The 2026 International Academicians Hong Kong Forum - Live Streaming (AM session)

Added: 2026-05-04

[00:00:04]Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, the 2026 International Academicians Hong Kong Forum will begin shuttly. Would you please kindly take your seats? Thank you.

[00:00:29]Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good morning.

[00:00:45]Welcome to the 2026 International Academicians Hong Kong Forum. My name is Kakalam. It's my great pleasure to be your MC today. We are currently living in an era of profound transformation and unprecedented opportunities. The rapid advancement of frontier technologies is fundamentally reshaping every aspect of human society.

[00:01:13]In this highly interconnected world, technological progress and international collaboration are more crucial than ever.

[00:01:23]Amidst this new wave of technological and industrial revolution, scientists around the globe are actively exploring ways to push the boundaries of science and drive societal progress through innovation.

[00:01:39]Today, the International Alliance of Academicians, IAA, and the Hong Kong Association of Overseas Returns Scholars, HKA RS, proudly present this forum.

[00:01:53]Bringing together leading global academics to exchange ideas on two core themes, aging and chronic disease management, challenges and innovations and AI and innovation in higher education.

[00:02:11]We look forward to sparkling cross-disciplinary and crossborder dialogues that will provide new perspectives and solutions to global challenges.

[00:02:22]First, please look at the screen and let's enjoy our opening video.

[00:02:31]>> Founded by visionary leaders, the International Alliance of Academic has emerged as a vital force leading Hong Kong to global research frontiers.

[00:02:42]Serving as a bridge for scientific exchange, IAA is dedicated to advancing knowledge with a mission to advance human progress through research and innovation.

[00:02:54]In March 2025, the inaugural IAA Forum was graced by Mr. John Lee, chief executive of Hong Kong special administrative region.

[00:03:06]It established the IAA as an international science and clergy organization based in Hong Kong.

[00:03:13]Gathering together scholars from over 20 countries to discuss AI for health and future cities. IAA has forged a vibrant global academic network that transforms insights into action as China's 15th find your brain launches. Hong Kong unveils its first founder plan. Charting an ambitious future with innovation and talent. The IAA stands at the heart of this vision.

[00:03:42]In this new era of renaissance, the IAA forum reaffirms our collective commitment to building a sustainable and human world. We will keep human global wisdom to address humanity's greatest challenges. solidifying Hong Kong's role as a global academic economy.

[00:04:03]This year, we focus on two urgent global issues, aging and chronic disease management, challenges and relations and pay and innovation in higher education.

[00:04:18]We are honored to welcome worldrenowned scholars to envision a people centered future innovation to nurture new talents and build it better for all.

[00:04:32]Welcome to the 2026 International Academic Hong Kong Forum. Join us where insight leads impact.

[00:04:45]>> Thank you for the inspiring video.

[00:04:51]The International Alliance of Academicians, IAA, is committed to fostering global collaboration among leading scientists and scholars with a shared vision to a found knowledge for the better beings of humanity. Its mission is to promote interdisciplinary innovation, bridge academia and society and address pressing global challenges through collective intelligence. The IAA forum serves as an important platform to connect global thought leaders, encourage cross sector dialogue, and explore forwardlooking solutions particularly in areas that shape our future such as health and education in the age of intelligence. Before we proceed, let us take a moment to acknowledge the distinguished guests who have graced us with their presence today. They are Professor Nancy Yip, founding chair of the International Alliance of Academicians and President of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

[00:05:59]Professor Dongan, Secretary for Innovation, Technology, and Industry Bureau, Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

[00:06:12]Mr. Mao Jolu representative from the department of educational scientific and technological affairs leaison office of the central people's government in the Hong Kong s professor Shing Chong Yao fields medalist 1982 and director of the Yao mathematical sciences center and Chin College of Chinua University.

[00:06:41]Professor Ariel Walsho Nobel laurate in chemistry 2013 and distinguished professor at large and director of war institute for computational biology cuk shenzhen Mr. Ian KB Lee, Commissioner for Innovation and Technology of the Innovation and Technology Commission, Innovation, Technology, and Industry Bureau. Professor Alexander Ping Kong Wai, President and Vice Chancellor of the Hong Kong Baptist University, Professor Yiko, Profess of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

[00:07:22]Professor Chakshing Lao, Vice President and Pro Vice Chancellor Health of the University of Hong Kong.

[00:07:31]Professor Fian Wing Guy, Vice President and Provice Chancellor, Global Innovation Center of the University of Hong Kong.

[00:07:41]Professor Lewiang, Pro Vice Chancellor, Vice President External Affairs of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

[00:07:51]Professor Bang Yang, Vice President, Student and Global Affairs of the Hong Kong Poly Techchnic University.

[00:07:59]Professor Anderson Ho Chan Sham, Vice President Research of the City University of Hong Kong.

[00:08:07]Professor Sin Yao, Vice President Research and Innovation of Ling Nan University.

[00:08:16]Engineer Professor CC Chan, distinguished chair, professor of electric vehicles and smart energy, the Hong Kong Polyanic University.

[00:08:26]Dr. Yin Singh Ha, executive president of the Hong Kong Institute of Science and Innovation, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

[00:08:36]The honorable Duncan Chu, member of the Legislative Council for the Technology and Innovation Functional Constituency, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

[00:08:46]Mr. Hrik Sin, Hong Kong's deputy of the 14th National People's Congress, Engineer Dr. Alex Chan, President of Hong Kong Academy of Engineering, Mr. Lawrence Chi Chong Chun, Chief Technology Officer of the Hong Kong Productivity Council.

[00:09:10]Dr. The Honorable Hoy Simon Lee, member of the Legislative Council for the Election Committee Constituency, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, will join us later. and our distinguished speakers from all over the world, IAA executive committee members, renowned scholars and industry leaders. We'd also like to extend our sincere thanks to the Innovation and Technology Commission, ITC, for their funding support and on-site attendance and our valued sponsors, Lenovo, Matt Limited, and Hashan Technology and Education Group Limited for their generous contributions and inerson support. Let's give another big round of applause to welcome and thank you all our guests.

[00:10:02]Now we'll officially commence the opening ceremony. First, we are honored to have the video opening address from the honorable John Casey Lee, chief executive of the Hong Kong special administrative region who places great importance on this forum despite his busy official schedule. Now, please look at the screen and welcome his address.

[00:10:27]Professor Nancy, Professor Sir Christopher Visers, Professor Pier Lou, Professor Ladies and gentlemen, good morning and welcome to Hong Kong. I'm pleased to join you all at this year's International Academicians Hong Kong Forum. For the second year in a row, this forum is organized by the International Alliance of Academicians.

[00:10:56]This year's events brings together Nobel laureates, fused medalists and a host of globally renowned experts and academics in the fields of medicine, AI, high education and more. Among the finest minds from around the world, you have gathered here to promote the transformation of outstanding academic research into application.

[00:11:23]Hong Kong is well placed to hold this important data under the unique one country two systems principle. We are the only world city that enjoys both the China advantage and the global advantage.

[00:11:39]We boast five universities in the world's top 100. Our research environment is open and vibrant. Our intellectual property protection is robust and aligned with international standards.

[00:11:54]These lay the solid foundation for the development of our innovation and technology ecosystem and regime.

[00:12:03]The national 15-year plan approved last month gives strong backing to Hong Kong's development into an international innovation and technology center and international hub for high caliber talent. More than recognizing our potential, this is a call to action for us to devote our efforts into promoting innovation and academic cooperation.

[00:12:31]This is forum who's a much needed spore on artificial intelligence and crucial how it brings about innovation in high education and an aging population in our ever changing world. The application of AI is pivotal for economies to make new breakthroughs in technological advancement.

[00:12:56]Hong Kong is taking forward the national AI plus initiative by promoting industry for AI and AI for industries.

[00:13:06]As a key driver, the Hong Kong Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Institute will commence operation in the second half of this year. The institute will be tasked to promote AI plus development and transformation of R&D outcomes thereby empowering industries such as healthcare, legal services and finance to adopt AI.

[00:13:33]As part of the inner Hong Kong initiative, the Hong Kong SFR government established the Hong Kong generated AI research and development center in 2023.

[00:13:47]The center has successfully launched Hong Kong's first large language model and a series of generated AI applications based on it. Hong Kong chat, the generated AI chatbot created by the center, has over 700,000 local users.

[00:14:08]We are committed to nurturing a new generation of users and innovators of AI. The Hong Kong government ensures to have at least 35% of the students in our publicly funded universities starting steam related subjects by the academic.

[00:14:29]We have also introduced the Hong Kong future tal scholarship scheme for advanced studies to attract more local students to pursue advanced studies in areas crucial to the development of Hong Kong with science, technology and digital transformation, very much included. We have also launched the fund for innovative technology in education which helps universities harness innovative and breakthrough technologies to transform teaching methods and enriched learning experience.

[00:15:04]All to nurture a digitally competent and technologically responsible generation for the future success of our young people in the digital economy.

[00:15:16]The people of Hong Kong are blessed with longevity and healthy lives. The life expecties at birth increased from 67.8 years for males and 75.3 years for females in 1971 to 82.7 years and 88.2 years respectively in 2024.

[00:15:41]That's one of the highest life expectancies around the world. As fortunate as we are, we know that chronic diseases could also be more prevalent in an aging population. The Hong Kong government is accelerating clinical trials to promote the development of Hong Kong into an international health and medical innovation hub. To expedite patients access to advanced diagnostic and treatment services, we are rapidly expanding our clinical trial capabilities.

[00:16:18]Clinical trial, as you all know, is a key process in driving the translation of innovative biomedical R&D outcomes into clinical applications.

[00:16:30]Just last December, we launched the Greater Bay Area clinical strong collaboration platform. It was set up alongside the real world study application center under the greater bay area international clinical trial institute.

[00:16:47]Both are located in the third part Shenzhen pong science and technology innovation cooperation zone and area strengthening the boundary between Hong Kong and Shenzhen and rapidly becoming a global.

[00:17:04]We work closely with our main counterparts to streamline cross boundary clinical trials. We aim to provide a one-stop support platform for medical research and development institutions worldwide and accelerate the translation of cutting edge medical technologies into clinical applications.

[00:17:27]Ladies and gentlemen, we look forward to working with a world of experts and professionals to solve the problems and embrace the opportunities brought by the rapid development of technology.

[00:17:40]I'm confident that the International Alliance of Academicians and all of you here will continue to play a vital role in fostering global scientific cooperation.

[00:17:53]While you enjoy the forum and this special week of gatherings of bright minds in Hong Kong, do take some time to rejoice in this world city as well, which is fast rising as an east west center for international cultural exchange.

[00:18:10]The pursuit of knowledge knows no boundaries. Neither should our cooperation. I wish all a very productive and inspiring forum. Thank you.

[00:18:25]Thank you, chief executive.

[00:18:28]Next, let's give the warmest round of applause to welcome Professor Nancy Yep, chair of the International Alliance of Academicians and President of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology to deliver the welcoming speech. Professor, you please.

[00:18:59]Professor Sandong, Mr. Limoto, distinguished guests, esteemed colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, good morning.

[00:19:21]As the president of the International Alliance of Academicians, IAA, it is my immense honor to welcome all of you to the 2026 International Academicians Hong Kong Forum.

[00:19:39]The IAA was established to foster partnerships across borders, across disciplines in order to advance scientific knowledge and drive innovation to address humanity's current pressing challenges.

[00:19:59]Today, we are very proud to bring you this forum in partnership with the Hong Kong Association of Overseas Returned Scholars and with support from the Innovation and Technology Commission Centered on the intersecting themes of AI for aging and AI in higher education.

[00:20:27]This transformative event aims to explore AI innovations across both health and education sectors and identify practical pathways in order to accelerate the real world impact.

[00:20:47]From supporting healthy uh aging and managing chronic diseases to adaptive leading platforms, learn for learning that widen participation and boost outcomes in universities.

