News & Stories

The Consulate General of France in Hong Kong & Macau and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) are joining hands to establish the France-HKUST Innovation Hub. Mr Eric BERTI, Consul General of France, and Prof Tony F CHAN, President of HKUST, attended the inauguration ceremony on 24 March 2017 at the HKUST Lee Shau Kee Campus.

Although air-conditioning is a blessing for office workers, it does have troublesome side effects. Carbon dioxide accumulates and oxygen levels drop in air-conditioned offices throughout the day, making it difficult to focus, promoting tiredness and generating anxiety. Aware of this noxious situation, Dr Zhang Di (Ph.D., Bioengineering, 2014), and the founding members of NeoForest developed a 40 square meter photosynthetic air purifier. It uses microalgae instead of filters to purify air. The microalgae perform photosynthesis that generates oxygen and cleans up carbon dioxide and various air pollutants, which effectively combat the often-seen air conditioning syndrome in many offices that hinders the mind to think and respond.

A team of undergraduate students at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has developed a wheelchair which is not only cheap, but is also safe and effective enough to be crowned silver in the powered wheelchair race of Cybathlon - the world’s first "Bionic Olympics", against competitors including Imperial College of London and ETH Zurich. Developed by a team of seven HKUST students in just eight months’ time, the wheelchair, driven by pilot Carol Ng Cho-yu from the Hong Kong Federation of Handicapped Youth, finished the race comprising six obstacles – which include stair climbing and crossing uneven surface, in 3 minutes 39 seconds, just five seconds behind the Champion. The team – supervised by Prof Robin Ma, Prof Michael Wang and Prof Christopher Chao from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, is planning to refine and commercialize the product to make it Hong Kong’s most affordable stair-climbing wheelchair.

When HKUST library recently replaced 1,000 meters of old carpeting in the entry lobby, they chose "Cool Carpet" which ensures that the new carpets will cause no harm by offsetting all the greenhouse gases (GHG) associated with the manufacturing, maintenance and end of life management of the carpet tiles.

Dual Degree Program in Technology and Management (T&M-DDP) students Juliana Ko and Raymond Tam together with Ambi Yuen, MPhil student in Electronic and Computer Engineering, jointly invented a smart baby diet tracker to keep track of baby feeding and won many design and start-up competitions.

Solar Energy is well known as a mature technology for renewable energy, yet its popularity of daily life usage is low given its high set up and maintenance cost. A newly invented product by Sundial Technology may help to change this perception and encourage wider usage. Formed by four HKUST students and advised by Prof Zhiyong Fan from the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Sundial Technology invented an anti-reflection and self-cleaning film for solar panel. The self-cleaning feature is applied from “Lotus Effect”, where dirt particles are picked up by water droplets due to the micro and nanoscopic architecture on the surface. The team estimated the cleaning of dirty solar panels claims about HK$15.6 billion in monetary term and 90 billion kilowatt-hour of energy in Mainland China every year, They said the nanomaterialfilm they invented would offer a solution to such huge losses in cost and efficiency.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) expanded its sixth annual One Million Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition from Hong Kong to a total of five cities this year. The Competition, which over the years has fostered the entrepreneurial spirit on the campus, motivated over 500 teams from Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Macau and Hong Kong to join the contest.As a forerunner to promote innovation and entrepreneurship, the Competition has eventually grown from a platform to nurture promising entrepreneurs at HKUST, into a regional contest that instills entrepreneurial culture and promotes exchange of ideas among young innovators across the border.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) today jointly presents with Times Higher Education (THE) the inaugural Asia Universities Summit in its 25th Anniversary year, where global leaders in higher education and other sectors share their insights into nurturing creativity and innovation. The two-day summit – which is held for the first time, and is hosted by HKUST on its Hong Kong campus – features as speakers some 30 presidents, chancellors and rectors from fast-rising and top universities in 15 Asian nations and cities, and other countries, including Mainland China, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, the United States, and the United Kingdom, among others.