Quality Alchemist (品質煉金術師): 2025

2025年12月12日星期五

HKSQ Exco meeting and celebrating the Winter Solstice Festival 2025

The HKSQ last exco meeting in 2025 and celebration the Winter Solstice Festival was held on 12^th Dec 2025. We had 9 members onsite and 3 members online and Dr. Jane Wong (Chairman, HKSQ) took a group photo for memory.

After the meeting, we had dinner in PolyU restaurant.

We met Mr. Berry Yeung (Former auditor in HKQAA & TUV). Aaron and I took a photo with Berry for memory.

Reference:

HKSQ - www.hksq.org

2025年12月11日星期四

ALTAI ISO Meeting IV

Dr. YC Chau and I joined ISO meeting in ALTAI for audit of audit on 11^th Dec 2025. The meeting was reviewed the internal quality audit results and internal auditor roles. After that YC and I visited their R&D laboratory and discussed the calibration and technical recording issues.

After the meeting, we had lunch in PolyU.

Reference

ALTAI - https://www.altaitechnologies.com/

20251205: ALTAI ISO Meeting III - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2025/12/altai-iso-meeting-iii.html

20251031: ALTAI ISO Meeting II - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2025/10/altai-iso-meeting-ii.html

20251003: ALTAI ISO Meeting - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2025/10/altai-iso-meeting.html

20170111: CityU Cohorts meeting in Science Park - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2017/01/cityu-cohorts-meeting-in-science-park.html

20130829: EngD Society visit to TDK and Science Park Laboratories - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2013/08/engd-society-visit-to-tdk-and-science.html

2025年12月10日星期三

PolyU Academy for Artificial Intelligence (PAAI) Inauguration & International Forum on AI

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has established the PolyU Academy for Artificial Intelligence (PAAI) to tackle the pressing challenges in AI development and to explore sustainable AI technologies for society and industries. PAAI Inauguration and International Forum on AI was organized by PAAI and FCMS held on 10^th Dec 2025. Before the inauguration, our president Prof. Jin-Guang Teng, Prof. Sun Dong, (Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry), guests and PolyU colleagues took a group photo in entry of the Chiang Chen Studio Theatre.

I took a photo with Chairman of HKCTC Prof. Wing-tak Wong (Deputy President and Provost of PolyU). I was member of Panel on Manpower Development, Hong Kong Council for Testing and Certification (HKCTC).

Also took a photo with Prof. Qiang YANG (Director of PAAI).

Our department head Prof. Qing LI and Prof. WANG Zuankai (Associate Vice President (Research)) and I took a photo for memory. Prof. WANG was come from CityU MBE that we were same department of MEEM before separated into SEEM and MBE.

We took photos to celebrate Prof. WONG Kam-fai’s election as a Legislative Council member.

During the break, I took a photo with Mr. Duncan CHIU (Legco member), Prof. YANG Hongxia (Executive Director of PAAI, Associate Dean (Global Engagement) of FCMS) and Prof. WONG Kam-fai.

In the beginning, Prof. Jin-Guang Teng (President, PolyU) gave opening remarks. He mentioned our vision and mission.

Then he briefed PolyU strategic goals for positioning and long-term development. We focus on Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics (AIDA) education, a course that was launched as a compulsory course for all new undergraduate students in September 2022.

Finally, Prof. Teng introduced the establishment of PAAI and its two leaders.

Prof. Sun Dong, (Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry) gave a guest speech.

After that all guests took a group photo.

Prof. Qiang YANG (Director of PAAI) was the first speaker and his topic entitled “The AI Revolution: Challenges and Opportunities”. Firstly, he discussed AI facing great challenges.

He then cited a recent paper in an artificial intelligence journal that pointed out the conflict between privacy and inferencing effectiveness.

Privacy in LLM training and inference, as well as public data nearly used up were bottlenecks. One of solutions was Federate Transfer Learning in which included PreTraining plus Transfer Learning and Federate Learning.

Finally, he pointed out problem to intentionally unlearn unwanted knowledge. AI model watermarks were proposed to trace the sources of models. Lastly, Prof. YANG discussed the application of cases.

Prof. YANG Hongxia (Executive Director of PAAI) was the second speaker and her topic named “Co-Generative AI: Powering the Last Mile of GenAI”. First, she introduced herself as coming from ByteDance and Alibaba Group.

Then she discussed the gap of current GenAI between domain experts and AI experts.