[00:21:04]AI technologies indeed have the potential to reshape societal approaches to both health and education.

[00:21:17]We have a truly world-class lined up to share their insights with us. Nobel laurate professor Arya Wshaw, a pioneer in computational studies of the functional properties of biological molecules and fuse medalist. Professor Shing Tongyao, renowned for his contributions to mathematics and theoretical physics will present the plenary lectures this morning.

[00:21:51]We are grateful for the unwavering support of our local academic community.

[00:21:58]It is our honor to welcome the presidents and the vice presidents from all eight publicly funded universities to participate in our university president's roundt discussion later this morning.

[00:22:15]Together they will explore how higher education can contribute to shaping a more intelligent and a more sustainable future.

[00:22:29]We also welcome both local and international academicians and pioneers in the fields of medicine, AI and higher education.

[00:22:41]They will share their insights during the round table discussion as well as in two thematic sessions.

[00:22:50]One theme is on AI and chronic disease management challenges and innovations.

[00:22:57]The second theme is on AI and innovation in higher education.

[00:23:04]Today's forum aims to inspire fresh insights and innovative ideas.

[00:23:11]I encourage each of you to challenge your own perspectives, engage in meaningful dialogues, and foster new connections.

[00:23:23]Your participation in this forum will play a crucial role in transforming the ideas and solutions that will emerge today into impactful outcomes.

[00:23:37]In closing, I would like to extend my deepest gratitude again to Professor Sundong for officiating this flagship event. My heartfelt appreciation also goes to my co-chairs, professors Pierre Lewis Leons, Prof, Professor Chris Pivaradis, and Professor Zang Xang, as well as the executive committee members, our distinguished speakers, partners, sponsors, and all those whose dedication has been instrumental in making this event possible.

[00:24:18]Thank you once again for joining us today and I wish you all a day that is filled with insightful intellectual exchange and we look forward to the cross-disciplinary alliances that are certain to emerge after today's forum. Thank you again for being here today to join this very meaningful event. Thank you.

[00:24:43]>> Thank you, Professor Y. Please be seated.

[00:24:49]Next, may I invite Professor Dongan, Secretary for Innovation, Technology, and Industry Bureau, Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to deliver his opening remarks.

[00:25:02]Professor Swim, please.

[00:25:11]Professor Nanip, Mr. Lemo, Professor Tu, Professor Yao, Professor Wel, distinguished guest and speakers, ladies and gentlemen, good morning.

[00:25:36]It is my great pleasure to join all today at the opening ceremony of the 2026 International Alliance Hong Kong Forum.

[00:25:48]As an international academic organization rooted in Hong Kong, the alliance of international academian IAA in short has demonstrated remarkable foresight in fostering deep interdisciplinary collaboration by building a distinguished platform for high level academic exchange. IAA has capitalized on Hong Kong's connectivity and academic strengths to enhance academic excellence, accelerate knowledge transfer, spark innovation partnerships, and reinforces Hong Kong's role as a nexus for global scientific excellence.

[00:26:41]Today's forum exemplifies this vision, bringing together leading mans to explore two themes of profound global relevance, namely aging and chronic disease management challenges and innovation and AI and innovation in higher education.

[00:27:06]The Hong Kong SAR government has introduced a series of forwardlooking initiatives in recent years to strengthen our innovation and technology ecosystem particularly in AI and life and health technologies.

[00:27:26]We are investing strategically in research funding, talent development and worldclass infrastructure.

[00:27:36]At present there are 30 research centers under the two Ino Hong Kong research clusters focusing on health technologies and AI and robotics bringing together 3,000 top-notch researchers from more than 12 jurisdictions.

[00:28:00]Eight more centers on sustainable development, energy, advanced manufacturing and materials will be established within this year. We are also pressing ahead with the development of the Hong Kong Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Park as well as the construction of the sentient technopole and the Sandy Ridge data facility cluster through funding schemes such as the research academic and industry sectors on one plus scheme and the forthcoming innovation and technology industry. or Andy fund. We are building robust cross- sector collaboration platforms that connect the government, the industry, academic, research and investment sectors to create an ideal INT environment where scientific discovery can translate swiftly into real world impact.

[00:29:08]Hong Kong's solid R&D capability and unique role as a super connector and a super value adder place us in a pivotal position to foster international INT collaboration.

[00:29:24]This week's events offer a vivid demonstration of Hong Kong's role.

[00:29:30]Alongside this forum, Hong Kong is hosting two flagship INT events. the World Internet Conference Asia-Pacific Summit and ENOEX.

[00:29:43]Their presence here underscores Hong Kong's capability to gather global talent, capital and enterprises, and to bring together scientific leaders, industry pioneers, and policy makers within a single week.

[00:30:02]It is a powerful reminder that Hong Kong is a place where the world comes together to chart the future of innovation.

[00:30:13]As we look ahead, I encourage all participating experts to make full use of Hong Kong as a platform for deeper collaboration with both Chinese mainland and international partners. Whether in health aging, chronic disease management, AI enabled education or frontier technology yet to emerge, Hong Kong offers a fertile ground where idea flourish and global challenges addressed. May I also take this opportunity to invite you to visit our ENOE ex which is taking place next door at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center to experience Hong Kong's robust INT ecosystem.

[00:31:02]In closing, I wish you all an inspiring, impactful and vision v visionary day ahead. Thank you.

[00:31:11]>> Thank you, Professor Sun. Please remain on stage. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the kickoff ceremony of IAA is about to commence. To mark this exciting occasion, it is my great honor to invite the following guests to join Professor Swen on stage for the launching ceremony. Let's put our hands together to welcome Professor Nancy Y, please.

[00:31:40]Also, let's welcome Mr. Mao Liu, Professor Shing Chong Yao, Professor Ariel Wshaw, Mr. Ian KB Lee, Professor Alexander Ping Kong, Professor Welcome, Professor G, please.

[00:32:46]And professor Chakshen Laauo, the honorable Duncan Chu and Professor Wenway 2.

[00:33:09]Welcome all our distinguished guests on stage.

[00:33:15]Now may I invite our guests please put your hand together on the LED screen before we start our kickoff ceremony.

[00:33:25]Let's take a photo first. So would you please face the photographer in front of the stage?

[00:33:32]Maybe secretary right hand please. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:33:38]All right. Would you please face our camera in the front and let's take a photo out together.

[00:33:46]Please keep your big smile and also please face our media friends at the back.

[00:33:54]Our media friends camera please. Thank you. So are you ready to launch the 2026 International Academicians Hong Kong Forum? Ready? Five, four, three, two, one.

[00:34:14]Congratulations. I hereby announce the official opening of the 2026 International Academicians Hong Kong Forum. To mark this memorable moment, may I invite all our distinguished guests to please proceed forward to take another group photo at this important occasion. Thank you. with our guests.

[00:34:34]Please step forward and please step closer towards each other in one row, please. Closer and closer, please. Thank you. And then please face our official photographer at the center point in the front, please.

[00:34:51]Thank you so much. All right, are you ready? Three, two, one. Smile.

[00:35:01]and also our media friends at the back.

[00:35:04]Please ready. Three, two, one. Thank you. With our guest of honor, please remain on stage. We now warmly invite all speakers and distinguished guests to join our honorable guests on stage. This is truly a moment to celebrate. The gathering of so many brilliant minds under one roof reflects the power of international collaboration and a shared vision. Let us take a moment to acknowledge the extraordinary efforts of the international alliance of academicians and all partners who have made this forum possible.

[00:35:49]Congratulations once again to everyone here for being part of this historic occasion. We all look forward to seeing the fruitful outcomes that will surely emerge from today's exchanges.

[00:36:05]Now, as our distinguished guests make their way to the stage, please join me in a warm round of applause to honor their outstanding contributions to science and humanity.

[00:36:22]We are already right. So now let us warmly welcome engineer professor CC Chan Mr. Hendrickson.

[00:36:38]Let's put our hands together to welcome all our distinguished guests. Thank you for joining us. May I invite Mr. Lawrence Chi Chong Chang, Dr. Yinha, and now may I advise the following guests to join us on the second row. We have Professor Vivian Wing Wu Yam, Professor Leang, Professor Ben Yang, Professor Anderson Ho Cham, Professor Sing Yao Professor Dragon Gashuage, Distinguished Professor of Learning and the Lictings of Monache University. Welcome.

[00:37:56]Professor John T. O'Brien, Professor of Old Age Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge.

[00:38:10]Professor Jung Jang, founder and chief scientist of the Hong Kong U Shanghai Cross Innovation Lab.

[00:38:20]Professor Wen Ming Wu, Vice President of the Peing Union Medical College Hospital.

[00:38:30]Professor D Hun Kim, Professor of Medicine of Harvard Medical School.

[00:38:40]Professor Hideanoli Allayi, President of the National Center of Geriatrics and Gerontology, NCG Japan.

[00:38:51]Professor Jacqueline Kuan Yong Yun, clinical assistant professor of department of medicine, the University of Hong Kong and engineer Dr. Alex Chan.

[00:39:05]Welcome our guests.

[00:39:11]Let us take another group photo at this memorable moment with our guest in the second row. Please make sure you can face the camera in the front. Please show us your brightest smile. And our honorable guest, one step backward, please closer to our other guests at the back. Thank you so much.

[00:39:32]All right, are you ready? Please face our facial camera first.

[00:39:39]Three, two, one.

[00:39:45]Excellent.

[00:39:47]And then would you please face our cameras at the back from our media friends.

[00:39:53]Ready? Three, two, one.

[00:39:58]Thank you. Please remain on stage. We now invite our EC members and representatives from supporting organizations to join us on stage for our final photograph. Let's give them a wonderful round of applause. The distinguished guests are Mr. Ken Wong, executive vice president and president of Lenovo Solutions and Services Group.

[00:40:23]Mr. Guan Hua Chen, director of Met First Limited.

[00:40:30]Welcome, Miss Yanlu, executive director and CEO of Huang Technology and Education Group Company Limited.

[00:40:46]Miss Phoebe Lang, executive director of Smart City Consortium.

[00:40:56]Mr. H Shan Shu, director of Beijing Hong Kong Academic Exchange Center.

[00:41:07]Professor Lynching, Assistant Dean, Mainland Affairs of Faculty of Medicine, the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

[00:41:18]Professor Jen Lu, Dean of College of Engineering of the City University of Hong Kong.

[00:41:28]Professor Hu Lin, Emmeritus Professor of Department of Geography and Resource Managements, the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

[00:41:41]Mr. Alfred Jang, honorary president of the Hong Kong Association of Overseas Returns Scholars, HKA RS.

[00:41:52]Professor Jien Guo Dai, Head and Chair Professor of Structural Engineering, Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, City University of Hong Kong. Professor Sun Guo, chair professor of department of computer science and engineering, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

[00:42:14]Professor Jun Yu, director of the state's key laboratory of digestive disease, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Mr. Hong Yang, board member of the International Alliance of Academicians.

[00:42:30]Welcome all our EC members and representatives from supporting organizations. Thank you. So, please take your places and let's get ready for our final group photo.

[00:42:44]All right. Please make sure you can face the cameras in the front.

[00:42:52]All right. Would you please face our official photographer? Ready? Three, two, one. Smile for the camera, please.

[00:43:06]Also, please face our media friends camera at the back. Ready? Three, two, one. Also, we are taking video. On my count of three, would you please give a big like, show your thumbs up. Ready?

[00:43:23]Three, two, one, thumbs up.

[00:43:27]Excellent. Let's give another big round of applause to thank all our honorable guests on stage. Thank you. Please be seated. May I firstly invite our fishing guests, please return to your seats first. Thank you so much.

[00:43:43]And also thank you to all our other honorable guests on stage. Please be seated. Thanks a lot.

[00:43:54]Today's forum brings together numerous distinguished academicians, leading scholars and participants from around the world. Together, they will share the latest research findings, spark ideas, and cocreate a vision for an intelligent future with a focus on the innovative applications of artificial intelligence in health and education.

