CityU EngD Society Seminar on “How to Transform HK into a Global Innovation Hub”

EngD Seminar on “How to Transform HK into a Global Innovation Hub” co-organized by CityU EngD Society and SYE Dept on 27^th Apr 2024 in LT10 CityU.  Hong Kong Society for Quality (HKSQ) is one of supporting organizations. The group photo with all guests and supporting organization was taken for memory in the beginning of the seminar.

Before the seminar, I met many friends and took a photo for memory. Firstly, Dr. Albert Tam standby for registration and I met Mr. Paul Li (President, Transland Shipping (1971) Group).

Prof. Dang (Dept Head, SYE) and Prof. Sun supported our seminar.

Prof. Sun invited Extencis scholar (Prof. Li Li (李莉)) to join this seminar.

I met EngD cohorts Mr. James Ning and Dr. Leung Wing Hung.

Photo with Dr. Geoffry Cho and Dr. Keynes Chan

Our advisor Dr. Augustine Chow also participated.

Dr. TW Liu and Dr. Albert Tam helped for registration.

I also took a photo with Ms. Kelly LIU (Hon. Secretary, HKSQ) who is Dr. TW Liu’s daughter. 

In the beginning, Dr. Rocky Lam (President, CityU EngD Society) gave opening speech.

Prof. Chuangyin Dang (Head, SYE Dept., CityU) gave welcome speech to all participants and guests.

Presentation of Certificates to speakers and supporting organizations.

The first speaker was Dr. Lo Wai Kwok (Legislative council member; Adjunct Professor, CityU) and his topic named “How to leverage the power of the Greater Bay Area to take Hong Kong’s technology global (如何利用大灣區力量將香港科技走出去)”.  Firstly, Dr. Lo briefed the challenges and corresponding strategies based on the Chief Executive's 2023 Policy Address as well as integration into the overall development of China (e.g. BRI, GBA, Qianhai & Nansha plan, etc.)

Then Dr. Lo pointed out the role of Hong Kong in GBA that needed to consolidate Five Flows included Talent, Material, Capital, Information and Service; and also needed to establish different platforms included fund raising and financing platform, high-end professional service platform, emerging industry platform and business promotion platform, etc.

Finally, Dr. Lo described the opportunities in the innovation and technology industry and to promote regional government-industry-university-research cooperation including implementation of  the development of the Lok Ma Chau Loop into the "Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Park", to create an international innovation and technology center in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) and to attract international scientific and technological institutions and talents and to promote "commercialization of scientific achievements, industrialization of commodities, and internationalization of industries". Lastly, he explained the New Quality Productivity Force that get rid of the traditional economic growth model and lead with innovation. Scientific and technological innovation is the core driving force, and the key task is to actively cultivate strategic emerging industries such as new energy, new materials, advanced manufacturing, and electronic information to enhance new development momentum.

The second speaker was Mr. Louis Chan (Deputy Director of Research, HKTDC) and his topic named “How to create a bridging platform for promoting HK innovative solutions globally”.  

Mr. Louis firstly briefed HKTDC background as statutory body since 1966. There were four key roles of HKTDC including to connect HK SMEs with business around the world, to facilitate Mainland Chinese outbound investment in mater and emerging markets, to help international companies expand into Mainland China, and to promote international cooperation in various sectors, like trade, I&T, sustainability, healthcare and IP. Finally, he said HK is not only to be super connector but upgrade to the super value-adder.

Lastly, he quoted Empurau as success case from Hong Kong tech company that their close loop system can nutrient this kind of fish same as in Malaysia.

Prof. Thomas Chan (Director of OBOR) was the third speaker and his talk entitled “How to explore the market of one belt one road countries”. Firstly, he discussed different opportunities in OBOR for different business. Then he also mentioned how to attract belt and road countries talents to Hong Kong and service to our society (For example, many scientists in Ukraine went to EU). 

Before Prof. Chan left, Dr. Gaby Kun, Dr. Ray Kong and I took a photo with Prof. Chan for memory.

After that we had a break for enjoying music and song. Representative discussed how innovation under the VUCA world. We need to face the change.

