CityU's Data Science Day 2021 – Spearheading Data Science and AI Developments in All Fronts

13 Aug 2021

The CityU’s Data Science Day 2021 was co-organized by the School of Data Science (SDSC) and the Hong Kong Institute for Data Science (HKIDS). The day commenced with CityU President and University Distinguished Professor, also a faculty member at the SDSC, Professor Way KUO’s opening address. It was then followed by an overview on SDSC and HKIDs’ development progresses delivered by Professor S. Joe QIN, Dean and Chair Professor of SDSC, and Director of HKIDS.

CityU’s Data Science Day was held on 10 August 2021. The occasion marked the 3rd anniversary of SDSC and HKIDS.

The event commenced with President Way KUO’s opening address.

Professor Wen GAO, a world-renowned scholar in the areas of AI, multimedia and computer vision, delivered a keynote speech on “Peng Cheng Cloud Brain Open Source Ecosystem” virtually. Professor GAO is an Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, Director of Peng Cheng Laboratory (PCL), Shenzhen, China, Boya Chair Professor, and Dean at the School of Electronics Engineering and Computer Science at Peking University. PCL, being the first independent E-level artificial intelligence supercomputing platform in China, is an open source with ultra-high computing density, super large-scale computing power and ultra-fast training speed.

Professor Michael YANG, Vice President (Research and Technology) of CityU, then gave a thorough introduction on “HK Tech 300 Venture” – the flagship innovation and entrepreneurship programme launched by CityU in March 2021. It was followed by one of the highlights of the day – panel discussions with members comprising scholars across CityU, including Professor Michael TSE, Associate Vice President of Strategic Research; Professor Tei Wei KUO, Dean of College of Engineering; Professor Richard ALLEN, Dean of School of Creative Media, as well as Professor Houmin YAN, Director of Laboratory for AI-Powered Financial Technologies Limited. They discussed ‘Accelerating AI and Data Science Impact Catalyzed by the HK Tech 300 Initiative’, where Professor QIN moderated.

Another highlight of the day in the afternoon included a total of six technical presentations to showcase HKIDS’s cutting-edge research progress. This session was chaired by Professor Dingxuan ZHOU, Associate Dean and Chair Professor of SDSC, and co-chair Professor Minghua CHEN, Professor of SDSC and Assistant Director of HKIDS, with presenters including Professor Jonathan ZHU, Chair Professor of Department of Media and Communication and SDSC; Professor Hong YAN, Chair Professor of Department of Electrical Engineering; Dr. Yuner ZHU, Post-doctoral Fellow, Centre for Public Affairs and Law/Department of Public Policy; Dr. Ka Chun WONG, Associate Professor of Department of Computer Science; Dr. Yanni SUN, Associate Professor of Department of Electrical Engineering, and Dr. John LEE, Associate Professor of Department of Linguistics and Translation.

The day concluded with “Sharing by PhD students” – a new initiative to engage 12 PhD students from the School to do lightning talks chaired by Professor Junhui WANG. It provided an interactive learning platform for our PhD students to showcase their research works and projects. The Data Science Day also celebrated the occasion of SDSC’s and HKIDS’s third anniversary.

World-renowned scholar and entrepreneur Professor Wen GAO delivered a Keynote Speech via an online platform.

Professor Michael YANG, Vice President (Research and Technology) of CityU, introduced “HK Tech 300”.

A panel discussion on “Accelerating AI and Data Science Impact Catalyzed by the HK Tech 300 Initiative” presided by CityU scholars and moderated by Prof QIN was held in the late morning.

Technical presentations to showcase HKIDS’s cutting-edge research capabilities were chaired by Professor Dingxuan ZHOU and co-chair Professor Minghua CHEN

Chaired by Professor Junhui WANG, the “Sharing by PhD students” provided an interactive learning platform for our fellow students to showcase their research works and projects.

Prof S. Joe QIN, Dean and Chair Professor of SDSC; and Director of HKIDS, thanked the audience for their dedicated support for CityU’s 2nd Data Science Day in his closing remarks.