News

Masters of Abstraction - Laureates of Mathematics and Computer Science

COMP is celebrating its 45th anniversary in 2019. To foster strong bonding and connection between our students, alumni, staff members, industry partners and stakeholders, a range of meaningful activities will be organised. On 18 January, COMP co-hosted “Masters of Abstraction - Laureates of Mathematics and Computer Science” with the Department of Applied Mathematics (AMA) as one of the celebratory events. Prof. Guohua Chen, Associate Vice President (Research Support) of PolyU delivered his welcoming remarks and officiated the opening of the forum together with the management of Heidelberg Laureate Forum Foundation and representatives from the organiser and co-organisers. Under the theme of “How AI and Big Data are Driving Innovation”, five laureates of ACM A.M. Turing Award, ACM Prize in Computing and Fields Medal were invited to share their experience and achievements in academic research and their views of scientific development. Followed the laureates’ speeches, two panel discussions led by laureates, local and overseas scholars gave the audience inspirational and fruitful insights on the impact of growing adoption of artificial intelligence and big data. During the Sharing Session, Dr David Chung, JP, Under Secretary for Innovation and Technology of the HKSAR Government shared about the government’s recent development and new initiatives of smart city. To further arouse the visitors’ interests in mathematics and computer science, there was a poster showcase demonstrating AMA and COMP students’ research work, offering a good opportunity for the attendees to interact with our research students. The forum successfully provided an excellent platform for young researchers, university students and teenagers to meet the laureates, aiming at increasing the awareness of the public on the importance of science and technology in the advancement of our society.

Faculty of Engineering External Grants Achievement Awards 2017

We are proud to announce that Prof. Jiannong Cao, Chair Professor of Distributed and Mobile Computing, Dr Ken Yiu, Associate Professor, and Prof. Lei Zhang, Chair Professor of Computer Vision and Image Analysis, received the Faculty of Engineering (FENG) Research Grant Achievement Award 2017. Since 2003, the Faculty Research Committee has set up FENG Research Grant Achievement Award and FENG Industrial and Engineering Services Grant Achievement Award to recognise the outstanding performance of FENG academic staff members in securing external competitive research grants. To be qualified, a staff member must successfully secure 3 external competitive research grants in 36 months or 4 external competitive research grants in 60 months, as Principal Investigator/ co-Principal Investigator. Congratulations to Prof. Cao, Dr Yiu and Prof. Zhang for their achievements!

ITU’s Second Workshop and Meeting of Focus Group Technologies for Network 2030

COMP successfully hosted the second workshop and meeting of Focus Group Technologies for Network 2030 (FG NET-2030) with International Telecommunication Union (ITU) at PolyU on 18 – 20 December. Prof. Alexander Wai, Vice President (Research Development) of PolyU, delivered his welcome address at the opening. During this three-day event, participants shared their opinions, insights and latest research findings about telecommunication networks in the year 2030 and beyond. Both workshop and group technical discussions promoted stimulating and constructive exchanges, and inspired new and practicable ideas in the field. To cope with the ever-growing demand for faster data access nowadays, the FG NET-2030 aims at bringing different national standard bodies, regulators, industrial partners, ICT service providers, research organizations and academia together, exploring and formulating all aspects of Network 2030 that support the future generations of IoT and enhance the digital development of societies. Please click here to watch the video of the meeting.

Highly Cited Researchers 2018

We are proud to announce that Prof. David Zhang, Emeritus Professor (Intelligent Computing), and Prof. Lei Zhang, Chair Professor of Computer Vision and Image Analysis, were recognized in Clarivate Analytics’ list of Highly Cited Researchers 2018 for their exceptional impact in the field of Engineering. It was the fifth time on the list for Prof. David Zhang while Prof. Lei Zhang was named for the fourth consecutive year. The Highly Cited Researchers list recognizes world-class researchers selected for their exceptional research performance, demonstrated by production of multiple highly cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year in Web of Science. Congratulations to Prof. David Zhang and Prof. Lei Zhang!

