IAS Distinguished Lectures
Three scholars will jointly deliver a lecture titled “Rediscovery of an Authentic Artwork by Cao Xueqin: A Sole Piece of His Poetry, Calligraphy, Painting and Seal” for the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) Distinguished Lecture Series on 13 December. The speakers are Professor Huang Yi-long, Academician of Academia Sinica; Professor Xue Longchun of The Cultural Heritage Institute of Zhejiang University; and Professor Wu Peng of Guizhou Normal University. The lecture will be in Mandarin and officiated by Professor Li Hsiao-ti, Head of the Department of Chinese and History.
Professor John R. Birge, the Jerry W. and Carol Lee Levin Professor of Operations Management at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, will give a talk titled “Dynamic Learning in Strategic Pricing Games” on 15 December. The talk will be chaired by Professor Jeff Hong Liu, Chair Professor in the Department of Management Sciences. Professor Birge was previously Dean of the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science and Professor of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences at Northwestern University.
Hour of Code
Nearly 600 participants, including students, parents and teachers plus Mr Nicholas Yang Wei-hsiung, Secretary for Innovation and Technology, celebrated the 2nd anniversary of Hour of Code HK on 4 December with an exhibition and workshop organised by the CityU Apps Lab. Additionally, a panel discussion delved into the latest education developments concerning coding in Hong Kong and coding beginners received assistance at a specially commissioned workshop.
The campaign Hour of Code encourages students to learn basic computer science in an hour. It originates from the US and is spreading rapidly all over the world.
Gifted education conference
The College of Science and Engineering is coordinating CityU’s participation in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and Gifted Education Summit 2016 organised by The Hong Kong Academy for Gifted Education. This two-day event brings STEM education practitioners around the world to Hong Kong to exchange experiences and ideas on the promotion of STEM education. It takes place from 9 to 10 December at Hong Kong Science Park. The CityU exhibition booth will showcase projects developed by students/ faculty members related to Hour of Code; algebra games for promoting coding education; an app for checking one’s posture; a baby-care feeding device; and a project for appreciating ancient cultural heritage. For more information, please visit here.
Christmas Concert
The theme for this year's CityU Christmas Concert is “My Heart Shall Rejoice”. The CityU Philharmonic Orchestra, CityU Chinese Orchestra, CityU Choir, CityU Concert Singers and CityU SU Christian Choir will present an evening of festive music and songs at Wong Cheung Lo Hui Yuet Hall on 16 December.
Kudos
Two teams from CityU have been awarded HK$100,000 each by the Cyberport University Partnership Programme (CUPP) 2016 and shortlisted as candidates for the Cyberport Incubation Programme to turn their business ideas into reality. In one team, Fan Hin-wai and Xin Yan from the Department of Electronic Engineering (EE) and Hung Lok-bun from the Department of Economics and Finance were awarded for their start-up project “Ticket-chain”, a blockchain ticketing platform that allows customers to buy or resell e-tickets and create their own events. Dr Ray Cheung Chak-chung, Associate Professor of EE, was the project supervisor. A second CityU team was awarded for a platform connecting currency exchange stores to the general public, allowing users to receive quotes from currency exchange brokers or find the best brokers for immediate currency exchange. The team comprised Wong Tsz-chung, So Tak-chun from the Department of Information Science (IS); and Liu For-chun, Lam Chi-ki and Lai Ka-wo, IS 2016 graduates. The supervisors were Dr Terence Cheung Chun-ho, Assistant Professor, and Mr Albert Chung Yan-kit, Instructor II, both in IS.
Li Wenjuan, a PhD student in the Department of Computer Science (CS), together with her supervisor Dr Kwok Lam-for, Associate Professor; Professor Horace Ip Ho-shing, Chair Professor in CS and Vice-President (Student Affairs); and Dr Meng Weizhi, a PhD graduate from CS, received the Best Student Paper Award for their co-authored paper “PMFA: Toward Passive Message Fingerprint Attacks on Challenge-based Collaborative Intrusion Detection Networks” at the 10th International Conference on Network and System Security (NSS 2016) in Taipei, Taiwan from 28 to 30 September.
NSS fosters interaction between researchers and developers with the network and system security communities, and gives attendees an opportunity to interact with experts in academia, industry, and governments.
The City–Youth Empowerment Project was honoured with a Bronze Award of Highest Voluntary Service Hours as a Group for its total 22,933 service hours in 2015–16 at the Award Presentation Ceremony of 2016 International Volunteer Day organised by the Agency for Volunteer Service on 4 December. A total of 105 individual members of the Project also received certificates and awards (Excellent Gold Award: 5; Gold Award: 23; Silver Award: 30; and Bronze Award: 47). The United Nations has proclaimed 5 December as International Volunteer Day to pay tribute to volunteers worldwide for their selfless dedication and contributions.
CityU’s team “ECO” comprising five Media and Communication students Chun King-yu, Hui Tsz-ni, Kong Chui-shan, Chloris Manho Hoi-shan and Yiu Cheuk-hang won the championship in the category of the Best in News Video Reporting (Chinese) and the 1st runner-up in the category of Best in News Photography (Online Voting) in the competition “China Daily–2015-16 Campus Newspaper Awards”. Their winning entry was titled “Lost Paradise of Birds – Mei Po”. The competition, which was launched by China Daily (Hong Kong Edition) in 2012, encourages university students to participate in campus news reporting as well as practise news writing and multimedia production techniques.
Students from Sir Gordon and Lady Ivy Wu Hall (Hall 9) in collaboration with the Hong Kong PHAB Association joined the 41st Sedan Chair Race & Bazaar earlier. Their participation was the third year that Hall 9 had taken part in the charity run, which supports less well-known charitable organisations that have limited resources. The students ran the 2.1 kilometre race at Victoria Peak under the team name “CityU & PHAB” and dressed like characters from the movies of the Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. The team set off from Matilda International Hospital carrying a heavy wooden sedan chair measuring 3.5 metres by 1.5 metres and decorated as a Cat Bus. The team won the 1st runner-up prize in the Team Effort category.