[00:44:26]As we prepare to dive into the first plenary lecture, let us take a brief moments to reflect on the significance of this gathering. Today you will hear from worldrenowned experts who are pushing the boundaries of knowledge. So please sit back, perhaps take a sip of water and get ready for an intellectual journey. We will now kick off our first major session of the day. For your convenience, a QR code is posted in the top right corner of the screen allowing you to submit questions at any points during the presentations and discussions to chair this session. We are honored to welcome Professor Wii Tu, president of the Hong Kong Association of Overseas Returns Scholars, HKA RS, and Secretary General of the International Alliance of Academicians to the stage. Let's welcome Professor Tu, please.

[00:45:36]It's my great pleasure to open today's plenary lecture by introducing our distinguished speaker, Professor Sing Tong Yao. Professor Yao's work had fundamentally reshaped our understanding of geometry and physics. In 1982, he was awarded the Fields Medal for his groundbreaking contributions to differential genometry.

[00:46:06]Most notably, he proved the Galibe conjecture as a receipt of the Wolf Prize, the Crawford Prize and the Meo Fellowship and the Mariel Gman award and the Shaw Prize.

[00:46:25]Professor Yao has inspired generations of mathematicians globally. Please join me to welcome Professor Sing Tong Yao.

[00:46:51]Professor Nancy Yit and the conference organizer.

[00:47:16]I'm thank you for your invitation.

[00:47:20]Ladies and gentlemen, today I stand before you to talk about mathematics.

[00:47:27]Not only out of my lifelong passion towards mathematics, but more importantly because mathematics is the fundamental cornerstone of science and technology.

[00:47:43]There can be no cuttingedge science such as AI or innovative technology without a solid foundation in mathematics.

[00:47:55]The truth is equally vital to Hong Kong's development as a international hub for innovation and technology.

[00:48:06]Hong Kong's pursuit of high quality development for drive to build a worldclass innovation ecosystem and its efforts to enhance core competitiveness all depend heavily on mathematics as the underlining support.

[00:48:27]Developing mathematics and advancing technologies are not separate u endeavors but two sides of the same coin. Highly alien in their goals and mutually reinforcement.

[00:48:44]Throughout the history of global development, nearly all major cities and countries have come to a profound realization.

[00:48:56]It is a misunderstanding to believe that focusing solely on technological development is sufficient. In fact, technological breakthroughs and sustainable development can only be achieved by building a solid foundation in basic science and mathematics is the most core and essential compound component of basic science.

[00:49:29]A classical example is the great famous university MIT.

[00:49:35]It engineering disciplines have long stood at the forefront of the world gaining global acclaim for their innovation and influence. Yet what many uh fail to recognize is that MIT's engineering excellency is built on its worldclass mathematics development constantly rank the top three in the whole world. It is a strong support of mathematics that empowers MIT's engineers and scientists to continuously break through technological uh bottlenecks. expo explore new frontiers and maintain in leading positions in global technology and engineer.

[00:50:27]This is why we attach such great importance to mathematics. Why we take pride in the development of Chinese mathematics and why we firmly believe that hosting international congress mathematics through field in Hong Kong will not only showcase the progress of mathematics in China and Hong Kong to the world but also further promote the integration of mathematics, science, technology techology and regional developments.

[00:51:05]So I like to say a few words about the history of such a development.

[00:51:15]As the Republic of China uh begin, a group of young scholars driven by a deep belief that science would save their nation went abroad to study where mathemat mathematics were already flourishing places like the United States, Europe and Japan.

[00:51:40]They study under the giants of the field at well renowned institution like Cambridge, Princeton and the University of Chicago.

[00:51:51]This group included billion mice such as my teacher Sen Chen and the famous Chinese mician Logan W.

[00:52:02]Yet even as they earn international acclaim, their hearts remain at home, deeply devoted to building up mathematics in China.

[00:52:14]This is a very important uh threat.

[00:52:19]Later with the founding of the people's republic of China, the country faced a critical need for scientific and in technological talent. Mathematics the very foundation of so much scientific progress has stalled suffering from a severe shortage of experts.

[00:52:44]Then Pedawa returned to China in 1950 and formed the institute of mathematics at the Chinese Academy of Science.

[00:52:56]In the 1980s, President Churn returned to China to lead mathematics research and nurture young talent. He later continued to support Chinese mathematics and help establish the train institute of mathematics in Nanka University.

[00:53:17]Together they form the core of modern Chinese mathematics.

[00:53:25]Looking back, the return of overseas scholars was a monument mental turning point. They didn't just build China's modern mathematical research and education system. They buil they brought with them a perfect blend of scientific brilliance and a deep enduring devotion to their homeland.

[00:53:52]Well, let's look at the future, the the present and the future.

[00:54:02]Up to um back in 1950, singen churn poet churn makes history as the first Chinese mathematician to be invited to give a one-hour penalty lecture at the congress that happens in uh Harvard University.

[00:54:21]Up to now, Chinese mathematician have received a total of 160 invitation to speak at the ICM, International Congress Mathematics, including 14 onehour panelist lectures.

[00:54:37]In 2022 alone, 28 scholars were invited to a to present their talks. These numbers are a testament to the steadily growing influence of Chinese mathematics on the world stage.

[00:54:57]In my view, a pivotal movement in China's global integration was hosting the 24th International Congress of Chinese Congress of Mathematicians in Beijing in 202.

[00:55:17]The momentum began in 1994 when Pa Chan and I went to Jung Lankai to propose to President Jangin that China had to build had to beat for the ICM20.

[00:55:35]President Jangin expressed great enthusiasm and full support of the uh for hosting the congress.

[00:55:46]When the congress took place he personally present the fuse medals in the great hall of the people. This level of national support reflect Chinese recognition of mathematicians as the cornerstone of basic science and the nation's commitment to integrate into the global academic uh community.

[00:56:13]The success of ICCM uh ICM 202 proved to be a powerful catalyst for Chinese mathematics. In the decade that followed a billion new generation emerged many who went go on who would go on to become global leaders in their fields. This group include outstanding matricians uh like Kong Linson in CK in Hong Kong. uh Fu in Fuan University, he in Hong Kong University, Hua Wuha and Shan in Chinua University, in the Chinese Academy in Pik University, uh Yunu and Jang in MIT and Juin in Stanford. These are very distinguished young scientists, young mathematicians that are changing the world.

[00:57:20]The momentum from the 202 ICM has been growing, nurturing rising mathematics, mathematical uh stars such as and most of whom pursue graduate study in Europe or North America.

[00:57:52]In recent years, many outstanding mathematician have returned to China to conduct research and nurture talent, helping modern mathematics to take root in China and thrive locally.

[00:58:11]This is very important for the development in the last 20 years.

[00:58:18]With this moment uh with this momentum, Chinese apply for Hong Kong to host the 2030 ICM which will both China's mathematical community and enable greater contribution to global mathematics.

[00:58:44]before uh since 1979 I have returned to China every year to help developing mathematics in this country in my motherland. In those early days I noticed that Chinese mathematician were scatterling all over the globe with very little communication between them. They lack the networking to stay connected in cutting edge breakthroughs and they didn't have access to top tier spaces for collaborations.

[00:59:20]To solve this, I found an organization called the International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians, ICCM, in 1998 and later I established the International Consortium of Chinese Mathematicians.

[00:59:41]The goal of this uh ICCM was simple. To unite the collective talent of Chinese scholars worldwide, breaking down the barriers of isolation and build an open worldclass platform for collaborations.

[01:00:03]After more than two decades of dedicated efforts, the ICCM has become a veto beach. It connects scholars and young talents at home with the cutting edge of global research.

[01:00:21]At the same time, uh it makes uh it easier for overseas Chinese mathematicians to stay engaged with the remarkable progress happening back in China. It has amplified the voice of Chinese mathematicians on the world stage and play a major role in the rapid rise of mathematics in China.

[01:00:46]For a prime example uh of this remarkable progress, I can we can look at the major academic breakthroughs in the last 10 years. One is achieved by Yuping and other one by uh Shinsen at Chengua University.

[01:01:07]Eupin after receiving uh returning from Pinson University had make a major breakthrough in high dimensional softwave field and Shinen after coming back from the University of Chicago he solved the century old mathematical problem called the pain la uh conjecture uh concerning many body problems.

[01:01:35]The ICCM had also established other prestige awards including the ICCM mathematics award which is widely known as the Chinese fuse medal.

[01:01:49]Many of our past Laurens have chosen to returns home where they continue to achieve landmark results. Take for example the gold medalist of the ICCM mathematics award HIA and DEN. Uh they are affiliate to Hong Kong University to the Chinese Academy of Science and Picking University respectively.

[01:02:20]After they return, they have solved major long-standing problems which many of the result published in top international journals and many ICM award-winning scholars including Luong including Liu Wang have returned to China to build worldclass research teams at top university uh Chunao and others have made major breakthroughs in geometric analysis, nonlinear puzle defensive equation and other fields after their return. They have not only lived the Chinese mathematics to the forefront of the world but also play a key role in nurturing the next generation of domestic uh mathematical talent.

[01:03:21]In addition to attracting the outstanding Chinese scholar back from overseas to pursuit academic chariots, we have also successfully joined many distinguished non-Chinese mathematician to join in Futa.

[01:03:41]uh taking Chinua University along it has recruit a group of well-leading non-Chinese magician to it faculty including the fuse medal medalist Koji Burka who has been there for four years and KG Fukaya who won the saw prize last year and Mores who is a chair professor from Oxford University. Rishi Tekken is a chair professor from Berkeley. Uh Futaki is a major figure in geometric analysis. Don Rubin from Harvard University. All of these people are highly sought after scholar even by the very top university such as Harvard on MIT.

[01:04:29]So these are remarkable group of people expecting expanding on this vision. I formed the Chinese international congress of basic science a few years ago. It has been a major event focus on mathematics, physics and engineer. We also launched the basic science lifetime award and frontiers of science award. And over the past few years many many great scientists leading the science in the whole world have come and joining uh the event throughout years of uh reless efforts.

[01:05:14]Chinese mathematics has entered a golden age. As someone who has both witnessed and helped uh derive this progress, I feel this deeply personally. China now produce groundbreaking efforts in pure mathematics and prime mathematics and interdisiplinary areas. uh with this research frequently published in top journals.

[01:05:45]Well, these breakthroughs published in top international journals across many different fields uh including fluid dynamics and algebraic geometry etc. They have built a solid foundation for our bit to host ICM International Congress of Mathematics 2030 will showcase collective strength of Chinese mathematician to the world.

[01:06:18]Well, having effect on the broader journey of Chinese matism, I'd like to turn to focus to Hong Kong. I grew up in Hong Kong and DCC was the starting point of my journey in mathematics. Hong Kong has a profound history and has a great tradition since worldw World War II. Uh I graduate from a high school called Puing Middle School and the school alone actually has uh nurture about six to seven uh members of National Academy of Science in America and three of them uh including Elro Dentry and myself was award the National Medal of Science in America a highest scientific honor in the United States and Dandy tree was award the uh fuse medal I mean the the Nobel prize later Hong Kong has a profound uh um gathering of highly influential mathematician who has advanced and dedicated to apply mathematics and also statistics two absolutely outstanding statisticians uh Wong um and also uh Fang Pa Fang has been the professor in Chinese University of Hong Kong and there's a large group of outstanding leading statistics and a primary practicians in Hong Kong including Chao Shin Tony Chen Raymond Chen and several many other outstanding people and I'm proud to say that Hong Kong is doing very well in terms of these recruitments and and has educated first class people.

[01:08:19]Now, Hong Kong has many international renown scholars uh including uh Naing Mo uh Sy and uh several many outstanding uh people uh has been uh promoting science and also um uh apply science. Hong Kong is home to 10 Syam fellows and five AMS ferohs and including one fellow of the lawyer society of candidate and one member of the academic Europeans.

