opportunity in Hong Kong in the field of marketing. “My father wanted to give my brother and me an ideal environment in which to grow up,” she recalls. “After discussing it with my mother, they decided to move to Hong Kong. Dad often says that neither he nor Mum spoke Cantonese, so they had to work incredibly hard to adapt to life in Hong Kong. I’m deeply grateful to them for choosing to make Hong Kong our home so my brother and I could grow up and be educated here.”

During her school years, Lamia returned to Bangladesh with her family every summer to visit relatives. “My family is huge,” she says. “Every time we went back, we’d gather with grandparents and cousins. The Bangladeshis I’ve known are full of joy. Though not always wealthy in material terms, they live each day with deep gratitude. Their spirit reminds me of the Bengali language itself: gentle, sweet, and soothing to the ear. I often joke that even when you scold someone in Bengali, it still sounds polite, that’s just the nature of the Bangladeshi people.”

Surrounded by rivers and the sea, Bangladesh offers an abundance of fresh seafood, especially fish, which has been Lamia’s favourite food. “Unfortunately, there aren’t any Bangladeshi restaurants in Hong Kong,” she laughs, “and since I love tangy, spicy flavors, my favourite dish here is sour cabbage fish.”

She admits that during secondary school, she hadn’t yet figured out what she wanted to do in the future. She initially chose a degree in the Faculty of Arts largely because it offered a wide range of electives. “In Year 1, I spent a lot of time taking courses from the Business School and the Faculty of Social Science, hoping to discover where my true interests lay,” she recalls. “One memory stands out vividly: my very first class was Criminology. Those three hours were among the most joyful of my life. I learned about different types of crimes and the relevant Hong Kong laws, and right then, I knew I wanted to major in it. I even rushed to the academic office to ask if I could switch programmes. They were surprised I’d made up my mind on literally the first day of university! They suggested me pursuing a double major instead. Later, I discovered that Criminology was actually a Year-3 course. I asked the professor whether she would allow me, as a first-year student, to take it as my major. Thankfully, she was incredibly kind and let me stay,” Lamia says. She later added American Studies as her second major, diving into American Literature and Law. By graduation, she felt a strong pull toward law, so she enrolled in the JD programme at CUHK.

After completing her JD, Lamia went on to earn the PCLL and began her trainee solicitor placement at a law firm. But amid the pandemic, she witnessed many law firms downsizing, leaving the legal career path increasingly uncertain. It was then that the idea of entrepreneurship first took root. “At the time, we started Seekr purely out of a desire to help the elderly and the visually-impaired,” she explains. “Both my co-founder and I have family members who are visually impaired, and we wanted to use technology to ease their daily challenges.” Seekr is an AI-powered wearable device, with a compact camera that clips onto the user’s chest. Leveraging AI, it can read text, identify objects, and provide audio descriptions of scenes, product labels as well as the distance and location of nearby objects.

“The first version was far from perfect,” Lamia admits. “We invited nearly 100 visually impaired users to test the product, listened carefully to their feedback, and persistently refined it through repeated cycles of building, testing, and improvement until it truly worked for them.” When the product finally launched, they received over a thousand orders in a single night. “That’s when I realised we weren’t just building a tool, we’d uncovered a real business. I was at a crossroads, deciding whether to leave my position at a law firm. Knowing that the opportunity might not come again, I decided to seize it.”

Learn how to be a good leader

Five years on, Seekr has grown from a two-person startup into a team of twenty. Lamia says the greatest challenge hasn’t been technology or funding but learning how to be a good leader. “Before launching the company, I was just a student and an employee,” she reflects. “But as a founder, I suddenly had to manage operations, business development, and expansion all at once. At first, I didn’t feel like a ‘good boss’ at all. As the person steering the company, I’m responsible for balancing my team’s expectations, the company’s growth trajectory, and customer satisfaction. That balance is incredibly difficult, especially amid shifting economic conditions and market volatility, which make every decision weightier.”

“On top of that,” she adds, “as a small startup, our resources are tight. In Hong Kong, where operating costs are among the highest in the world, making the best use of limited resources while keeping pace with market demand is an ongoing challenge for every entrepreneur .”

Today, Seekr adopts both B2C and B2B business models. The B2C model allows visually impaired individuals to subscribe to the device on a monthly or annual basis. Meanwhile, the B2B arm partners with hospitals, NGOs, and schools, while hotels and corporations can contact Seekr to rent the devices, enabling visually impaired guests and employees to access facilities and services independently.

Lamia is confident about the product’s future. “I want to emphasise that Seekr was already powered by AI when it was launched, before ChatGPT came onto the scene,” she notes. “We designed Seekr as a ‘smart eye’ years ago, and only recently has the market started seeing other smart glasses emerge. In other words, we anticipated this trend and got ahead of the curve, but we’re not stopping there. This June, we plan to launch a new pair of smart glasses that integrate all Seekr’s core functionalities.”

She highlights the advantages, “Most smart glasses on the market today last only 30 minutes to two hours. Ours delivers up to eight hours of continuous use. More importantly, when other devices capture a scene, they often take five to ten seconds before delivering an audio description, which is a dangerous delay for someone navigating busy streets. We’ve reduced that latency to just three seconds, ensuring timely, life-enhancing support through technology that truly works for our users.”

She is deeply grateful for the training she received at CUHK. “Entrepreneurs are inherently risk-takers, but I’d describe myself as a calculated risk-taker,” she says. “Studying law taught me how to manage risks. The JD programme at CUHK trained me to approach every new opportunity with a critical mindset, carefully evaluating both its potential and its risks.”

“Beyond strategy,” she adds, “my legal training has been invaluable in day-to-day operations. It enabled me to handle patent applications, draft contracts, and manage company registration procedures myself, saving the startup significant costs during its early stages.”

“CU Alumni Magazine” Video Interview: https://youtu.be/G5q-UYZxk3k?si=vXZK9l88-ThWKoSL

Published on CU Alumni Magazine Issue 126 by Alumni Affairs Office 2026

Read online: CU Alumni Magazine Issue 126 (Chinese Version Only)
pdf: http://www.alumni.cuhk.edu.hk/magazine/202606/pdf/CUAM_202606.pdf
ISSUU: http://www.alumni.cuhk.edu.hk/magazine/issuu/