News & Stories

By Dr. Zhao Yongqian, Research Assistant Professor of Division of Life Science, HKUST A few weeks ago, the Department of Health advised the public not to purchase genetic mapping tests on their own because it is hard to ascertain their professional standard and quality after a political party openly accused eight firms offering such tests of exaggerating claims that they are able to identify children's talents and character traits. Actually, genetic testing is rather novel in science, having only appeared less than a century ago. As early as 1940s, scientists began to learn that genetic information about living things was carried by DNA. Until 1975 when British scientist Frederick Sanger invented a DNA sequencing technology, "Sanger sequencing", humans recognized the nature of biological inheritance at the molecular level.

By Donald Low, Professor of Practice in Public Policy and Chen Kejun, master of public policy student Leaders from more than 30 countries gathered in Beijing late last month for a forum on the Belt and Road Initiative. In his speech at the opening ceremony, President Xi Jinping stressed that "the market should play a decisive role in resource allocation." This appears to be in response to international concerns about the "debt trap," the cost-benefit calculus of Belt and Road projects, and the possible export of China's governance practices. To address Belt and Road doubts, China should take three steps to strengthen the role of the market in the initiative. First, it should enhance transparency and market discipline by making public procurement procedures, tendering processes and lending standards.

An international and multidisciplinary research team led by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) was recently granted a research fund of HK$91.85 million by the University Grants Committee (UGC). Under the leadership of Prof. Charles NG Wang-Wai (HKUST Associate Vice-President for Research and Development and CLP Holdings Professor of Sustainability), this project will deliver a comprehensive extreme weather and landslide warning system. This novel system will increase the forecast lead time of heavy rainfall from three to six hours, thereby giving the general public and responders more time to prepare for potential disasters.  

Prof. Kwok Hoi-Sing, who has spent over a quarter of a century researching on display technology, said he felt tremendously honored to receive the prestigious Jan Rajchman Prize.

By Lo Hong-kam, Head and Chair Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering, HKUST Hong Kong is no stranger to traffic congestion and the government has mulled over introducing electronic road pricing in Central since the 1980s and public engagement over ERP was completed in 2016, but some vocal stakeholders, mainly private vehicle owners, have stymied such plans for decades. I believe both policymakers and the media have failed the public by centering discussions on how a potential ERP system would impact on private car users when they are the minority in using the transportation system. Only 10 percent of trips in Hong Kong use private cars and the rest rely on public transportation. Let me explain why implementing ERP in Central would bring positive impact to the traveling public.

Getting a divorce is hard, but going through paperwork and court proceedings can leave a deeper scar. A team of HKUST’s Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) students, supervised by professors and alumnus, has developed a “robo-lawyer” that not only saves time and money, but also paves the way for wider application of artificial intelligence technologies in the legal profession. Hong Kong’s divorce rate in 2016 was more than double that in 1991. The rising demand for family mediation has been a mounting challenge for Albert SO, a CSE alumnus from HKUST, who chairs the Hong Kong Mediation and Arbitration Centre. Few divorcing couples actually realized that the high legal costs and procedural drag would take an emotional toll on themselves, says Albert. Many of them are unwilling or unable to sit down for a mediation that could take months or years, especially for cross-border couples.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and WeBank Co. Ltd (WeBank) have established the HKUST-WeBank Joint Laboratory to nurture talent and explore cutting-edge technologies.  Leveraging on both parties’ advantages in research and knowledge transfer in the Greater Bay Area (GBA), the joint lab will collaborate on areas spanning artificial intelligence (AI), big data, blockchain as well as financial and regulatory technologies. This collaboration also serves as a high-level collaborative innovation platform for enterprises, universities and research institutes to promote knowledge transfer under the GBA Development Framework.

A team of 5 HKUST School of Engineering (SENG) students brought home the championship at the Kerry Logistics Hackathon in February, a competition that sought to explore the possibility of using drones to help run smart warehouses. Joined by 50 local undergraduate and postgraduate students in 8 groups, as well as 50 industry participants, the competition comprised two sessions. In the “Drone Flying Competition” session, contestants had to create the best path for the drone to race and capture information about the warehouse at the Kerry Cargo Centre in Kwai Chung, by leveraging the power of autonomous drones and Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques in this 24-hour overnight hackathon. Contestants were judged on criteria such as how accurate, efficient, stable and well-planned their drone flights were.