[01:08:56]These um applied have been invited to speak at the ICM and over one-third of faculty member serve on the editorial board of leading international mathematical journal and these are really outstanding uh achievements but we should still look at the future. uh we have uh invite and recruit outstanding mathematician Naima to Hong Kong University and Jinson to CK.

[01:09:29]Well, years of experience in talent cultivation uh has lead to the firm conviction China must worldclass mathematicians on its own soil. This is something that I think Hong Kong should do. With strong support from the leading uh from the central government, uh we launched a 8-year uh program uh in Chinua University forming children college.

[01:10:06]uh with the blessing of the president of China, the children college uh was able to recruit the worldass uh students and they will come as a first grade in undergraduate and all the way to uh after eight years to earn their PhD.

[01:10:29]And this has been very uh uh exciting event because this broke through the uh existing difficulty in the uh gao system in China. But after just just five years, children college has already delivered remarkable early results and even exceed my expectation.

[01:10:55]drawing in the middle uh model of uh children college the college at the Chinese University Hong Kong just starts last year it adapts the similar approach and leveraging Hong Kong's unique strength with the aim of nurturing outstanding leading talents locally in Hong Kong. I expect to grow homegrown leaders by 2030 achieve great honors in the world and I hope they will uh be award the ch prize and fuse medal breakthroughs by 2034 uh by the local grow Chinese mathematicians not just from outside uh chain uh trained uh scholars and therefore Hong Kong speed for ICM 20 will be utmostly important.

[01:11:59]Well, beyond uh fostering worldclass research and nurturing exceptional uh goals, we also reach out to high school uh junior high schools at more than 50 top high schools across mainland China.

[01:12:19]We have established a robust talent pipeline uh channeling a large number of outstanding middle and high school students to both children college and also many important university in China including Beijing University and all that. Each year we train 3,000 students. These are the most talented students that I have ever seen in my life and they are extremely uh original in their thinking and I think uh we should encourage this more. At present such a training has not occurred in Hong Kong and I really encourage uh the government in Hong Kong and the university in Hong Kong will take adapt this system and I think this will be uh very important uh for uh Hong Kong.

[01:13:20]Well, why major countries struggle to separate academia from politics? Um, we understand the ICM this year being held in Philadelphia in America is being boycott by more than 2,000 uh mathematicians because of the American involvement in the Iran war. And last time in 2022 ICM was supposed to be held in St. Petersburg in Russia. It was boycott because of the Ukraine war. So both 2022 and 2024 or 2026 ICM was encountering great difficulty because of geo political problem.

[01:14:13]But Hong Kong is very unique. Hong Kong remains one of the few fully open and truly glogo cities backed by the Chinese mainland. We can certainly host top scientists worldwide and build Hong Kong into a worldleading academic hub.

[01:14:32]We have proposed established an Asian mathematical society uh center in Hong Kong that will cover China, Russian, India, Japan, Iran and beyond regardless uh their politics across Asia and the globe. And we believe this will be a future of Hong Kong uh being the hub of the whole world in advanced mathematics and collectively we can work together with both Hong Kong universities, Chinese universities and beyond. And I see a bright future of Hong Kong mathematics community. Thank you.

[01:15:19]Thanks professor yao for your wonderful and inspiring lecture. So please remain on stage. Uh we have uh collect some questions but since the time constraint only one uh quick questions. So the question is what does Hong Kong's unique position mean for hosting an international academic congress like please? Well, I just mentioned Hong Kong is almost a unique city who has very solid background in mathematics as I explained to you and with the backing of the whole Chinese community from whole China. We have no problem in the strength of mathematics but at the same time is only city who does not visa for more than 10770 countries in both Russia and America the hosting of ICM encounter great difficulty because of the geopolitical problem. They deny visas to speakers. They deny visas for people attending the conference. And Hong Kong by law would not have that problem. And our students are enthusiastic.

[01:16:39]Uh we have more than 3,000 uh students has expressed great interest to come to Hong Kong to attain the conquest. And beyond that uh the ICM or the IMU strongly support third world countries participates and all the developing countries including African including Latin America including India South Asia and mid Asia they all supporting Hong Kong. Now it's my absolute honor to introduce another to figure in global science, Professor Arin Wo. Professor Wo is a distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of South California and the director of war institute for computational biology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong senzen.

[01:17:40]In 2013, he was award Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing multiple scale models that allow computers to map complex chemical reactions.

[01:17:54]His groundbreaking work bridge the gap between clask and quantum mechanism, fundamentally changing how we understand biochemistry. Today we are incredibly honored to have Professor Washer share his insights with us. Professor Washer, the floor is yours.

[01:18:43]How do I control it?

[01:18:47]>> Yes.

[01:18:57]>> Okay.

[01:18:59]It is a very great pleasure for me to attend this forum.

[01:19:05]I particularly want to thank professor Joy Quinn the pres president of Nyang University for inviting me this time to Hong Kong.

[01:19:16]Now because of the time I will try to go to my main subject of the lecture. And by the way I completely agree with the previous speaker that mathematics is the basic of almost everything.

[01:19:36]But though my mathematics was mainly numerical one at the time where numerical mathematics was considered very bad idea. Now what I will try to describe in my talk is the connection the interplay between physicalbased simulation which is my main field to artificial intelligence and uh extremely small.

[01:20:15]Okay, this is okay. So, uh I will start with the action of enzymes.

[01:20:28]Enzymes are protein molecules that do the chemistry in the body and they do it much much faster than regular chemistry without the enzymes.

[01:20:42]And one of the main puzzles has been for a long time of why enzymes are so powerful and so fast.

[01:20:53]It's related to the barrier of breaking bonds which is reduced by the enzymes and of course there is a question how it's being done and this puzzle I was interested in it since 1964.

[01:21:16]So enzymes play major role in every life processes also not in life processes there are many enzymes they involve of course in biology disease and industry now I started to be interested in enzyme in the university in 1964 and during the Here I was kind of felt or said that one day I will figure out how enzyme work. This took very long time and a key stage was developing a way to model the chemistry of bond breaking and bond making in enzymes.

[01:22:12]Now this was a major challenge at the 70s because to describe chemistry you have to describe the chemist. You have to use quantum mechanics which is in principle could solve everything.

[01:22:30]Maybe not gravitation, but it takes a lot of computer time and it would have been completely crazy to try to model quantum mechanically protein with thousand and thousand of atoms. So we come with the multiscale idea of restricting quantum mechanics only to small part of the system where the chemistry occur and to describe the rest of the system by much simpler force field approach where the electric field of the surrounding is incorporated into the quantum mechanics.

[01:23:16]This approach was found to be very powerful and for example we use it for many type of key enzymes which are involved in diseases. For example there is the enzyme ras which when it has the wrong mutations you get sick with cancer.

[01:23:40]And this happened because the hydraysis of a phosphhat oxygen bond become too slow.

[01:23:51]So we try to understand it by the QMM in by simulations by doing what is called free energy perturbation.

[01:24:05]And we clearly code could produce this nice movies of the chemistry when a water molecule split and the O minus attack the first fat.

[01:24:19]So we could produce nice movies of the time dependent. But the key question has been and still is, could you reproduce the work of breaking the bond of what is called the activation barrier.

[01:24:41]The higher the barrier, the slower the reaction. So what you see here, the lower one is the barrier in the good enzyme.

[01:24:54]Above it we see the barrier when we have mutations that lead to cancer. So we could reproduce this.

[01:25:04]We could study many enzymes and we could also ask the question why enzyme are so efficient.

[01:25:16]And the reason why we could ask this question which could not ever be solved experimentally because enzymes is too complicated.

[01:25:27]So you need a computer to do it. I mean it does not mean that the computer will do it correctly but only simulation could actually do it. And what you see in this slides are the barriers in the absent of the enzyme. These are the blue lines. The red one are the barriers with the enzymes for many enzymes.

[01:25:55]And after we reproduce the catalytic effect of many enzymes, we could go back and ask why they are so fast.

[01:26:07]And we came up with the very simple not also not fast accepted that the enzyme apply electric field that stabilize the broken bond.

[01:26:25]When you break a bond, when you break a bond, h you create usually charges and the enzyme create complimentary environment to these charges.

[01:26:41]It's in fact a little more complicated, but this is the short story.

[01:26:48]Now in addition to figuring out why enzyme are so powerful there remain a problem because people do not necessarily believe to this result and they want to be convinced by prediction.

[01:27:09]Now our computer predict the overall catalytic power of the enzyme but people want you to perform miracles which means to create new enzymes.

[01:27:26]I'm not excited from this expectation but uh people want you to do something that proves that you know what you are doing rather than believing the computer and they want you to be able to design mutation in enzymes that could be verified experimentally.

[01:27:48]So there are several ways to design or to change enzymes.

[01:27:55]One is what is called directed evolution.

[01:28:00]This is experimental way where you take an enzyme put it in solutions create many mutations and pick the faster fastest enzyme and then you do another round and another round and you get better enzymes.

[01:28:21]So this approach which gave Arnold her Nobel Prize h it's basically use the trick of evolution no computer and it works to some extent we are more ambitious we want to be able to use computers to predict it and again from my point of view it's much more important to explain why enzyme do things much faster than without the enzymes. But the popular demand is to do predictions.

[01:29:03]So we could use our computations to do mutations by changing gradually one residue to another by what is called free energy perturbation.

[01:29:20]We have been doing it since 1987.

[01:29:25]We got kind of moderate success of predicting known mutation.

[01:29:34]But people are more interested in taking artificial enzymes which were designed from scratch and predicting or reproducing what was found by directed evolution.

[01:29:53]So we could predict known mutations in this artificial enzyme campimas.

[01:30:03]But at some stage we decide to take the major challenge of predicting what would be found by directed evolution.

[01:30:14]Uh for this we use major computer power, major effort and uh we end up with moderate success which means that we generated many mutants automatically.

[01:30:33]Our best mutants were at the lowest energy but not exactly at the same energy of the observed mutant. So this is a kind of moderate success.

[01:30:52]We don't know what it will take to get perfect results.

[01:30:58]Maybe more powerful computers.

[01:31:02]Erh, I never give up. But uh again when we got stuck in this not being able to reproduce exactly directed evolution, we turn out like everybody else to artificial intelligence.

[01:31:20]So the question what why I'm showing this slide I don't I think I remember.

[01:31:28]So our competition with artificial intelligence start ma in essentially in 1975 where we generated the first computer simulation of protein folding with Michael Levit and me and it was done by simplifying the protein replacing the amino acid by spheres.

[01:31:54]We were interested or I was interested in the process of folding proving that it could happen in reasonable time because there was what was called the levental paradox which claimed that protein could never be folded because it has too many degrees of freedom. So we show this but we were unable to predict the exact structure of the protein. I did not care too much but the scientific community was still obsessing predicting structure.

[01:32:33]I felt that I want to understand how you take structure and get function. So this is where AI has a major victory. Many years later, two years ago they got the Nobel Prize. This was the year of two Nobel Prize to AI. And this is alphafold.

[01:32:55]Okay. So this is where AI did something remarkable. Still in the field of enzyme catalysis, they have not done much.

[01:33:07]We were aware of studies that use what is called maximum entropy which is the chance that a given residue will be at a given site in that people show that this give correlation with activity.

[01:33:26]So my ch Chinese posi came with the suggestion to use it and uh what is maximum entropy. As I said, you run over many many proteins of the same family and try to see what is the chance of a given residue from the 24 possible amino acid to be at a given site.

[01:34:01]And to our surprise, not really surprise, we got beautiful correlation between Anyhow, all of these slides look the same. A beautiful correlation between the maximum entropy to the speed of the enzymes.

[01:34:23]So this meant that we could predict what mutations will make the enzyme faster or that we might be able to do it.