After that Prof. YANG introduced two technical highlights and they were “Ultra-Low-Resource Local Models” and “Efficient Model Fusion”; as well as, Application highlights included “Top-tier Cancer GenAI” and “Co-GenAI Platform”.

Lastly, she demonstrated the Co-GenAI Platform which was a leading platform that empowers communities to advance AI through blockchain-based collaboration and transparent governance, enabling globally collaborative scientific foundation models.

The International Forum on AI 2025 was held in afternoon. Prof. CHEN Changwen (Interim Dean of FCMS), Dr. Jeff Tang, Dr. Raymond Pang, Dr. Walter Fung and I took a photo for memory.

Inside the hall, Dr. Richard Lui also joined us.

The first keynote speaker was Prof. Toby WALSH (Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, AAAI Fellow, University of New South Wales) and his topic was “AI and Creativity: the final frontier?”. Firstly, he quoted Ada Lovelace (1843) as first programmer that “The Analytical Engine has no pretensions to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform.” And he also discussed Tuning’s paper in 1950.

After that he employed Margaret Boden definition of Creativity in three key factors and they were “New, Surprising and Valuable”. Then he discussed the Art and Maths.

Finally, Prof. Toby WALSH then concluded machines are increasingly being involved in creative acts. Like maths and science, machines can be creative as they can come up with ideas or artefacts that are new, surprising and valuable.

Prof. CHEN Changwen (Interim Dean of FCMS) introduced the second keynote speaker Dr. Zhengyou ZHANG who is Chief Scientist of Tencent, Director of Tencent Robotics X and ACM/IEEE Fellow.

Dr. Zhengyou ZHANG’s topic named “Embodied AI: Technology Trends and Research Progress”. His talk included “Technology Trends”, “Human Cognition”, “Embodied AI”, “A2G Theory & SLAP Paradigm”, “TAIROS Embodies AI Platform” and “Perspectives”.

Then he discussed six technology trends below.

Trend 1 – Evolution of Computing Platform

Trend 2 – HCI Technology Democratization

Trend 3 – Evolution of Sensing Technology

Trend 4 – Merging of Physical & Digital Worlds

Trend 5 – Intelligentization

Trend 6 – (Large-scale AI System): Search -> GenAI

After that he said “Human is still the strongest agent” and three main features of AI agent that were Memory Continuity, Cognitive Holography and Endogenous Evolution. Dr. ZHANG also identified the boundary of non-embodied and embodied AI.

Finally, he used the theory proposed by Prof. Daniel Kahneman in his book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” to compare embodied artificial intelligence and human intelligence. System 1 is like sensing and actin, while System 2 is similar to planning.

The third keynote speaker was Prof. Randy GOEBEL (Fellow and co-founder of the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii), University of Alberta) and his topic entitled “Challenges for the Query/Update/Explanation Paradigm of Neurosymbolic Foundation Models”.

His topic outlined a spectrum of neurosymboic foundation models and QUE for a sample of neurosymbolic models.

The last speaker was Prof. Jie TANG (Department of Computer Science and Technology and Director of Foundation Model Research Center, Tsinghua University). Unfortunately, we had to leave early due to an appointment and missed the talk.

Reference

PAAI - https://www.polyu.edu.hk/paai/

FCMS, PolyU - https://www.polyu.edu.hk/fcms/

COMP, PolyU - https://www.polyu.edu.hk/comp/

20250407: FCMS Launch Ceremony & Academic Forum on Future AI Computing - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2025/04/fcms-launch-ceremony-academic-forum-on.html

2025年12月6日星期六

Hong Kong Society for the Blind Charity Concert Choir 「古今音緣悼哀鴻」音樂會

Prof. Pang arranged the Concert in tribute to the victims in the Hong Kong Society for the Blind named “「古今音緣悼哀鴻」音樂會”. Mr. Kinsen Leung (I Ching class representative) led us to form the Yuanyin Choir (緣音合唱團). Unfortunately, I had classes in mainland China at the time. I rushed back that evening to have dinner with all my classmates. Below are some photos I collected for memory.

Prof. Pang performed the saxophone.

The last song named “Friendship”.

We collected members’ donation and presented to the Hong Kong Society for the Blind.

Lastly, group photo of Yuanyin Choir (緣音合唱團) was taken for memory.

Classmate photos: So Easy and Hin Hin.

Peter Au and KM Ng with Prof. Pang.

Our choir leader Kinsen gave the instruction!

Minda played the cajon drum at the back.

Cindy recorded her performance.

