KE Spotlight - Community Engagement - HKU Knowledge Exchange

HKU holds tours to promote water initiative

The Jockey Club-Water Initiative on Sustainability and Engagement programme launched the "My River, My Community" Scheme. It comprises the formulation of a series of professionally designed and guided field trips. Each itinerary, centred on one river basin, highlights its multiple dimensions such as ecological, social, cultural, and environmental dimensions. This Scheme will help enhance participants' knowledge of and emotional connections with our city's rivers. Apart from the "My River, My Community" WISE Choice field-trip routes, this scheme also recommends Eco-Tour and Cultural Tour to encourage the public to explore the unique natural beauty and cultural heritage of each river.

HKU Professor Kenneth Leung awarded Biwako Prize for Ecology by the Ecological Society of Japan

Professor Kenneth Leung Mei-yee of the HKU Swire Institute of Marine Science and School of Biological Sciences was awarded the 19th Biwako Prize for Ecology jointly by the Government of Shiga Prefecture and the Ecological Society of Japan. The award is presented to outstanding ecologists under the age of 50 who have made academically and socially significant achievements in the field of aquatic ecology in Asia, and demonstrated great potential to become central figures in ecology. Professor Leung developed a novel approach called the field-based species sensitivity distribution (f-SSD), which has been adopted by other countries in their guidelines on sediment quality, water quality standards for metals, and freshwater quality criteria for nutrients and conductivity. He devotes his time and effort to various community services, especially in environmental protection and biodiversity conservation, and has also made contributions to the development of marine water quality objectives in Hong Kong.

Knowledge Exchange Awards 2017

The annual Faculty Knowledge Exchange (KE) Awards recognise each Faculty’s outstanding KE accomplishment that has made demonstrable economic, social or cultural impacts to benefit the community, business/industry, or partner organisations. Results of the 2017 Faculty KE Awards are now available.

HKU Sustainable Lai Chi Wo Programme selected the first HK case to illustrate best local nature-based solutions to sustainable development

The Equator Initiative of the United Nations Development Programme selected the Sustainable Lai Chi Wo programme, led by the Policy for Sustainability Lab of the HKU Faculty of Social Sciences, as the first and the only selected case from Hong Kong for inclusion in its Solutions Database to showcase the best nature-based solution to sustainable development undertaken by local communities around the globe. HKU President Professor Peter Mathieson announced the news at the International Symposium of Collaborative Governance for Rural Sustainability held at HKU. In addition, HSBC has pledged to support the next phase of the programme which seeks to turn Lai Chi Wo into an innovation hub to demonstrate and incubate new concepts of sustainable living and social-economic models that can be replicated locally and regionally.

HKU partners with Cyberport to set up digital tech entrepreneurship platform to support start-ups

HKU and Hong Kong Cyberport signed a memorandum of understanding to set up the HKU x Cyberport Digital Tech Entrepreneurship Platform to provide support to digital tech start-ups spanning the aspects of human capital, innovation and technologies, entrepreneurship, and legal and business expertise. At the launch of HKU's FinTech Nucleus at Cyberport, SHIELD, a cyber security technology developed by the HKU Center for Information Security and Cryptography was showcased. A portfolio optimisation software "PORTimizer®" and MPF mobile app "MPF Optimal Allocation" developed by the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science was also demonstrated.

HKU student develops food recognition mobile app Marketeer

HKU Isreali student Mr Daniel Edelson developed Marketeer, a mobile app that recognises fresh food sold in Hong Kong’s wet markets and traditional shops. He utilised Artificial Intelligence with Machine Learning capabilities for recognition of a wide variety of food. The user can get all the information needed according to his/her health condition, body type, and nutritional goals. The app has got a start-up fund totalling HKD $600,000, from HKU DreamCatchers, Cyberport, IBM and the Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Fund. Mr Edelson plans to upload the app on Android in three months.

HKU receives largest single donation to date from The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust for the establishment of a Centre for Clinical Innovation and Discovery and an Institute of Cancer Care

The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust has pledged to donate $1.244 billion to HKU for the establishment of a Centre for Clinical Innovation and Discovery (CCID) and an Institute of Cancer Care (ICC) at Grantham Hospital (GH) by the Faculty of Medicine. This will be the largest single donation received by the University to date. The CCID and ICC will be the first purpose-built cancer-specific research and service centre in the city and serve as platforms for the translation of innovation and discoveries in science and in models of care for prevention, diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation and palliation, and for the development of a new holistic cancer care paradigm for Hong Kong.