2014 CityU Discovery Festival
The festival, which runs until 14 March, is a celebration of discovery, innovation and creativity at CityU. The first of the two main sections is the on-going Majors and Minors Fair which provides informative references about undergraduate majors and minors at CityU, acting as a face-to-face platform for Year 1 students and faculty to communicate through simultaneous exchanges of information, advising and mentoring in relation to students' academic progression, career planning and personal development. The second section, Teaching&Learning@CityU, is a series of activities taking place between 3 and 5 March for teachers and students to share experiences and discoveries related to the Discovery-enriched Curriculum. Among the many events, participants can learn about intellectual property (IP) from the IP corner, and how to commercialise an innovation or new product idea at the Matchmaking Symposium.

TEA winners 2014
This year's winners of the prestigious Teaching Excellence Award are Mr Scott Hessels, Associate Professor in the School of Creative Media (SCM), Dr Elaine Au Liu Suk-ching, Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Social Studies and Assistant Head, and Dr Samson Young Kar-fai, Assistant Professor in SCM.

CityU 2014 Year of Art and Culture
An opening ceremony for the CityU 30th Anniversary Cultural Festival will take place on 19 March. The title of the opening ceremony is CityU 2014 Year of Art and Culture. There will be poetry readings, welcoming remarks by Dr Norman Leung Nai-pang, CityU Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the 30th Anniversary Organising Committee, music performances and animation screenings. The event will take place at the Multimedia Theatre, level 1, Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre.

New SDS director
Dr Wong Chi-tim will join CityU as Director of Student Development Services on 25 March 2014. Dr Wong obtained his PhD from the University of New England, Australia, and holds master's degrees in education and in social work from Queensland University of Technology, Australia and the University of Georgia, US, respectively. With substantial knowledge and experience in managing a wide spectrum of student services, he serves on a number of advisory committees for non-profit making bodies.

President's Lecture: Excellence in Academia Series
In the next talk, to be held on 11 March, Professor Johnny Chan Chung-leung, Chair Professor of Atmospheric Science and Dean of the School of Energy and Environment, will discuss whether the recent spate of unusual weather is attributable to the consequences of the observed increase in global temperatures; and whether such an increase is due to human activities or simply part of the natural variability of the earth system.

CityU Distinguished Lectures
On 5 March, Professor Liang Di-gang, an expert in petroleum exploration and development, will give a talk titled "Development and Prospects of Petroleum and Natural gas in China" as part of the City University Distinguished Lecture Series. On 7 March, Dr Liu Chao-shiuan, Chairman of the general Association of Chinese Culture, will give a talk titled "The Rule-by-Virtue Century – The Missing Element for Sustainable Development".

Wellness March
Highlights of the on-going annual CityU Wellness March programme include the badminton & table-tennis tournaments, which culminate in the finals on 29 March at the Hu Fa Kuang Sports Centre, plus a suite of other physical and mental health-related events designed to promote a balanced lifestyle. In addition, Dr Ron Kwok Chi-wai, Associate Professor in the Department of Information Systems, will be discussing his new app "CityU Walk", which is designed to encourage staff and students to get more exercise, on 6 March in LT-10.

Kudos
Students on the Master of Science in Finance/Financial Engineering/Financial Services programme in the College of Business beat teams from some of the top business schools in the world to be placed 3rd in the Algorithmic Trading category of the Rotman International Trading Competition (RITC) held in Toronto from 20 to 22 February. Algorithmic Trading uses computer programming to detect trading opportunities and automatically place orders. Overall, CityU was placed 8th out of the 52 participating teams. Now in its 11th year, RITC utilises simulated trading cases that closely mimic different aspects of real world markets.