Dr Ka Wai Kwok from the Department of Mechanical Engineering wins the HKU Young Innovator Award
The new HKU Young Innovator Award is a university-level award established to recognise young faculty members whose innovations demonstrate exceptionally high potential impact (legacy or projected legacy) with transformative results to foster development. Dr Ka Wai Kwok of the Department of Mechanical Engineering received the inaugural HKU Young Innovator Award.
Dr Ka Wai Kwok has been pioneering in surgical robotics, having a goal to advance and realise engineering technologies into real clinical practice. Dr Kwok and his team are one of few academic groups comprehensively covering intra-operative magnetic resonance (MR) image processing, MR-safe / conditional robot sensing, positional tracking, navigation and actuation, thus developing surgical robots for effective surgical workflow under the very strong magnetic field (1.5/3T) generated by MR imaging (MRI). They have developed multiple ‘world-first’ prototypes for MRI-guided robots for intra-cardiac catheterisation and bilateral stereotactic neurosurgery. These innovations are recognised by international robotics societies with awards and so as interests from industry for further commercialisation development.
Dr Kwok received the HKU Young Innovator Award 2020.