Congregation 2013
More than 10,000 awards ranging from PhDs to associate degrees will be conferred on CityU students at the 2013 Congregation from 12 to 20 November for the University and from 21 to 22 November for the Community College of City University at Chan Tai Ho Multi-purpose Hall. In addition, three distinguished persons will receive honorary doctoral degrees on 12 November in recognition of their significant contributions to education and the well-being of society.
Dr Yukio Hatoyama, President of the East Asian Community Institute, will receive an Honorary Doctor of Laws. Mr Koo Ming-kown, founder of Nam Tai Electronics, Inc, will receive an Honorary Doctor of Social Science. Professor Myron S. Scholes, Frank E. Buck Professor of Finance, Emeritus, at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, will receive an Honorary Doctor of Letters.

Thanksgiving
Our annual Thanksgiving Dinner is an excellent opportunity for CityU to thank all its friends and supporters for their continued support. This year the speakers will be Mr Herman Hu Shao-ming, Council Chairman, Dr Joseph Lee Chung-tak, Chairman of the Community Relations Committee under the Council, Professor Way Kuo, President, and Professor Roderick Wong Sue-cheun, VP (Development and External Relations). The dinner is organised by the Community Relations Committee and will take place on 19 November.

International Animal Welfare Symposium
An International Animal Welfare Symposium will be hosted by Office of the Provost (Life Sciences Programmes) from 21 to 22 November 2013 as part of the establishment of a Centre for Animal Welfare. Animal welfare has become an important issue in Hong Kong and the surrounding region and today's veterinarians play a major role in ensuring the welfare of animals. At the symposium, a large number of renowned international speakers as well as distinguished speakers from local animal welfare organisations and the government will share their insights on various issues confronting animal welfare. Dr Ko Wing-man, Secretary for Food and Health, HKSAR Government, and Dr Christine Loh Kung-wai, Under Secretary for the Environment, HKSAR Government, will attend.

Public Forum
The Governance in Asia Research (GARC) Centre at CityU will hold a public forum on Hong Kong Long Term Housing Strategy in partnership with the Centre for Governance and Citizenship at the Hong Kong Institute of Education on 16 November. Professor Linda Li, Acting Director of GARC will be one of the three speakers giving welcoming addresses. Dr Chan Ho-mun, Associate Professor in CityU's Department of Public Policy (POL), and Dr Lau Kwok-yu, Associate Professor in POL, will participate in the session on "Ethical Dilemmas over Policy Choices", while Professor Yip Ngai-ming of POL will join the session on "Housing Affordability and Social Poverty". One of the other main speakers will be Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung, GBS, JP, Secretary for Transport and Housing in the HKSAR Government, and former CityU academic.

Distinguished lectures
The next in the on-going series of talks titled the France–Hong Kong Distinguished Lecture Series dedicated to bringing top scholars from France to discuss their work at CityU will be delivered by Professor Jean Francois Bach, Permanent Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences, Member of the French National Academy of Medicine, and Member of the British Academy of Medical Sciences. The talk, which takes place on 6 November, is titled "The Cause of Autoimmune and Allergic Diseases".

Two City University Distinguished Lectures will be delivered on 13 November by CityU's Honorary Graduates for 2013. Professor Myron S. Scholes, 1997 Nobel Laureate in Economics Sciences, Frank E Buck Professor of Finance, Emeritus, Stanford University, will give a talk titled "Global Economy: Post the Global Financial Crisis". Dr Yukio Hatoyama, President of the East Asian Community Institute and the 93rd Prime Minister of Japan, will give a talk on the same day on the concept of fraternity and the creation of an East Asian community.

Kudos
Six projects designed by CityU students were presented in the final competition of the 13th Challenge Cup at Soochow University, Suzhou from 13 to 18 October 2013. The Challenge Cup is a biennial national competition based on university students' extra-curricular academic, scientific and technological achievements. All six projects won 3rd Class Honour awards. The winning students were: Yu Yan-ping, a PhD candidate in the Department of Applied Social Studies; Xu Yan, MSc in Energy and Environment in the School of Energy and Environment; Chau Kwan-ki and Man Wing-leung, BA in the School of Creative Media; Cheung Ka-ming, BEng Building Engineering in the Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering; Wong Ka-wai, BSc in Computer Science, Department of Computer Science; Wang Yaochen (Electronic and Communication Engineering, ECE), Guo Wentong (Information Engineering, INFE), Xiong Jinhui (INFE), Yan Dongchen (ECE) and He Huiwei (ECE) in the Department of Electronic Engineering.

Ms Ni Chenying, a 2013 graduate from the BSc (Hons) Computer Science (CS), received the Champion Prize for her project titled "Music Annotation with Augmented MFCC" in the 2013 Student Project Competition organised by the IEEE (Hong Kong) Computational Intelligence Chapter. Her work was supervised by Dr Antoni Chan, Assistant Professor in CS.