Professor Way Kuo, President of City University of Hong Kong (CityU), hosted the inaugural talk of the BOLD Forum on 30 April, exploring how data science can drive the management of societal health.
His insights and lively presentation injected creativity into the online learning experience of secondary school students from Hong Kong and overseas, as well as inspired them towards knowledge discovery and academic planning.
In his talk titled “Data-driven management of societal health,” President Kuo compared the fatality rate and social impact of epidemic outbreaks, major nuclear accidents, traffic accidents, suicides, and air pollution. He said such data was essential for managing societal health.
“Data is valuable in that it has many different applications such as management and decision-making,” President Kuo said. “To improve societal health systems of all kinds, we have to use calculated safety measures.”
He said risk management was important in combating the novel coronavirus, and he advocated the implementation of One Health, a societal health concept for improving the health of humans, animals and the environment. He added that CityU had taken the lead in implementing risk management measures in response to societal health crises.
“For example, CityU is likely the first university in the world to adopt real-time, on-schedule, campus-wide video courses called CityU-Learning during the pandemic, which has given secondary school students a taste of university education from home through the CityU-Learning taster courses,” said President Kuo.
In managing crises related to societal health, rapid and accurate decisions have to be made based on the data collected, no more and no less, he added.
The BOLD Forum is a key programme in the newly launched BOLD@CityU initiative. It features six notable CityU scholars who share their insights into popular subjects such as public health, data science, biomedical sciences, business, art and creativity, and electronic engineering. BOLD stands for “Be Original, Leading Discovery”, and the initiative showcases CityU’s tremendous creativity in nurturing talent for future generations.
With the collaboration of China Mobile Hong Kong Company Limited, the BOLD Forum is presented on the CityU website and on the China Mobile Hong Kong UTV Sync-Class.
Please click here to view the BOLD Forum hosted by President Kuo. Students who would like more information can visit this site. For enquiries, please email outreach@cityu.edu.hk.
