News

COMP Undergraduate Orientation Session 2019

On 28 August, COMP organised an Orientation Session for all new undergraduate students. Around 150 freshmen participated and had a joyful morning with us. The session began with a warm welcome and a brief introduction to the Department by Prof. Qing Li, Chair Professor and Head of COMP. Prof. Li also shared his insights on university study and encouraged the students to challenge themselves by involving in a variety of extra-curricular activities. Dr Hong-va Leong, our Associate Professor and Associate Head, introduced the Academic Advising System and learning opportunities available at COMP. Representatives from various administrative units highlighted the resources, supports and services offered at PolyU. COMP Orientation was concluded with some ice-breaking and team building games between the students and their Academic Advisors in a fun-filled environment. It provided an effective platform for them to get connected before the commencement of the new academic year. We wish all newbies a fruitful and rewarding learning journey at COMP.

Corda Training Workshop

In recent years, there is a huge demand for professionals in the market for designing, developing and maintaining blockchain-based systems. In order to provide our students with more hands-on experience in blockchain application development, we invited industry practitioners to deliver a series of workshop in August 2019. Mr Edward Lee, an alumnus of COMP and a Certified Corda Developer, introduced the core concepts of Corda — an open-source blockchain platform built for applications that reconstruct different industries, including finance, insurance and even healthcare. Students were given programming tasks to develop CorDapps (applications on Corda) from scratch and tips for attaining Corda professional certification were shared by the trainer as well. Dr Lawrence Ma, the President of the Hong Kong Blockchain Society, offered an insight into the applications of blockchain in various sectors and shared his view on the potentials of the distributed ledger technology. These workshops are under the Department’s Corda Training/ Certification Programme (TCP), which aims at integrating tertiary education with professional certification to strengthen students’ employability after graduation.

COMP 45th Anniversary Distinguished Lecture Series

COMP launched the Distinguished Lecture Series in celebration of its 45th anniversary and the third lecture “The Role of Computer Architecture in Emerging Cloud Computing and Edge Computing Paradigms” by Prof. Yuanyuan Yang, Professor from Stony Brook University, was held on 12 August at PolyU. In this lecture, Prof. Yang explored the central role of computer architecture research in cloud computing and edge computing paradigms. She discussed how to greatly reduce the hardware cost of data centers by an architectural approach of utilizing inherent server redundancy. Prof. Yang also presented a pervasive edge computing platform where heterogeneous edge devices, e.g., smartphones, tablets, IoT and vehicles, can collaborate to sense, process data and create many novel applications at the edge. Throughout 2019, we will invite renowned scholars and researchers to deliver Distinguished Lectures on a wide range of hot IT topics, including AI, Big Data, Social Media, Machine Learning and Cloud Computing.

The 6th Computer App Programming (CAP) Competition

Jointly organised by COMP and the Hong Kong Association for Computer Education (HKACE) and supported by IEEE Hong Kong Section Computer Society Chapter, the second part of the sixth Computer App Programming (CAP) Competition – “CAP Day” was concluded successfully at PolyU on 13 July. CAP Day was a problem-solving test conducted on an individual basis. Contestants must make use of the designated programming tool, App Inventor 2, to complete the tasks related to logical solution and programming. This year, over 150 secondary school students participated and strived for the champion. Dr David Chung, JP, Under Secretary of the Innovation and Technology Bureau officiated the closing ceremony. Dr Henry Chan, Associate Professor and Associate Head of COMP, and Mr Wai Ming Kam, Chairman of HKACE, also joined the award presentation. CAP Competition is an annual competition for teenagers to gain computational knowledge and programming techniques, train up their problem solving and logical thinking skills as well as foster their creativity.

Open Forum - AI and Fintech Applications for Banking, Finance and Servicing Industries

On 6 July, COMP organised an open forum on “AI and Fintech Applications for Banking, Finance and Servicing Industries” at PolyU which brought together over 250 industry practitioners, executives, academia and students for potential collaborations and research opportunities. Prof. Qing Li, Chair Professor and Head of COMP delivered the welcoming remarks at the opening and introduced our new undergraduate programme - BSc (Hons) in Financial Technology and Artificial Intelligence. We invited seven scholars and professionals as guest speakers including Dr Allen Au, Associate Professor of COMP; Mr Curtis Chan, Founder and CEO of PolyDigi Limited; Mr Joseph Chan, Founder and CEO of AsiaPay Group; Dr Thomas Chan, Director of One Belt One Road Institute, Chu Hai College of Higher Education; Mr Jerome Luo, Vice President of Yonyou Group; Mr Harry Ngai, Head of Audit Department of JETCO; and Mr John Yau, Business Development Manager of O2O Payment. All speakers shared their views and insights on how AI and Fintech can be deployed to benefit Hong Kong and its international businesses. Topics on blockchain, e-payment, artificial intelligence, US currency system, privacy, security and auditing technology were covered.

COMP AI and VR Workshops for JUPAS Applicants

Following the success in previous years, COMP organised thematic workshops for JUPAS applicants for the third consecutive year with the aim of providing them with the university learning experience. This year, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR) workshops were held on 26 and 27 June, attracting over a hundred of participants. Dr Richard Lui, Teaching Fellow, hosted the AI workshops which covered the topics on data exploration and visualization, visual recognition, and custom model using Orange Data Mining and IBM Watson Studio. Dr Peter Ng, Teaching Fellow, taught the students about the basic operation and VR settings in Unity 3D, enabling them to create an interactive VR application and exporting it to a Google Cardboard. Students were given opportunities to gain hands-on practice through in-class exercises in which they enjoyed very much. The workshops not only provided a platform for students to learn the latest computing skills but also further foster their interests in computer science and information technology.