One of song from Beyond named AMANI.

The fourth speaker was Prof. Johnny Ho (Associate VP (Enterprise) of CityU and his topic was “How to support HK graduates to realize their dream of innovation globally”. Firstly, Prof. Ho introduced CityU’s vision and mission, as well as, university rankings such as THE is 82^nd in 2024, QS is 70^th in 2024 and Nature Index Young University is 6^th in 2023.

Then he reported the HK TECH 300 program achievement. 

Finally, the ongoing startups status are showed in four key field and they are ICT & AI (33%), Advanced Tech & ESG (34%), Biotech & Health (17%), as well as, Fintech (16%). The distribution of teams association with CityU that most team come from alumni, post-graduate and undergraduate. 

The fifth speaker was Mr. Simon Lee (Senior Director, Fintech, PropTech & Art-Tech of ASTRI) and his presentation named “How to strengthen HK as Fintech innovation hub globally”. In the beginning, Mr. Lee played an introduction video that let’s understand the background of ASTRI.

And then Mr. Lee introduced their six core application areas and its achievements. They are Smart City, FinTech, Digital Health, New Industrialization & Intelligent Manufacturing, Application Specific IC, and Metaverse. 

Finally, he briefed how ASTRI transfer technology innovation to the industry through four step and they were Corporate IP Licensing, System Integrator, Existing Startups and Venture Capital/Spin off.

The last speaker was Prof. Emil Chan (CityU EMBA) and his presentation topic entitled “How HK fintech solutions can be explored the global market”. Firstly, Prof. Chan compared internet and blockchain that Internet transfer information through text, images, programs and videos; Blockchain transfer value to money, contracts, patents and assets. 

And then Prof. Emil Chan quoted Hermit Crab indicating that we need a shell and growth faster. He added that we need fintech infrastructure.

That implied the money transformation form barter to cowry shells to coins to tokens to banknotes to cards to web payment and then to mobile payment. Lastly, he said we must find the next windy spot because of “Even a heavy pig can fly if it stands at a windy spot” (只要站在風口豬也能飛起來).

The last part is panel discussion for successful cases. Dr. Rocky Lam (President, CityU EngD Society) chaired this session. The guests included Mr. Hilton Law (CEO, ISL), Mr. Terence Lui (CEO, Varadise) and Mr. Alan Leung (VP of Sales, Altai). They covered integrated IT solution, digital twin and 5G/Wifi.

Lastly, Dr. Ray Kong (Vice President, CityU EngD Society) gave closing remarks with the topic named “HK Technology Hub of Intelligent Manufacturing”. 

Dr. Kong analyzed the intelligent manufacturing environment and purposed three stages from scientific research strength to innovative atmosphere and then consider the degree of internationalization. He demonstrated some cases of intelligent manufacturing in his company to us.

At the end, all engineering doctoral students and guests took a group photo to commemorate this remarkable event.

Before left, Ms. Kelly Liu and I took a photo with the appreciated certificate for memory.

Reference:

CityU EngD Society - https://engds.org/

CityU SYE Dept. - https://www.cityu.edu.hk/sye/

HKSQ - https://hksq.org/

HKSQ x SGS Webinar on Understanding ESG in Multifaceted Views

HKSQ and SGS organized Webinar named “Understanding Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) in Multifaceted Views” on 26^th April 2024. SGS is the HKSQ corporate member and collaborated this webinar to realize what ESG is and its latest trends in multifaceted views. The guest speaker was Ms. Zonta Yung (Project Manager, Sustainability – Business Assurance, SGS). She would introduce what is ESG, its megatrend and common topics with relevant international standards. 

In the beginning, Ms. Zonta Yung introduced the definition of EGS that Environmental criteria consider companies; performance as a steward of nature. Social criteria related to employees, suppliers, customers and the communities during their operation. Governance deals with a company’s leadership, executive, internal control and shareholder rights.

And then she compared among ESG, CSR and Sustainability that ESG focused on operation, CSR focused on social related activities, as well as, Sustainability focused on strategic long-term balance.

