News & Stories

Four HKUST students brew craft beer from waste bread to save the world.

Chemical and Biological Engineering alumna Vanessa Ho Po-Ki (right, first row), Prof. Marshal Liu (left, first row), and three BEng fresh graduates (from left, second row) Andy Choy Man-Hin, Isaac Kwan Chi-Shing, and Michael Lui Wing-Piu, join hands to achieve product commercialization of an idea that originated in a course project.

With so many in-person conferences and trade shows being canceled or moved online due to COVID-19, countless entrepreneurs including Justin CHAN, co-founder and CEO of biotech startup Gense Technologies, specializing in wearable wristband for hand gesture recognition, are forced to make pitches to investors, partners, and customers virtually to help their companies grow. Unfortunately, most of them are clueless about how to make a great first impression in online meetings, so HKUST’s Technology Transfer Center and Entrepreneurship Center stepped in to help them develop relevant skills.

Benedict YUEN, our BBA Marketing 2012 graduate, is instantly recognizable in Hong Kong from his work as a TV anchor and a KOL (key opinion leader) on social media. This is all on top of having a talent and production company and hosting his own travel TV show, where he went everywhere from Russia to South Africa, in addition to starting his catering businesses.

Fion LEUNG, a 2010 business administration graduate at HKUST, knew she would not want a long-term career in the financial sector while she was working as an analyst at a global investment bank. Rather, getting more people into volunteering and nurturing children and young people gave her much more satisfaction than advancing her coveted career. She soon branched out and pursued entrepreneurship based around what she thought was meaningful, and sought greater exposure and ideas together with her friend WONG Suet-Yi. While attending networking events to make useful contacts and more friends on the same wavelength, both young ladies felt awkward about approaching industry leaders. And they realized that their feelings were common, like her peers, being fresh out of college and also desperate to build a career but having no mentors they could ask for advice.

Kachin WONG aspired to study Medicine while at secondary school, but his less-than-expected public examination results shattered his dream. The great disappointment, however, turned out to be a blessing in disguise. He was admitted to HKUST to study biochemistry and cell biology and went on to complete an MPhil program in Technology Leadership and Entrepreneurship (TLE) this year. During his postgraduate studies, he came across a paper by Prof. SUN Fei of Chemical and Biological Engineering (CBE) about smart hydrogels. Hydrogels, also known as soft matter in the medical world, are leading materials for biomedical applications such as drug delivery and stem cell therapy.

Padmanabhan KRISHNAMURTHY (Paddy)’s sister worked with an NGO in India that helps people with visual impairment. He observed that people with any kind of impairments face immense difficulties, and wanted to do something to alleviate their problems. This inspired him and his teammate Amrutavarsh Sanganabasappa KINAGI (Amrut) to invent a lip-reader named “Helen”, which has just won the top prize in the 2019 HKUST President’s Cup that encourages undergraduate students to showcase creativity, innovation, and excellence.  Named after Helen KELLER, the renowned American author and educator who overcame the adversity of being blind and deaf to become one of the 20th century's leading humanitarians, the lip-reading device is expected to benefit millions of people when it’s well developed. According to the World Health Organization, there are 466 million people globally with some form of disabling hearing loss, and this number is forecasted to grow up to 900 million by 2050.

Have you ever struggled to catch a minibus to or from campus? It’s why a new “Finding Mini” app has been developed by HKUST alumni Jason Yuen, Simon Tsang, and current student Gash Tsui. “We deploy GPS module on each minibus, and sophisticated data algorithms developed by ourselves, with factors including weather, fluctuations of traffic, and real-time traffic conditions,” says Simon. While KMB buses already had an app for arrival times, the green minibuses did not. “We were very frustrated by this situation, because we could not compare arrival times between the double decker and minibus arrival times in Choi Hung, and the stops are on different ends of the street,” says Jason.