The last song was showed below and Kinsen's encouraging remark about the victims was very meaningful.

After the concert, I had dinner with them and took some photos to record our happy time. It is regrettable that Prof. Pang was unable to join us due to other commitments.

「古今音緣悼哀鴻」音樂會

日期：2025年12月6日（星期六）

時間：下午二時半至四時半

地點：香港盲人輔導會禮堂

11月26日香港大埔宏福樓屋苑發生世紀大火，令許多居民喪失生命與家園，普世同悲，我們的「古今音緣潤心田」原意是為大家在紛亂的世界中，以音樂分享一點心靈的愉悅與對生命的啟示，如今在悲痛的哀思中，我們決定把這個音樂會改為「古今音緣悼哀鴻」，以表達我們悼念亡魂、對遇難者與痛失家園與親友同胞們的同情與哀思！這個音樂會讓我們在同情與哀悼中，反思生命的意義。明白災難的無常，更珍惜眼前人與寶貴的生命！

這次災情厚，引發來自國家與社會四方八面自發的支援，反映出人間有情、「一方有難，八方支援」，互助互愛，感人至深。更讓我們明白國家、政府與民間的通力結合，是我們賴以生存與安居樂業的支柱！

為表達我們的心意，我們已準備捐獻一些善款，給香港盲人輔導會。

音樂會的流程如下：

12/6 「古今音緣潤心田」音樂會曲目

時間：下午兩點半至四點半

開始：全體起立，靜默三分鐘

主持人：致開場白與宣讀悼念詞

上半部：哀悼與追思，但念無常

1. 禮儀師的奏鳴曲（彭泓基Saxphone，梁敬生電子琴）

注：此曲是為亡者送行，深沉地表達我們的哀思

2. 陪著你走（緣音合唱團）

注：我們會永遠懷念他們以及災難的教訓，亡者已矣，來者可追

3. 觀音菩薩聖號(梵文)（主唱：侯海燕）

注：以佛教的梵文曲超度亡靈，讓他們安心離世。

4. Bridge over trouble waters （主唱：馮裕森）

注：感嘆世事無常，世情紛亂

5. 心經（主唱：侯海燕）

注：喚醒人們對「色即是空、空即是色」，緣起性空、世事無常的啟示

6. 空山淨（彭泓基Saxphone）

注：道家無為、寧靜致遠，天人合一，生死有命，天道有恆，無用過分悲傷。

7. In Gratitude於感恩中（關志明、侯海燕合唱）

注：亡者已矣，生者感恩、活在當下！

下半部：珍惜善緣，體悟美麗人生

1. 我和春天有個約會（主唱：王敏娟）

注：啟示我和生命有個約會，善待親人，珍惜自己與有緣人的生命與友情！

2. 月亮代表我的心（彭泓基Saxphone）

3. 貝加爾湖畔（主唱：馮裕森）

4. Fly me to the moon + Besame mocha（主唱：王敏娟）

注：嚮往未來、追求理想

5. 天空之城（彭泓基Saxphone）

注：理想國不在天空，而在現世。平衡理想與現實。

6. 但願人長久（主唱：侯海燕）

注：千里共嬋娟，祝願永久情誼

7. 祝福（緣音合唱團）

注：平安是福，祝福大家身心康泰、萬事如意

8. 朋友（緣音合唱團）

注：紀念今天難得的音樂之緣，但願友誼長存！

CityUHK (Dongguan) SYE2066 Last Lecture

Prof. YC Chau and I serviced CityUHK (Dongguan) for the class of SYE 2066 “Professional Engineering Practice” in 2025. The last lecture for group project presentation was held on 6^th Dec 2025. We received a certificate of appreciation from the Academic Regulations and Records Office.

Before the lecture, Prof. YC Chau and I had breakfast in the student canteen.

In the beginning, Prof. YC Chau shared the AI generated video about the different between “Do the Thing Right” and “Do the Right Thing”.

Then Prof. TIAN Xiaoyang (田潇阳) presented the appreciation certificate to Prof. YC Chau.

And then he also presented the certificate to me.

All students presented their group project which employed “Extension Innovation Method” to create the new product prototype.

At the end, students voted the top three products.

After the lecture, we went to Shenzhen Huaqiangbei (深圳華強北) for fixing my laptop.

We had late lunch in here.

And we had tea during the time of laptop fixing. Prof. YC Chau’s student joined us. They were students in the programme of Master of Science Venture Creation (MSVC).