After that Ms. Yung briefed the trends & drivers of ESG in government, regulator and market. She also compared different regions and countries’ carbon-related target. HKSAR, Taiwan China set carbon neutral by 2050. USA and EU also set carbon neural by 2050. China set it by 2060. ASEAN only targeted to reach 23% renewable energy by 2025.

Ms. Yung then shared the ESG disclosure level of the different regions/countries’ regulatory bodies that HKSAR, Japan, EU, Singapore and Indonesia are mandatory. Others are voluntary disclosure in different level. She also introduced an international group of institutional investors developed the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) to advocate ESG investment.

Finally, the megatrend and six emerging themes of ESG policies across ASEAN were discussed that included green taxonomies, climate reporting, carbon pricing schemes, corporate ESG disclosures, ESG fund requirements and supply chain due diligence & transparency.  

HKEX ESG reporting guide employed as example to demonstrate the requirements in environmental area and social area.

Lastly, Ms. Zonta Yung linked the related international standards with each requirements including ISO 14001, ISO 50001, etc.

At the end, we took a group photo in the Zoom for memory.

Reference:

HKSQ - https://hksq.org/

HKSQ Corporate Members - https://hksq.org/list-of-hksq-corporate-members/

PolyU FS Chair Professor Lecture on Opportunities and Challenges for Translating Natural Products into New Drugs

The PolyU Faculty of Science (FS) Chair Professor Inaugural Lecture named “Opportunities and Challenges for Translating Natural Products into New Drugs” was organized by Faculty of Science, PolyU on 26 Apr 2024. Before the lecture, I took photo with Prof. Simon Lee (Chair Professor of Biomedical Sciences). 

I also met Dr. Ka-Sing Leung (Adjunct Associate Professor (Food Science and Safety), ABCT Dept)

Prof. Lee’s PhD supervisor Prof. Kwok Pui FUNG (CUHK) also attended and took a photo for memory.

In the beginning, Prof. Simon Lee introduced the “Compendium of Materia Medica” and Chen Pi as traditional food for curing phlegm and cough. And he also stated some studies on Chen Pi employing zebra fish model. His talk topics included “Role of alpha-synuclein and mitochondria in neurodegeneration”, “Zebrafish screen”, “Potential first-in-class neuroprotective drug candidate”, “Biomimetic drug delivery” and “Bioactive natural peptide”.

And then he mentioned some neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease (PD) that is currently no disease modifying drugs. 

Prof. Simon Lee briefed the mechanism of Parkin interaction that loss of mitochondrial potential. He stated Mitostasis in Neurons that maintaining Mitochondria in an extended cellular architecture. (Energy recovered regain regeneration)

And then he showed the imaging mitochondria using zebrafish. It could be employed for pre-clinical drug discovery and development. 

He then quoted a paper named “A chemical genetic screen for cell cycle inhibitors in zebrafish embryos” (Chem Biol Drug Des 2006, 68: 213-219) and described different applications.

After that he introduced his paper named “Studying the time course of cardiac responses of the same zebrafish using scalable fish-dock microarchitecture” using test automation plus big data to develop a new generation of microfluidic chip for automated zebrafish assay.

The key message of zebrafish screen was discussed.

He also studied the medicinal coral based on traditional use in TCM.

Finally, he introduced his student and quoted the paper named “A new invertebrate NPY-like polypeptide, ZoaNPY, from the Zoanthus sociatus, as a novel ligand of human NPY Y2 receptor rescues vascular insufficiency via PLC/PKC and Src- FAK-dependent signaling pathways” (Pharmacol Res. 2024 Apr 3:203:107173)

Lastly, he showed some scientific activities to introduce zebrafish test to general public in Macau.

At the end, we got a souvenir zebrafish doll and took a photo with Dr. Kelvin Mui (IP Manager, RIO) and Prof. Simon Lee.

Reference

Faculty of Science (FS), PolyU - https://www.polyu.edu.hk/fs/

FS Chair Professor Inaugural Lecture - Prof. Simon Ming Yuen LEE - https://www.polyu.edu.hk/fs/news-and-events/events/2024/4/fs-chair-professor-inaugural-lecture_prof-simon-ming-yuen-lee/