Donor
Sau Ching Charity Foundation
The Cheng Yik Hung Endowed Professorship in Fashion was established with a donation from the Sau Ching Charity Foundation Limited in memory of the late entrepreneur Mr Cheng Yik Hung.
Dr Christopher Cheng, the second son of the late Mr Cheng, has been a staunch supporter of higher education and research. Dr Cheng and his wife, Mrs Ivy Cheng Chan Sau-ching, set up the Foundation in 2009.
The late Mr Cheng was an exemplar of a dedicated entrepreneur who created a vast business empire with vision and boldness. He was the Permanent Honorary President of the Chiu Yang Residents’ Association of Hong Kong and Honorary President of The Federation of Hong Kong Garment Manufacturers. A native of Chiu Yang, Guangdong, he launched his jeans manufacturing business in Hong Kong in 1955, and soon established himself as a leader in the textile and clothing industry. In 1963, he founded the Wing Tai Garment Manufactory Limited in Singapore, and with the support of his family, it grew to be the largest garment manufacturer in the city in the 1970s and 1980s. It also evolved into a conglomerate of diverse businesses covering property development, investment and retail/ lifestyle shops and services.
Dr Christopher Cheng is now Chairman of Wing Tai Properties Limited. In addition to public services, he is also actively involved in the promotion of charity and higher education in Hong Kong and abroad, serving on the committees and boards of renowned institutions such as the Yale University and the Columbia Business School. His wife, Mrs Ivy Cheng Chan Sau-ching, is a senior partner at the law firm Woo Kwan Lee & Lo.
Appointee
Professor Calvin W. K. Wong
Professor Calvin W. K. Wong's areas of research range from computer vision to artificial intelligence with applications in the textile and fashion industries, Professor Wong’s main research focus is on image feature extraction, pattern recognition and deep learning for automatically detecting the fashion and textile material defects, and enhancing the searching accuracy of fashion and textile material and merchandise images in big data environment.
Professor Wong has published over 100 research articles in Science Citation Index journals in which most of them are world-leading and high-impact top-tier journals, including IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems (NNLS), IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics, IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, and so forth. Essential Science Indicators has ranked his research publications in IEEE Transactions on NNLS among the top 1% of the most cited articles. Professor Wong has authored and edited three books on the integration of computer vision and artificial intelligence techniques with the fashion industry, including the first-two-ever on the topics of Applications of Computer Vision in Fashion and Textiles and Optimising Decision Making in the Apparel Supply Chain Using Artificial Intelligence: From Production to Retailing. Currently he is also Associate Editor of Neurocomputing.
To operationalise the fundamental research outputs for practical use in fashion industry, Professor Wong has been collaborating with various local and international fashion companies in his research projects. The applied research deliverables have not only garnered a host of international and regional awards, but have also been patented and successfully commercialised for practical use. In addition, he demonstrates unfailing commitment to the provision of an enhanced interactive and supportive learning environment. His excellence in teaching earned him both the prestigious President’s Award for Excellent Performance/Achievement, and Faculty/School Award for Outstanding Performance/Achievement in 2012/13.
The Endowed Professorship will enable Professor Wong to further strengthen his research in computer vision and artificial intelligence with applications in fashion and textiles that will be conducive to the technological advances for the industry.