[01:34:35]These are different enzymes and this is the tables. we don't have time to see. And uh one of the things that we did that to me was the most impressive, we took an enzyme called alohalogenas. It's the one that split carbon chloride or bromide bond. and we found sequences that could be faster than the nature evolve enzyme. Now to me this is much more it's extremely easy to take artificial enzyme which is extremely bad and to make it better but to compete with evolution is really difficult. So we found sequences which could make the enzyme faster than evolution and uh I will skip this because we have no okay it's not in this presentation but we were able to predict mutations that will make the allergenas faster than the wild type and We verify it experimentally.

[01:35:57]We also use maximum entropy to predict the stability of enzymes and it works very well. I will go faster because okay this is the experiment where we predict mutations that are faster than the wild type enzyme.

[01:36:19]Another directions where we went which is a little more complicated than regular enzyme catalysis is bioluminescence. There are these creatures that want to shine light but they want it to be in the blue or the violet because otherwise the water will absorb the light. So there is huge interest to find enzyme the enzyme called loiferas and to have mutations that make it work better.

[01:36:58]This is the fac the active factor in loiferas we study it theoretically by by figuring out how it works.

[01:37:14]But again at the time that we spend simulating the enzyme we also tried to use maximum entropy.

[01:37:24]And again this was even bigger surprise because this is not real enzyme. It absorb light react with oxygen and then it emit light.

[01:37:39]Again, beautiful correlation of the wavelength with maximum entropy.

[01:37:46]And maybe the right slide will come. We succeed to predict mutants that will go farther to the blue.

[01:37:58]Another directions where we try recently to use maximum entropy was something that I tried for a very long time. It's fighting with drug resistance.

[01:38:13]As you know it's one of the main problem in medicine. People take drugs the pathogen get used to the drug and mutate itself not to bind the drug.

[01:38:28]So we study this first by computations by physically based approach.

[01:38:34]We try to find mutations that will not like to bind a drug but will also we also explore the fact that the pathogens want to do chemistry and it cannot mutate in a way that will make its chemistry less good. So we focus on what is called vitality which reflect the strength of binding and the ability to do chemistry.

[01:39:06]Sorry this is the vitality it's the catalysis and the binding product and uh we try to calculate vitality for different diseases like this is HCV uh we got decent result for the catalysis decent result for binding but not again not good enough computation ations for small numbers. It's really tough to get the exact result. We still don't know why.

[01:39:43]So again, we this showed the problems. We went to AI.

[01:39:51]I had great hope. We find again very nice correlation.

[01:39:57]But but unfortunately uh one of my student this is bad. One of my student noted that we obtained the same correlation by what is called the humming distance which is the number of mutation. So we could use the correlation if we have enough experiment to figure out which are the best drugs to fight the disease.

[01:40:29]But you could do it just by saying in HIV proess that the more mutations you do the harder is for the pathogen to work. But this is not really good. And the problem is that HIV proteas has huge number of ability to mutate.

[01:40:50]Fortunately for other type of pathogens we got better result. I don't have time to talk about it. So just one more example.

[01:41:01]We spend a lot of time learning how kinosine and myioine work. Meioin is what apply your muscles.

[01:41:13]Penosine carry load in the cell. And the fascinating thing is that it work only in one direction.

[01:41:24]And there is a great question. Why does it move in one direction?

[01:41:29]By the way, this question is taboo for the people who study experimentally. I don't know why they don't ask it, but I try to figure it out.

[01:41:40]This showed the problem that usually two people walk in different direction in the same speed. It's very rare that when they go it's very rare that one of them walk and when both of them are healthy in a slower way. So we spend on it several years and eventually we came out to the very simple but remarkable conclusion that the reason for it is that the barriers for moving forward and moving backward the rate determining barriers are slightly different.

[01:42:30]People in the field believe in word like power stroke. They believe that you move faster to this direction because you push which is of course incorrect because in the other direction I move in the same speed.

[01:42:48]So we figure out that clearly what determinate is the slowest step and we even show that the proteins open in a different way in the rate determining steps in the forward and backward direction and we were able to simulate it. There is a movie here but it does not show and this is crucial because many disease like heart disease are control or happen because of mutation change the speed of move of movement.

[01:43:26]So we done several study proving these points and in one of the nicest case where this moving kinosine exist we found sorry we found that there are mutations that move make it move backward mutations that may make it stop and so on and we calculate ate the free energy of the mutations of pulling a group phosphate from the protein and show almost exactly that we could reproduce the height of the barrier and therefore the trend to move forward and backward.

[01:44:17]Uh we don't have these are the mutations. So you have a system where in some case it move forward some mutation it stop and in one of them it move backward and we could reproduce it very nicely by computer simulation by free energy perturbation which is the gold standard. We tried to use again maximum entropy.

[01:44:49]It works reasonably well which led us to believe that we could predict the disease by maximum entropy. But in other cases it did not work. So I think I will skip this and go to the end.

[01:45:08]We have many story but we don't have time.

[01:45:12]I'm trying to go to the end.

[01:45:15]Okay.

[01:45:16]So the end is that there are still many fields where there is a competition between physicalbased simulation where you could understand why things are happening to artificial intelligence where you could find what will happen but not always understand.

[01:45:39]In some rare case like in the kinosine we understand what happened by physically based simulation but we could get prediction by AI.

[01:45:56]So the takeaway lesson that my knowledge in AI are extremely limited but I have advantage that I know what to ask. So it's sometime compensate and uh there are cases where AI could be extremely important cases where you have to be very careful essentially one this would be my last point recently we will try to see what other people do in enzyme design by AI I my student did this was about two weeks ago. My student did a literature search and found major study by major group huge groups which tried to study enzymes by AI.

[01:46:54]There is one problem. These people have zero clue what enzyme are doing. So what they did they took a computer program Rosetta and train it on every possible properties stability binding everything except on catalysis.

[01:47:19]So I think this is example of a very bad direction where when you do not know the field and give information which have nothing to do with the property you are studying and of course you do not succeed. So thank you very much.

[01:47:39]Thank you professor Wo for your fantastic and inspiring lectures. So please remain uh on stage because our staff send me a lot of questions from the audience uh since the time that's very limited. So I only choose one maybe interesting questions from maybe I guess from maybe postto or young scientist.

[01:48:04]she or he asked it with a rapid development of AI such as your ara you know f two three or maybe later four five or even let's say charity do you think AI will one day replace completely replace the scientists in conduct research for you know in the future >> will AI replace completely what >> AI will be replaced scientists to conduct research such as ARVA go maybe will replace let's say you know uh >> will structure biologist >> try to guess your question you ask if AI will replace physicalbased computations or scientist >> yes yes What's your perspective?

[01:49:07]>> I hope it won't be during my lifetime.

[01:49:12]And uh my answer I don't know but we have a months and a half ago a Nobel conference in Dubai where the question was would AI or was AI able to predict general relativistic or quantum mechanics?

[01:49:38]And I felt that eventually maybe AI could have figured out quantum mechanics. I don't know if general. So I don't know.

[01:49:49]I still hope that just with the example that I gave that you have to know what to ask.

[01:49:58]So hopefully no.

[01:50:01]>> Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you again, Professor Washa. Uh please be seated. On behalf of organization committee, I would like to extend our deepest gratitude to our distinguished speakers, Professor Senong Yo and Professor Angel Washer. Thank you for sharing your ex ordinary insights and wisdom with us today. So this concludes our penary lecture section. Thank you.

[01:50:32]>> Thank you professor 2 and thank you professor Ariel Wsho. Please return to your seats. Thank you. Thank you once again for that fascinating and groundbreaking lecture. Thank you so much for sharing your extraordinary insights and wisdom with us today. It is indeed our great honor to hear from worldrenowned experts who are pushing the boundaries of knowledge. Their insights will no doubt inspire new questions, new collaborations, and new solutions. Our next session is the highly anticipated university president roundtable discussion titled the new renaissance forging an intelligent future for health and education. Over the next 60 minutes, these university leaders will engage in an indepth dialogue focusing on education and health innovation in the age of AI. At the end of the dialogue, there will be a 10minut segment to share further guidelines and key takeaways.

[01:51:43]We'll also open the floor for questions.

[01:51:46]So, please use the QR code at the top right corner of the screen to submit your questions anytime for our upcoming speakers.

[01:51:57]Today, we have the rare privilege of gathering the leaders from eight local universities in Hong Kong. Without further ado, please join me in welcoming them to the stage. May I invite Professor Alexander Ping Kong Wai, President and Vice Chancellor of the Hong Kong Baptist University, who will serve as our session chair and moderator for this panel discussion. Professor Y, please.

[01:52:29]May I also invite Professor Yiku, Provost of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

[01:52:41]Professor Lee Wenang, Pro Vice Chancellor, Vice President External Affairs of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

[01:52:52]Professor Ching Lao, Vice President and Provice Chancellor Health at the University of Hong Kong.

[01:53:02]Professor Jongqi Kin Lee, President and Chair Professor of Curriculum and Instruction, the Education University of Hong Kong.

[01:53:14]Professor Anderson Ho Chan Sham, vice president research of City University of Hong Kong.

[01:53:22]Professor Sin Yao, Vice President Research and Innovation of Ling Nan University, as well as Professor Bang Yang, Vice President, Student, and Global Affairs of the Hong Kong Polyanic University.

[01:53:41]Welcome.

[01:53:45]So, gentlemen, please be seated.

[01:53:48]Professor Alexander White will lead the discussion for us. Now, let me hand over the time to Professor White, please.

[01:53:57]>> Thank you. Um, we have seven of you.

[01:54:02]Okay. And we are only given 60 minutes.

[01:54:05]Uh, I think 60 minutes for one will be not enough, right? So, uh, well, uh, all our credentials are in the screen. So I'll uh save some time by going straight you know uh to the discussions. Uh the format is as follow. Um we each of you will have uh two minutes to give a opening statement. Okay. Um then uh I will ask a question and then uh you have three minutes to you know answer it. Uh the clock is over there. I don't think it'll ring but please keep to the time.

[01:54:40]All right. Um the theme of the discussion today is the around the the uh frame of this conference the new renaissance forging an intellect intelligent future for health and education.

[01:54:54]Now uh you all know uh we are this is a very practical time for our country.

[01:54:59]It's the start of the uh our country's 15 five-year plan and Hong Kong also the very first inaugural five-year plan. So our discussion will explore how we can align our institutional strategy with Dean's broad visions, try to harness the technology AI in this particular to address challenges in health and education and strengthen Hong Kong's role as a bridge connecting the region with the global scientific community. So I look forward to a rich and cander discussion among us. So uh let's start from my left hand side. Okay. Uh uh yo yo you can start with the opening statement. Two minutes.

[01:55:45]>> Thank you. Uh two minutes is a long time for me. Okay. Uh so I think I guess I have just two points I want to cover and I uh certainly there's a great enthusiasm of uh incorporating AI into health and education.

[01:56:04]So my first point is uh for anything which bring in great benefit we should consider potential risks there's no free lunch in this world okay that's a especially in areas like uh health and education when we move AI into it we need to consider ethical aspects of it especially in healthcare and education in terms of fairness in terms of security reliability.

[01:56:41]The second uh point I I would like to plead to everyone is uh health education issues are societal issues. Uh they should not be discussed without a context.

[01:56:58]Some of you might have followed this uh AI news in the latest AI index report published by Stanford.

[01:57:07]They raised two pieces interesting data I can remember.

[01:57:12]If you do grock for training, it generate carbon is 72,000 tons, which is uh equivalent to 17,000 cars running for the whole year in terms of generation of carbon dioxides. Is that related to health?

[01:57:37]I don't know. But I I would like to see a robust debate of it. If you look at the inference um I have to state GPT40's inference each year consuming the water will be equivalent to 17 million people's drinking water for a year.

[01:58:01]It's not a health issue.

[01:58:04]I don't know but I would like to debate for it. When we are enthusiastically embracing AI into different domains like health and education, I think we should take a broader picture in terms of implications and in terms of uh impact on the humanity as a whole on the society and on the planet. That's my two cents.