COMP scales 14 positions in THE World University Rankings 2019 by subjects

In the newly released Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2019 by subjects, PolyU scales 14 positions to the 74th place in the subject of "Computer Science". The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2019 includes more than 1,250 universities. It is the only global university performance table to judge research-intensive universities across all of their core missions: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. Read more: THE World University Rankings 2019 by subjects

COMP and IFTA launch Co-Op and Mentorship Programme to support new BSc in FinTech & AI Programme

In response to the growing demand for cross-disciplinary financial technology (FinTech) and artificial intelligence (AI) professionals, COMP will launch a full-time Bachelor of Science in Financial Technology and Artificial Intelligence* Programme in the 2019/20 academic year under Broad Discipline of Computing. To support this new programme and nurture FinTech talents, COMP and Institute of Financial Technologists of Asia (IFTA) announced a Co-Op and Mentorship Programme on 27 November. Under this collaboration, students can spend 6 to 8 months of full-time internship at the member-companies of IFTA while graduating in 4 years. Students will be assigned with Career Mentors, Executive Mentors and/ or Entrepreneur Mentors for them to seek professional and industrial advice. Regular hackathons, seminars, visits and workshops will also be organized to widen students’ exposure to FinTech. In addition, graduates of the FinTech and AI bachelor programme will be exempted from Level I Examination of the Certificate in Finance and Technology (CFT), thus accelerating their acquisition of FinTech professional qualifications recognised internationally. Media coverage: https://polyu.hk/rlfsB *This programme is subject to final approval.

Open Forum: Entrepreneurship in the Greater Bay Area

COMP organised an open forum on “Entrepreneurship in the Greater Bay Area” at PolyU on 17 November. The forum brought together over 200 attendees including entrepreneurs, business executives, industry professionals, government officials, academia and students for a fruitful exchange. At the opening, Prof. Qin Lu, Professor and Interim Head of COMP, delivered the welcome remarks. Various scholars and industry specialists were invited to be guest speakers and panelists to share their views and insights on different opportunities in the GBA, how we can grow the area together, and drive the changes in technology, business and society. The GBA is positioned to become the world’s largest bay area economy. By linking up nine cities in the Guangdong Province and two special administrative regions, the GBA will be turned into an integrated economic and business hub, thus providing great opportunities for entrepreneurs to develop new businesses.

PolyU joins forces with Alibaba Cloud in AI research for Smart Cities and Smart Healthcare

With the Best Partner Award in Alibaba-Academic Collaboration received by Prof. Lei Zhang, COMP’s Chair Professor, at the Alibaba Annual Research Collaboration Summit in April, PolyU further strengthens the strategic cooperation with Alibaba in Artificial Intelligence (AI) research by entering into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on advanced AI technologies and applications, particularly in smart cities and smart healthcare. The MoU signing ceremony was held at PolyU on 13 November, with Prof. Alex Wai, Vice President (Research Development) of PolyU, and Mr Simon Hu, Senior Vice President of Alibaba Group and President of Alibaba Cloud, as signatories. Dr Yin-xing Hao, Director of Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong SAR, and Prof. Timothy Tong, President of PolyU, alongside a number of industry leaders also attended and witnessed this event. In recent years, PolyU and COMP have been working closely with Alibaba Group in multidisciplinary research projects through successful joint research projects, co-organised large-scale conferences, competitions and seminars. PolyU and Alibaba Cloud will explore the opportunity for setting up a joint research centre to advance AI research, including fundamental research, applied research and commercialisation of research findings that will ultimately support the development of the ecosystem and benefit the wider community.

The 24th Congregation of PolyU

Congratulations to all COMP’s graduates! The conferment of bachelor and master degrees on the candidates of COMP was held on 16 November at the Jockey Club Auditorium of PolyU. Families and friends of graduates gathered together to witness such memorable moment.

Two COMP graduates shined in Taiwan International ICT Innovative Services Awards

On 3 November, COMP graduates, Mr Yik Kan Leung and Mr Chak Hei So, clinched the first runner-up with their project “Marketemy - Simulation Game for Learning of Digital Marketing” under the Asian-Pacific Section of the International ICT Innovative Services Awards (InnoServe Awards), a flagship ICT event in Taiwan tertiary education sector. This year, the competition attracted more than 5,000 participants in 800 teams from 100 institutions. “Marketemy” is an e-marketing solution designed to allow prospective higher education students to learn digital marketing concepts by formulating e-marketing strategies on Google AdWords and Facebook for Business. The solution operates in mini-game mode, with the sole objective of practising particular e-marketing strategies, such as by achieving a quota of page likes for social media marketing, or a certain number of conversions from e-marketing campaigns. Entering its 23rd year, the InnoServe Awards is an annual ICT application competition held for university and college students, providing a platform for students to present their projects as part of their graduation requirements and promoting academic-industry collaboration by integrating academic training and practical experience.