KE Spotlight - Community Engagement - HKU Knowledge Exchange

HKU Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences provides speech therapy to children from low-income families

HKU Faculty of Education's Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences has partnered with Sunshine Children Foundation to establish a speech therapy sponsorship programme for children from low-income families. Students from the Division provide assistance and therapy to children who have speech impairments under supervision of their clinical supervisors. About 70 children have benefited since the programme was introduced in 2013. In Hong Kong, the number of children aged 12 or below diagnosed with speech impairments rose from about 2,600 in 2011 to nearly 3,100 in 2013 while there are only nine speech therapists with the Department of Health's Child Assessment Service.

HKU develops bird information free mobile app

HKU Department of Computer Science and Hong Kong Bird Watching Society have jointly developed the first cross-platform bird information mobile app of Hong Kong. The mobile app "HKcBirds: Common Birds of HK" consists of multimedia information of over 200 species of common birds in Hong Kong. It is now available for free in both App Store and Google Play. This mobile app is supported by the HKU Knowledge Exchange Fund granted by the University Grants Committee.

HKU launches free legal information website for families in Hong Kong

The HKU Law and Technology Centre has launched the fourth legal information website to provide free bilingual legal information on 19 topics involving legal issues commonly encountered by families in HK. The website serves as a quick and handy guide for family members with no legal background. The contents of the website have been summarized to 100 Q&As, which are printed into booklets and are available to the public for free.

HKU partners with Observatory and Space Museum to launch weather information for astronomical observation

The HKU Department of Physics has partnered with the Hong Kong Observatory and Hong Kong Space Museum to launch the "Weather Information for Astronomical Observation" website. This website provides star maps, sky brightness and weather information for star watchers among the general public. The information will also be provided to the University to study light pollution.

HKU partners with the University of Toronto and Queen Elizabeth Hospital to develop new test for detecting early nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC)

Researchers of HKU Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine have partnered with the University of Toronto and Queen Elizabeth Hospital to develop a simple brush test which allows early detection of NPC. This test is simple and non-invasive. It can be performed in even remote regions reached by few specialists with high accuracy rate of 99%. Hopefully this test can be applied on a large scale global screening of NPC to help patients before the cancer develops further.

Let's Yoga! FITMIND IS ATTITUDE

Targeting at psychosis patients' problems of weak physical and learning abilities, the Department of Psychiatry of HKU Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine and the Early Psychosis Foundation (EPISO) jointly developed a simple 23-step yoga sequence named "FITMIND Yoga 23-postures" to enable patients to keep the momentum of practising yoga. Research by the Department of Psychiatry found that yoga could help improve the patients' movement and senses, as well as their abilities to receive and process information. In the next few months, the Department of Psychiatry and EPISO will organise a series of charity activities to promote "FITMIND Yoga", including free yoga classes, distribution of promotional pamphlets and instructional yoga videos to patients for self-learning. A 3D photo exhibition named "FITMIND IS ATTITUDE" was held at Times Square, Causeway Bay from March 11 to 16, and a "FITMIND Yoga Mega Fund-raising Event" at Diocesan Boys' School will be held on April 6.

HKU develops new technology for identifying rare cancer cells and detecting early cancer

A multi-disciplinary research project, led by the HKU Engineering Faculty with members from the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, has developed a new optical microcopy approach integrating existing fiber-optic and laser technologies, called Asymmetric-detection Time-stretch Optical Microscopy (ATOM), which can better detect rare cancer cells at an earlier stage in an ultrafast speed more accurately and efficiently. The development and application of this technology will hold great promise in advancing early cancer diagnosis or post-chemotherapy relapse detection.