[01:58:30]>> Thank you Jo and uh John your two minutes opening.

[01:58:36]testing. Thank you. I will speak something about education of course as I come from education University of Hong Kong. Now education I think now really cause or I would say a revolutionary reconsideration the meaning of curriculum learning and assessment.

[01:58:56]According to one of the paradigms or perspective about curriculum, we talk about a few elements like the role of teachers, the time and space for learning as well as the organizational experiences within university within schools and beyond schools and even embedded into community. Of course we also talk about these days the impact of AI on learning.

[01:59:26]What does it really mean about learning?

[01:59:29]Of course when we talk about AI come across machine learning about human AI interaction, human computer interaction and also about the real meaning of learning meaning what sort of aspect of learning we talk about social emotional learning. We talk about interpersonal skills, 31st century skills and so on. Last but not least in different levels of schooling and university education, it also closely link with the notion called assessment.

[02:00:01]When AI comes in, I'm sure many colleagues here, experts here can flow light on how personalized assessment together with uniform or more standardized assessment could be coupled all together to chart a new way forward for not only measuring but also giving feedback to individuals to institutions about the level and also the nature of learning. So I I think it calls a for really a a dynamic change as far as the 15 five year plan is concerned. The AI plus definitely comes into the horizon.

[02:00:39]I think it links with education, talents, development and of course technology on the one hand. On the other hand, how geographically we could connect now with AI, with emerging technology and so on, we can connect almost every part of the globe across time and space. So I stop here to to to to provide backdrop for all of you to input. Thank you.

[02:01:04]>> Thank you John.

[02:01:06]uh your two minutes.

[02:01:10]>> Hello everyone. I'm from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Actually since last year, our university has been working very hard to develop the next CHK strategic plan 2026 2030. Okay.

[02:01:23]Under the we have five priorities under the framework so called the tiger. T stand for Thailand attraction and development. I stand for institute institutional development. G stand for global and alumni engagement and E stand for education and student experience. R stand for research and innovation. So give one a few example under the for example under the e education we we will develop some new AI course for the general education because we have the college system very unique in CHK and also some of the faculties like the faculty science we developed a postgraduate program called AI for science. So for research we have five strategic area one of the strategic area called the artificial intelligence and mathematics. Professor Ying was mentioned really important area at CK.

[02:02:19]So this really the timing uh time for us to develop the strategic area align with this new development that related to AI.

[02:02:28]Thank you.

[02:02:30]>> Thank you was yeah thank you. uh I come from uh HKS and we we're at the university now. This two subject is really very very close to us. One is the health and you all know we are now be approved to have the uh Hong Kong third medical school. So for this we are really in the stage of planning how this medical school will be. But in our proposal to the new medical school, we focus very much on the technology driven in particular AIdriven uh healthcare. So this is a very very close to our strategic plan for building the medical school. The second thing is probably you all know and HKST was the first universities which embarrassed the all chip when when it come to the world and we actually have the long experience of my practice use the AI particular generative AI for education and we learned a lot you know there are some lesson to learn but also a lot of experience and we are now in the stage of reforming our whole education um structure along with the AI technology in particularly as John mentioned right how do we think about many things for example uh a lot of people criticized AI can be used right if you use AI for examination and there's a big problem here but now we have to question ourself is examination is uh you know assessment the mechanism of assessment is probably already out of date how we change in the you know area of AI. So that is a a lot of work and we introduced the whole curriculums of the AI education and make the common core programs is really like mathematics for the all the students and how to actually balance the general AI education with AI with a discipline uh focused. So this is a lot of the uh practice we are doing now. So I'm very happy to hear and discuss this subject.

[02:04:46]>> Thank you Malao.

[02:04:48]>> Thank you very much Alexander. And um in the short time that I have I will try to perhaps mention two points. First how AI actually can definitely I think improve health through drug discovery through conducting clinical trials etc. We've just heard from Laurate Warshaw how alpha 4 detrin is now able to quite accurately predict the protein of our the target protein for our drug molecules etc. So that has really sped up the process of drug discovery. AI can actually also quite accurately predict which group of patients might potentially respond to what treatment to provide more precision treatment etc. And in terms of clinical trials development, for example, AI could also help through the analysis of big data, help us recruit the patients that we need, monitor the effectiveness of efficacy as well as the adverse events of new agents etc. So I think AI definitely will help improve our health.

[02:05:54]But in the short time that I have, I would also like to sort of raise one concern that I have and that is how fast AI is moving. We have already heard that you know it's really moving too fast whether we have the capacity as an institution to really you know embrace everything that is in AI and whether we have I have the capacity and I have the ability to teach my students or my colleagues to teach my students to embrace the use of AI and lastly of course and I will perhaps me talk about this later on as well about the ethics the and the use of AI as about us while we're using AI we must never forget as a doctor right the human human interaction which is most important thank you very much >> well put thank you for your son >> thank you so uh our topic new renaissance I think here calls on universities like us um to really work together and forge an intelligent future and as uh president Alex mentioned um this is really um an opportunity community for health and education especially at the intersection of the uh nation's 15 five-year plan and also Hong Kong's uh inaugural 5-year plan for uh our international innovation and technology hub es especially with the northern metropolis really uh getting momentum now so city university of Hong Kong anchors this by positioning our uh cityu Hong Kong academy of innovation as well as our research uh platforms as core parts of the northern metropolis university town. Uh also using our Hong Kong tech 300 program to turn from zero to one research into the new quality productive forces uh via the deep tech commercialization as well as our brick bay areawide ecosystems. Um also in health and education we have some uh initiatives and some uh changes as well.

[02:07:54]We advance human AI symbiosis through our uh efforts in our institute of digit uh digital medicine. Our uh institute um of the AI for science as well as our new programs such as the master of science in artificial intelligence for science AI for dig digital medicine track as well as uh for in terms of education we have revamped our MBA uh with AI as our strategic backbone. So overall we are optimistic uh yet also realistic. We believe that the technology only succeeds when we pair u technology with strong institutional leadership, ethics and genuine system transformation and we'd like to start here and look forward to more discussions with our esteemed panel members.

[02:08:40]>> Thank you. Last but not least, Ben.

[02:08:43]>> All right. Thanks, Alex. Uh let me share the experience of uh PolyU in terms of education in AI. Uh in fact at PolyU we are not only educating students um like a student from engineering disciplines or computing in AI but um AI for all students. In fact we started this four or five years ago where we have this um compulsory subjects for all student that is AI and data analytics. So we are talking about four or five years ago that is even people start talking about deep seed and chat GBT you know back then. So uh that mean uh for all graduates from podu they will have some sort of knowledge. It's a free credit full um free credit bearing subjects that all students must take. We also started this education 4.0 initiatives is um uh drive by this new VP educations professor Chaojong who is an AI expert.

[02:09:39]So uh we will embed this AI enabled pedagogies into our curriculum and uh we will start with um language education first. So in the new academic year that is 2026 27 that started this September we will um have a new compulsory subjects for all um first year students that is uh using AI that's AI as a tour for uh in language education. The purpose of that is uh to enhance the Chinese and English proficiencies of all polyu students. So that's uh uh the education um in terms of AI at PolyU.

[02:10:21]Thank you Alex.

[02:10:22]>> Thank you Ben. Uh thank you all for your opening statement. Thought provoking. Uh indeed it's a lot of issues. Uh it's not fair to have you cover such a big topic in such a short time. Now um so we focus a little bit in the discussion part uh the question that I would like you to share your thought on is now we uh we we just we know the countries start the 15 five year plan this is the first year and the emphasis of the 15 five years plan is self-reliance and strength in science and technology and also building a strong educant uh system by 20 uh 35 now Hong Kong as we started uh to this uh to this topic is also start to do is in our grow five year plan also focus on developing into international innovation technology hub and also the construction of the loft metropolis. Now with these two direction, one from the country, the 55 year plan and also from uh our own government in Hong Kong, how do you think Hong Kong University or your own university should whether you need to if you do, how do we define your unique role in the nation's development?

[02:11:35]Okay, so uh under the election of five year plan and we pretty much can guess what you know Hong government will do in the five year plan. what your role will be okay uh to know further our country's development I'll start with again thank you chairman um >> three minutes >> I have three minute okay uh so so I want to say a little bit more about this uh education I think one of the very popular use very effective use of AI is to make what we do or what we used to do more efficient if we look at how AI is used in uh student learning, how AI is used in terms of lecturing, preparation, assessment etc. But one question I would like to pose to all of us or have a discussion about is uh I think AI will change the way we think about education.

[02:12:36]uh will probably change the way we define what education is especially in the longer term. So whatever we do, I hope we have a robust discussion uh how AI change the way we think rather than do things more efficiently in terms of this uh five-year plan. Uh how AI plus could be promoted or speed up within the mainland. What's the role of Hong Kong? Uh I think Hong Kong especially Lena University is sitting right in between the high-tech zone in Senz and then the Hong Kong international airport. So I always said if you want to go overseas for high high-tech through Hong Kong International Airport you have to pass Lingai University.

[02:13:28]So in any case, back to the serious part. I think Hong Kong is a unique place we where we can balance our long-term thinking about education and AI and the short-term demand of a society.

[02:13:43]I see there is a competition between the two. Uh if you think of uh graduate employment rate, you look at something shorter term but that might or might not be what society needs in 10 years or in 20 years. How do you balance these two because government are interested in five year plan but from education point of view I think educators ought to be interested in 50 years plan. Now there's competition between the two. How do we balance that uh in that fivey year plan such that we can sort of look at the five year objectives also look at the 50 years objectives thank you uh very true u a student take four years to graduate and a few more years to develop okay a fivey year plan might not be education okay John >> thank you I think if you talk about China our country as a as example we talk about 1935 where China is uh envisaged to be a leading country in education. So we are talking about only 10 years actually less than 10 years for as a national targets. So in that way I think uh we need a of course a slightly longer time span in planning. I totally agree with that. But how long we cannot predict especially we have to ask AI experts how AI could progress uh in five years or maybe 10 years. But uh for education I think as far as our university at your Hong Kong is concerned we have a unique role to nurture teachers because we're the largest teacher educating providers uh in Hong Kong. So for education I think it means uh what we have to rethink what does it really means to be an educated person in the 21st century especially under the bed of AI and the better of emerging technologies. So we have in our university developed a comprehensive AI and digital competency strategy and uh we have of course mandatory courses related to AI literacy digital literacy for all first year students. We are also working with colleagues because we we the colleagues also are some upskilling upgrading in AI skills and and teaching skills as well.

[02:16:04]uh we are also working uh with the industries to develop AI related learning chat box uh AI tutors as well as projects with primary and secondary schools. So it implies that is not just teaching with AI but teaching more about AI and also behind AI we all understand there are some limitation about AI especially about the ethical concerns behind using AI. So this is I think as far as an educated person is concerned as far as the rim of education is concerned I think ethics and values is very important. I I think we also need to consider the meaning of of talents.

[02:16:46]When we talk about talents in future it it according to many international uh consultancies it refers to 21st century skills like problem solving skill, interpersonal skill, critical thinking, creativity. Recently there are also some discussion when AI comes to a point of development what sort of area subject areas may be more important. Some AI uh experts maybe entrepreneurs uh say that you know in future maybe languages cultures may be even more important than AI. So it calls upon a reconsideration about the subject matter while we talk about interdicciplinary learning while we we we all uh propose that we need to embrace AI in the general uh education domain. Thank you.

[02:17:37]>> Thank you John.

[02:17:40]>> Thank you again. I think as I mentioned earlier our university have been working on the next five years strategy plan okay which will be finalized by in the coming few months. Okay. So our strate plan align well with the 15 national five years plan. Okay. University contribute uh contributes through the cultivation of talent, the advancement of knowledge and integration of education, science and technology while maintaining a strong commitment to academic integrity and international engagement. I think uh in our university we have very unique system. We have a CSK sen CHK sanzen. So we we have a one brand two campus framework. Okay. So we have a lot of this uh cooperation between the two two campus. I think uh in addition to research I think one reason one is that we have a joint program two plus two program with the CC sun also CHK shenan and the AI and math and the with professor yoing. So this is something like the timely development under our strategic planning. Okay. Thank you.