COMP Annual Research Day 2019

Organised by COMP and its Postgraduate Research Student Association, the eighth edition of COMP Annual Research Day (CARD) was successfully concluded on 13 June at PolyU. Under the theme of “COMP TechVenture Competition”, 65 students with different research backgrounds formed ten teams to compete for the champion. Ir Prof. Alexander Wai, Vice President (Research Development) of PolyU, gave a warm welcome to all participants. Prof. Qing Li, Chair Professor and Head of COMP officiated the opening which marked the start of CARD 2019. All teams presented their technology venture proposals to a panel of “Angel Investors”, including Prof. Lui Sha, Distinguished Chair Professor of COMP, Dr Steven Wei, Associate Professor of School of Accounting and Finance of PolyU, Mr HL Cheng, President of PolyU Computing Alumni Association, and Dr Kai Zheng, Director of Russell Lab of Huawei Technology. Angel Investors then determined how much money they would invest in each team after assessing their performance. After two rounds of evaluation, Team D won the highest amount of investment with their proposal “Smart Network Interface CARD”. In this project, they developed a novel low-power Transmission-Analytics Processing Unit, which can switch, in runtime, between a CPU mode and a GPU mode on the same chip. At the closing, Dr Bin Xiao, Associate Professor and Chair of Departmental Research Committee of COMP, expressed his gratitude to Huawei Technology for sponsoring the prizes of CARD this year and appreciated research students for their great effort put into the competition. CARD is an important annual event of COMP which gathers all research students and academic staff together. It provides an excellent platform for students to share their research outcomes to their peers and faculty members as well as promoting cross-area collaborations. Award Awardee Title of Proposal First Place Team D CHEN Liushan HU Chuang LIU Yongxu YANG Xiao ZHAN Xian ZHANG Xiang Smart Network Interface CARD Second Place Team I FAN Xueli HOU Ningning LI Yushi LI Zecheng LU Xingye WU Haotian YU Xinbo Mental Health Management Platform Third Place Team G JIANG Shan SAHNI Yuvraj TUNG Cheung Leong WEN Zhiyuan YANG Ruosong YANG Yanni YANG Yu Restore Your Mind with a Smart Voice Recorder

Best Project Award Competition 2019

COMP hosted the annual Best Project Award Competition on 1 June with the aim of recognising undergraduate students’ great effort put into their Capstone Projects. Five students were shortlisted to compete for the awards. This year, in addition to our academic staff, we invited executives from the ICT industry such as Hong Kong Cyberport, Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks, and InfoTech Services as well as a representative from Computing Alumni Association to be the judges. The judging criteria included project background study, design/ methodology, implementation, evaluation, presentation and video demonstration. This competition not only serves as a platform for students to showcase their outstanding work but also provides a good learning opportunity for them to further enhance and explore new possibilities for their projects based on the recommendations made by the judges. Award Project Title Awardee Champion Reminiscence Therapy VR for Dementia TAI Sai Kin First Runner-up Award Fast and Stable Photorealistic Video Style Transfer NG Tsz Lok Second Runner-up Award Sentiment Classification of Cantonese Restaurant Reviews JIAO Ying  

PolyU JUPAS Consultation Day: Admissions Strategies 2019

COMP hosted an Info Seminar at the PolyU JUPAS Consultation Day on 18 May to provide updated programme information on Broad Discipline of Computing to the JUPAS applicants and attracted over a hundred of participants. Prof. Qing Li, Chair Professor and Head of COMP welcomed the attendees by introducing the recent development of computer science as well as the strengths and achievements of the Department. Dr Hong-va Leong, Associate Professor & Associate Head, gave a detailed presentation on the features, curriculum and entrance requirements of a brand new programme – BSc (Hons) in Financial Technology and Artificial Intelligence that we will offer starting from the academic year of 2019/20. Dr Henry Chan, Associate Professor & Associate Head, on the other hand summarised the diversified learning opportunities that we provide to our students, such as Global Computing Programme, mentorship programme, study tour and outbound exchange. We also invited two undergraduate students to share their internship and study experience. After the programme session, we also arranged two mini-lectures on FinTech & Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence which were delivered by Dr Allen Au, our Assistant Professor, and Dr Richard Lui, our Teaching Fellow, respectively to further arouse students’ interests in hot IT topics and technology trend. Participants concentrated on the lectures and interacted actively with the speakers.

Mentorship Programme Kick-off Gathering

To encourage students in acquiring the skills in career planning and personal development, COMP collaborates with the Computing Alumni Association (CAA) and the Institute of Financial Technologists of Asia (IFTA) to launch two mentorship programmes respectively. A kick-off gathering was held on 15 May for students to meet with their mentors. Prof. Qing Li, Chair Professor and Head of COMP officiated the opening and Mr HL Cheng, President of CAA delivered welcoming remarks. Mr Darron Sun, Mentorship Coordinator of CAA, and Mr Paul Pong, Chairman of IFTA, gave an introduction of the mentorship programmes. We have invited alumni, professional practitioners and executives to join as our mentors. Each participating student will be assigned a mentor and group activities with other mentors will also be organized to promote cross-industry sharing. The programmes offer reciprocal opportunities for mentors to understand the career aspirations of the younger generation while at the same time for mentees to know about workplace culture, business trends and prospects in established professions, widening their exposure to different career paths and options.