The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) held its annual ceremony for the award of Honorary Fellowships today. Officiating at the ceremony were Mr Martin Y Tang, Council Vice-Chairman and Prof Tony F Chan, President of HKUST. Four distinguished leaders awarded the 2013 Honorary Fellowships are Dr Robin Chan, Mr Cheah Cheng-Hye, Prof Takako Nishizaki and Dr Zhang Ya-Qin. Their brief biographies are set out as follows:
Dr Robin Chan, GBS, JP, Chairman of Asia Financial Holdings Ltd and Asia Insurance Co Ltd, is the co-founder of PICC Life Insurance. His family also set up a hospital in the Thai capital for the provision of quality health care services. Dedicated to public and community service and deeply patriotic, he served a two-term Chairman of the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, his family also holds the Directorship of the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals for three generations. He was the founder and President of the Hong Kong Federation of Overseas Chinese Associations, a four-time delegate to the National People's Congress and a Gold Bauhinia Star honoree. Dr Chan was also twice honored by the King of Thailand for his contributions to the kingdom. To higher education and HKUST, Dr Chan offers generous support. From 1999 to 2006 he excelled as the University's Council member and thereafter as its Honorary Court member.
Mr Cheah Cheng-Hye, Chairman and Co-Chief Investment Officer of Value Partners Group, started off as a financial journalist at the Far Eastern Economic Review and Asian Wall Street Journal . He then became the head of research and proprietary trader with Morgan Grenfell in Hong Kong. In 1993, after corralling US$5 million from investors, he co-founded Value Partners. The Value Partners Group, ballooning to an AUM of around US$9 billion, ranks no 1 in Hong Kong and South-east Asia. Under the leadership of this 'Warren Buffet of the East', the Group has scored an average 16.6% annual return for the last 20 years with a clientele of two million and is placed among 's Barron‘s Best 100 Hedge Funds in its latest global report. He and his company are winners of numerous accolades. On Mr Cheah's initiative and generosity, the Value Partners Center for Investing at HKUST became operational in September 2011, which is Hong Kong's first academic training and research center for grooming homegrown investment professionals.
Prof Takako Nishizaki, BBS, is a world-renowned concert performer and violin teacher. Performing in public since the age of five and winning her teacher's diploma at nine, she won the Fritz Kreisler Scholarship and the First Prize in the Julliard Concerto Competition in 1969. Her recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons sold more than one million copies and the Chinese Butterfly Concertoan incredible three and a half million copies in China and South-east Asia alone. In recent years, she has dedicated her time to nurturing young talents and charity concerts. Her services to the community earned her a Bronze Bauhinia Star from the Government of the Hong Kong SAR in 2003 and her lifetime achievement put her on the list of the Japanese edition of Newsweek of the 100 most admired Japanese in the world. She transcends geography and nationality with her artistry. She is currently appointed Adjunct Professor of the Division of Humanities at HKUST.
Dr Zhang Ya-Qin, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Corporation and Chairman of Microsoft's Asia-Pacific R&D Group, was admitted at 12 as the youngest student to the University of Science and Technology of China and became in 1997 the youngest IEEE Fellow in its 100-year history. The following year, he was voted America's Outstanding Young Electrical Engineer. Hailed as 'a treasure of the world', he is the owner of 50 US patents, author of a dozen books and some 500 influential papers and articles. He leads a team of over 3,000 engineers and researchers. Under his leadership, Microsoft spends US$300 million a year on Chinese companies, pushing the innovative envelope with a world-class R&D center. The center plays a key role in grooming talent for Microsoft and China. A passionate educator, he is an Adjunct Professor of HKUST's Department of Computer Science and Engineering.
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Mavis Wong
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