[02:18:53]>> Thank you.

[02:18:56]>> Yeah. I think now China is obviously the world second largest economy and I think it's unthinkable as a world second largest economy. We don't have the international university. Right. And if China will develop its own international universities, Hong Kong University Hong Kong will be in the first core. So we are have the historical opportunity to make our universities becoming China's international universities. That's obviously is a strategic objectives of HKU and I do believe is also strate objectives of all of our universities.

[02:19:43]So I would emphasize on the internalization will be a very important object uh the in the next five years or even further.

[02:19:55]The second opportunity we do have it we enjoyed uh very uh great flexibility given by the autonomy of management of our university. I think this is a very unique and I think we should grab this uh opportunity and we can design our curriculum freely and we can have our education strategies mechanisms done largely by the university management. So from this point of view and I think the university in Hong Kong should spend uh really play this role well and developing our sort leadership skill. I think this is very important for the nation and many things I think in Hong Kong we can try and we can use the autonomy we have to try the new things right and then use this one to actually align with our international strategies working with everybody in the world actually developing the the new education approach and the new mechanisms as well as the new materials and the new teaching and also new research and use this one to enhance our s leadership position and to be a champagne in our country's development in the science and technology. I think we are not only play the role of hub but also have to play the role of s leader.

[02:21:26]I think this is what I thinking uniqueness of Hong Kong University.

[02:21:31]Thank you professor go.

[02:21:34]Thank you very much professor we and uh I cannot agree more with professor go that in fact we must take this opportunity to enhance ourselves and to be the international universities of China in the next five years the next next five years etc but as far as the China's 15year plan is concerned allow me to focus on uh it plan on health because this is what I know better and And um in fact a lot of what China's 15 five year plan on health is not so much everything on AI and technologies but also indeed on you know what exactly we do in training the next generation of health professionals and that is of course they must knowledgeable they must be able to apply the knowledge but they also must actually work as a team and uh be able to lead. So maybe I will just touch on some of the key points about the health 15 five years plan of China and that is really to achieve what we call healthy China 2035 and in order to achieve that we want to make sure that you know the medicine that we provide our people is affordable. We want to make sure that everyone actually is able to access health service when they need it. So there is a lot of needs actually in the health care system reform and and I think this is where perhaps Hong Kong and can actually help to support that with the experience that we have gained over the years in how to manage hospitals and hospital systems etc. um in in uh and and then learn it together with our Chinese mainland uh counterparts. The other thing is about primary prevention of disease. So we talk about primary health care in Hong Kong in China. We talk about community health that is we must not wait until the patient has developed you know very advanced cancer or very bad coronary artery disease before we act. So all this actually required doctors, nurses and other health care professionals to work with the public as well as the patients. So these are the two main key points that I would like to highlight not exactly related to AI. But then of course in health policies it's very important our we as doctors from the hospital must work with the public health people with the global health people there perhaps the use of the big data will actually help us determine certain health care policies.

[02:24:16]The third thing about China's healthcare sort of 15 five years plan is on how we could accelerate uh innovation and translation of uh health and medicines etc. I have already touched on, you know, the uh importance of uh conducting clinical trials that will link up perhaps the rest of the world uh with the rest of the Chinese mainland. And as the chief executive in his opening highlighted the importance of the Greater Bay Area International Clinical Trial Institute and platform and we are fortunate to be the operator of this institute. So we will try our very best to facilitate that. The last thing that I would like to highlight and that was actually one thing I I I I got from when President Z actually visited us during the um the uh the uh um uh political conference last month and that was most most most important irrespective of what innovations are doing to us besides being able to afford our people medicine and healthcare. It is very important that we train our next generation of doctors and other healthcare professionals in a professional way with humanism with human touches. Thank you very much.

[02:25:37]>> Thank you for allow.

[02:25:40]>> Thank you. So the question is about redefining Hong Kong University's uh unique role. I think uh I would uh look at uh two adjectives. one is we have to uh be unique and also we have to be integrated when we are considering Hong Kong as well as Hong Kong universities because I think uh in the in China in the national uh 15 five-year plan I think the n the nation already has a lot of uh capacities to um to do a lot of things. So how can Hong Kong contribute in a unique way yet in a very integrated uh approach? Uh uh I think it's important and universities in Hong Kong I think uh should also do that. I think uh resonating with uh uh professor G and and Prof and Professor Laos mentioning international universities that um is one area. So I think we have to look into how we can enhance our international uh internationality as well as how we can um do things that we think Hong Kong provides a more u possible platform to do things that will ultimately uh contribute to our nation.

[02:26:53]Um for example I think a lot of our uh leaders have mentioned our unique uh legal system well integrated with overseas our financial markets etc. So how we can um work together. So my other two po my other two points is about action. One is uh work together. How do universities work together? How do uh academia work with other important stakeholders in our society? Um our our uh finantors, our uh legal experts, our healthcare experts for universities in Hong Kong to contribute to um talent development, education and beyond because I think uh universities in Hong Kong are given very unique um opportunity and also responsibility. I think that our general public uh and also our nation uh place high trust on universities in Hong Kong and I think how do we maintain that? How do we leverage that to to do things in a very unique way also working between universities and industries become also very important especially we have a lot of uh AI experts here. I believe that some of the uh leading experts uh in AI and also contributions in AI cannot do without uh industries. So how we work with uh industries where they have maybe top computing power databases that we can harness uh and in at the same time how do we diversify? So working together doesn't mean that we lose our own identity. We have to diversify based on our unique uh strength and attributes.

[02:28:31]So universities mission uh fundamentally is to educate. So how do we come up with new programs in preparation for the uh demands for talents etc. So this is some of uh our thoughts. Thank you.

[02:28:44]>> Thank you. Thank you Edison Ben. Last but not least your thought.

[02:28:48]>> All right. Okay. Thanks Alex. So talking about the uh the 15 five years plan. I'm sure all the universities in Hong Kong fully support Hong Kong to be an international educations and talent hub.

[02:29:00]Uh I see that the northern metropolis uh university town as a key platform to attract, nurture and retain highc caliber talent who can actually serve Hong Kong and the mainland. And um one of the agenda in this um the 15 five years plan is promoting high quality and development of service industry. So I would like to talk about uh the PYU School of Hotel and Tourism Management.

[02:29:31]Um I'm I'm sure some of you heard about this the hotel icon. The hotel icon is located in Jim East. It's only a few minutes walk from Portu main campus. It it is 100% owned by Portu. It is a teaching and research hotel. Uh the reason recently it is also named as a michelang key hotel. So in Hong Kong there's only few Michelangeli hotel and hotel icon is one of these Michelangi hotel and in the uh hotel school they actually provide you know smart tourism including uh artificial intelligence robotics technology innovations and so on. Imagine so um we we have this n of north metrop metropolis uh university town in the town you have universities laboratories lecture theater and so on but more importantly we also need to have a a world-class hotel international hotel and probably you can contribute uh to this for sure uh the hotel that um you know we could we could host um guests from overseas uh organizing conferences and so on. So that part I'm sure Port of you can contribute. On the other hand actually uh Portu already uh you know um put things into practice. We have a practical model that uh talking about um translational research institutes. We have already set up 12 translational institutes in the mainland um such as you know uh WJO Ho Nanjing Jungan uh Wuhan Hur and so on. So we work closely with um the local government and uh the local government basically they provide funding our land and polyu we have our expertise and uh we work together closely with the local government. So this uh we really uh turn in uh our applied research into technologies, products and service.

[02:31:30]Thank you.

[02:31:32]>> Thank you. I we would like to continue this line of discussions but in interest of time. Okay. Uh let's go to the question of floor but I got a very good one. Okay. It said here as society embrace new technologies AI in this case. Okay. How can we ensure that technology continues to serve people rather forcing people to adapt to the new technology in particular for university? How can we preserve the human connection and empathy that matter most in education health care?

[02:32:11]So, and it is not unique to AI. We we faced that before. Okay. and putting education in healthcare. How do we ensure that you know we become you know slave to technology rather than you know have the technology service now this time Ben I'll start with you.

[02:32:27]>> All right. Okay. Thanks Alex. Okay. Now for this I would um say we should leveraging AI with human core. So in other words AI must serve people not the other right. So we're not serving AI but AI serve people. That's important. And um earlier on I mentioned about reported you we already started this education 4.0 initiative by integrating AI into our education um uh also into our curriculum. So uh talking about research uh at Portu we have a team of professors who actually make use of AI. I give you some of the examples such as portable eyes disease um screening. Uh it's a handheld portable um very mobile. You can take it anywhere. uh uh everywhere with you and uh it make use of uh the AI and then it helps to screen the eyes disease screening. The other team actually works on uh a lever fat meter.

[02:33:28]In other words, this handheld meter that could scan your liver and determine the level of fat from the liver. And uh the other example is the 3D ultrasound uh assessment uh system that scan your spine. So some of these are just uh the example and um I also would like to talk about polyu last year we actually uh April April last year we started this uh polyu academy for artificial intelligence so we actually bringing together worldleading AI scholar and also uh tap on the polyu strength in computing data science and engineering uh some of the projects that in this academy they actually focus on the AIdriven medicines projects such as um cancer uh gen AI projects and also AI for infections disease control. So some of this detail you can um find out from uh the polyu website. Okay, thank you Alex.

[02:34:32]>> Thank you Ben Anderson.

[02:34:34]>> Thank you. So I think as uh was mentioned I think with AI we may have better efficiency but I think efficiency must never erode uh empathy and also technology should augment the human touch uh instead of uh distinguishing it. So um uh extinguishing it. So I think at City University of Hong Kong uh we try to embed humanities and social sciences alongside our responsible AI governance to build trust and also prevent isolation. So we have new masters programs such as the MSSE in the artificial intelligence in business uh featuring core courses in AI ethics and regulations training students to assess societal impacts critically and also for inclusiveness we understand that AI is becoming a very important tool in education. So uh we have a program uh which is partnering partnering with uh 10 cent uh on AI uh programming boot camps uh not just serving university students but actually also serving our communities with uh secondary schools or even uh primary schools uh with the code buddy work buddy enabling the participants with no coding background to create solutions um including for elderly uh chronic disease management making technology uh accessible without replacing our educators or um caregivers. Uh we also have initiatives um with our institute of digital medicine, with our college of bio medicine, with our um vet school etc. that try to ensure AI also serves healthy aging and uh and also being outreaching to our community. There are uh community health screening programs.

[02:36:17]Um so we hope that with technologies we have more efficient means to preserve compassion and also uh cultural sensitivities on our uh environmental and climate sides. We side we also have um energy uh saving initiatives uh to help some of the uh more uh underprivileged uh families to save cost in electricities and others. So we hope that uh technologies uh including and especially AI in the coming uh years can be harnessed to enhance our compassion and to increase our human touch and our care for the community.

[02:36:56]>> Thank you Edison. Personal you are the healthc care expert. How you ensure that human connection empathy we preserve in the AI era?

[02:37:05]>> This is very important. In fact, I started off by saying how AI and technological advances could improve health etc. And then I spoke about, you know, health is not all about AI and innovations but also humanity. Perhaps allow me to share with you in the next two and a half minutes or so a study that I recently read from the journal science. I think it was published only last week about you know a group of conservationists their observation of the behavior of a group of chimpanzees over the last 30 years in Uganda and there were 200 odd chimpanzees you know most of their time and then these chimpanzees were friends with one another for a long time until around 2014 or so they started to sort slowly polarized into two groups. One they called the central group, the other the western group and then a few years later the polarization became more obvious in year 2018.

[02:38:13]And then at one year later they observed some of the chimpanzees who were used to be very friendly with each other actually started attacking each other.

[02:38:21]And indeed one of the central group actually got killed and murdered by three of the chimpanzees from the western groups. And they actually analyzed why it happened and then uh discovered that in fact the reason for the first spread in 2014 and 15 was perhaps down to the death of five male adult chimpanzees and one male a female adult chimpanzey. And those six chimpanzees used to actually you know link up the western and the central groups of chimpanzees. they died. So they lost that connection and then in year 2017 there was an respiratory epidemic. So the chimpanzees were actually forced to spread from one another and then ever since then they never became friends again. So I think that interactions with one another is very very important particularly well chimman is a primate our closest relatives as such. So same with human human human interactions is most important. So while we try to innovate health I think it is important that we always must remember that we should also inspire humanity all the time and never forget the human human interactions and working together. And perhaps in the last 10 seconds or so I will um also remind people actually one of the other hypothesis as to why these two groups of chimpanzees started attacking and killing each other was because probably there was a dominant chimpenzee you know from one of the groups and this dominant chimpenzee disregarded you know the rules of the chimpenzee world and started raising war on each other. Thank you very much. That's a fascinating study. It sh light is what's happening in the world right now.

[02:40:27]What's it go? Okay. You're expert in AI.

[02:40:29]So what's the view about human connection and empathy?

[02:40:32]>> Okay. Yeah. We are enter into the human machine symbiotic world symbiotic society and I think I agree with you entirely the communication right but this communication not be just human human machine that's actually very complicated. Now I one of the important uh focus in AI research and also in the humanity work is really try to make a machine understand people and people understand machine that's first step otherwise there's no connection compute on the machine understand people side there's a lot of work AI people doing we call for example value alignment and in fact in Hong Kong when we build our Hong models, Hong Kong systems, this value alignment is critically important because Hong Kong run a various special uh social systems, one country to system. So we have to make this our models reflect this. So therefore you have to make the machine understand the society, understand social values specific to Hong Kong. So this is actually very interesting and very important research along this line.

[02:41:46]There's a lot of work now on how machine understand human but on the other hand there are other things that called human have understand machine people called AI literacy right I think all our university doing this hard work now but also we have a responsibility to to actually enhance the AI literacy in society right that is a very important work and we come to educ right you know we are now focused on building our third medical school and medical school will be very much uh with AI as a foundation technology but that time we really have to understand right how to actually have the AI systems in such an environment with a strongly human so we we set up this kind of institute of health innovation one very important part is empathy right and how we actually not only educate the machine but also have to make human aware right how in have the machine aim with intelligence uh in our environment and how to work with them together so and a lot of our work now in education for our students on common core of AI it's not just about technology is really about how human can understand the machine that piece I think we have to be pay great attention so for example how you understand the contents generated Why the machine is actually you can carefully examine assess it what's the truth and how you evaluate it that's all about human understanding machine but I think this AI literacy is a very important subject now for this society >> thank you your thought >> yeah I think I just share my personal experience I think I I'm a plant cell biologist what we are lot image okay we do a about this uh so-cal electron tomography. We had using transmission electron microscope collect many many section of the image. One way we we later we need to draw the model. We used to do it by hand drawing. The student may take a overnight to draw one model.

[02:44:06]Okay. Recently I have a a very good final year project student. He he has been using the AI so-called using a dragon fry software powerful computer and then he can finish the model maybe in uh maybe one or two hours compared to you know the you the old freshman may take several weeks. Okay. And what one day he come up with me I I want to buy a the dragonfly with a computer. I say how much would it cost? It's a half million for a final year project. I said go ahead to do it and then later on they find out search more we may need to upgrade the software the computer and come back with 1.3 million Hong Kong dollars you know that in in Hong Kong system the RGC grant wouldn't allow you to use the grant to buy computer right so there's a way I think but eventually we submit a academic grant matching funding so our university have a matching scheme one to one so we try to come up with the funing to support timely for the undergraduate student the the search. I think this really something for me I think for the AI development we need all the support support from the university from the government but down to the bottom is really for the student they really have a a project driven might be a purpose driven research project they need something that need to be taken care by the supervisor or by the university in a timely also fashion this this something I think would be for something for some about in that daily you know the research working with the student. Thank you.

[02:45:49]>> Thank you. Well John how you ensure human connection >> still thinking about the the deep meaning uh the sharing about chances uh from the professor la sharing is very insightful. So if I understand correctly and according to my personal extrapolation we have to think really a few implications arising from the chances scenario number one whether at the at the end of the day when we come across AI some countries some institution will have access to a lot of resources manpower it will lead to inequality definitely and it will lead to unequal access.

[02:46:36]So until a point where the caution within our system I mean the metro system how we can uh ensure that there's a better access and equality as well as development for AI capability and literacy. Point number one.

[02:46:56]Point number two, the original question is asking whether we can force we can really we cannot really force people to learn about AI but people have to understand the importance of AI as a tool probably not as a weapon.

[02:47:15]So I think this uh again uh implies that the co creation of AI solutions that needs to take in account the ethical aspect the cultural sensitive aspect and also truly inclusive because according to my reading of some of the recent literature they start to ask philosophers they start to ask human humanist experts historian experts to work with computer scientists to develop of algorithm calculations to ensure the the AI solutions we will broadly accommodating to different countries and accom accommodating to different groups of human communities. So I believe this is another direction that uh we should consider. So we the third point is about the balance and at Hong Kong I we require very importantly the message that all student need to take courses in national security education lead legal education especially including traditional cultural education. I think the balance of learning under the AI era is equally important. Thank you.

[02:48:30]>> Thank you John.

[02:48:35]Thank you. I think this a great question I like very much and I have to ensure technology continues to serve people. I have a very simple answer and a very biased answer. We need more and a better liberal arts education. Uh I think uh it's biased because Lena University has always been very proud of providing a liberal arts education at the university level.

[02:49:00]Well, the reason is that liberal arts education enter personal development always put people at the center of education.

[02:49:11]Okay. And then so in research and then we have AI research personally I'm a machine learner uh we always advocate human centric trustworthy AI that's one of the research things out of uh Lingai University. So within this team we have a group of social scientists, we have a group of philosophers, uh we have a group of computer scientists of course and then we have a group of uh so more applied engineers.

[02:49:39]uh and then liberal arts education emphasize uh you read, write, think critically and broadly and that words broadly is very important because uh I mentioned the very beginning issues like uh health and education especially education now is not limited to universities or schools.

[02:50:02]It's a societal issue. We cannot separate education from the society.

[02:50:09]With the emergence of AI, we have to think not only it can make our education as we used to do more efficiently, whether it might change the way we think and behave. I think that level of thinking is very important out of universities.

[02:50:29]I think that's a university role and that's where liberal arts education comes into it because the last element of liberal arts education is to focus on societal challenges.

[02:50:42]I know for technologists like myself I would like to take the idea and run with it. But a liberal arts education my college tell me please consider society implications before you run with it. I think This is a role our univers university education should provide not only internal research in our degree education as well. And then if you look at the programs coming out of lingai university at the undergraduate and the post-graduate it's all multidisiplinary cutting across arts social science and technology.

[02:51:22]>> Thank you very well put. I I know um we ex on stage now sitting between uh lunch. Okay. Uh so but it's not fair not to allow each of you a closing remarks.

[02:51:37]So I take a liberty to control your closing remark. No, don't let the clock.

[02:51:41]Okay. Down to 30 second. Try to do that.

[02:51:44]Okay. Uh Ben, let's start with you.

[02:51:47]>> All right. Okay. 30 seconds. I would like to conclude by saying the the motto of PYU. The motto of poly is to learn and to apply for the benefit of mankind.

[02:51:56]Similarly, AI, we learn about AI, we apply AI, but the end of the day is for the benefit of mankind. Thank you.

[02:52:07]So uh by 2035 I hope that uh City University of Hong Kong would be remembered for pioneering ethical human- centered AI solutions that advance healthy aging intelligent lifelong education and nationals science and technology self-reliance while strengthening Hong Kong's innovation and technology hub. And we also look forward to collaborating with our fellow universities to ensure that this new horizon new renaissance that we're talking about truly serve people.

[02:52:38]Thank you.

[02:52:38]>> Thank you Anderson.

[02:52:41]>> Thank you. I was at the high table dinner last night and the students asked me how my life has been and I told them that uh it has been tough because uh things are happening so fast and there's so many advances around us and there's so many things that naturally passing me by and I don't know which you know and what I could grab etc and then I told them that actually I've only got two hands there are many opportunities all I can do each time is I will pick couple of opportunities but if we can all work together, lined up together with multiple hands, we will grab all of the opportunities that actually fly past us and we could share them together. Thank you very much.

[02:53:21]>> Well put I think as a university leaders, we're in the most exciting time. It's not just about AI technology. It's also about Hong Kong's historical role to play to build a international education hub for the country. So I do think we should work together to actually make Hong Kong high education to be a flagship of the nation. Thank you John.

[02:53:51]>> Okay. As a plant biologist, I don't know much about AI but I think I need to learn more. Okay. So as many of us I think we need to be educated and learn more and then try to use them. Thank you.

[02:54:04]>> Thank you John.

[02:54:08]>> As university leaders and colleagues I hope that we could nurture professional teachers who who could cultivate the hands the hearts and also the minds with tomorrow researchers entrepreneurs and leaders with well-being and also positive values in mind. Thank you.

[02:54:25]Thank you.

[02:54:29]>> I I have one uh very simple wish is uh there's more integration between university and the schools and there's more integration between university and societies. I I always believe education is a societal issue and that university is there to take the lead but when we leave this education effort we should not forget the society at the large.

[02:54:51]>> Thank you.

[02:54:53]I really I agree with Anderson. I really like the theme of this uh discussion. is awareness and I hear from you know our leaders here uh uh many of you have mentioned about collaboration uh we have you know uh UGC university you know work together on issue like sustainability different areas okay I I think it's high time that we in education AI and education we are all doing something okay I think at least we share to each other set a committee you know have the relevant uh colleagues involved share what we've been doing in AI in education and healthcare. Okay. And therefore, you know, able to as a group work together rather than, you know, become part of chimpanzeee problems.

[02:55:39]Okay. I would like to thank all our academic leaders here in Hong Kong.

[02:55:43]Okay. And uh welcome for your thought and um and welcome for all of you you know uh uh you know spending time listen to us. Thank you. And uh the sessions are drawn.

[02:55:53]>> Thank you all the presidents. would you please step forward and pose for a group photo? Thank you so much. Thank you to all the presidents for your brilliant ideas and candid sharing. Thank you.

[02:56:07]Would you please step a little bit closer and let's take a group photo at this memorable moment. Thank you so much. All right. Please face our official photographer in the front.

[02:56:19]Closer, please.

[02:56:22]Are you ready?

[02:56:24]Three, two, one.

[02:56:29]Would you please remain on stage? May I also invite Professor Nancy Yib to join us on stage as well as Professor Shing Chong Yao to join this group photo.

[02:56:41]Let's put our hands together to welcome Professor Nancy Y and Professor Shing Chong Yao.

[02:56:50]This collision of thoughts has painted a beautiful blueprint for the intelligent future of education and health.

[02:57:02]Please show us your brightest smile.

[02:57:04]Ready? Three, two, one.

[02:57:11]Perfect. Thank you so much.

[02:57:15]You may now return to your seats. Thank you.

[02:57:19]Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our morning agenda. It is now time for lunch. Our ushers will be on hands to guide our invited guests to the designated dining areas. For all other attendees, you are welcome to take a break at your convenience. Our afternoon sessions will begin promptly at 1:30.

[02:57:44]Please return to the venue on time. May we also kindly invite our VIP guests to note that the seating arrangement for the afternoon session will be adjusted.

[02:57:55]Please refer to the seating plan displayed outside the boardroom before re-entering the venue after lunch. Thank you so much. We will see you at 130 p.m.

[02:58:07]for the afternoon session. Thank you.