News and Kudos

CBS Assistant Professor wins the PolyU Young Innovative Researcher Award (YIRA) 2022

CBS Assistant Professor Dr. CHEN Si has been awarded the PolyU Young Innovative Researcher Award (YIRA) 2022, with her research focus on “Robot-assisted training for children with autism spectrum disorder”. Multilingual and multimodal robot-assisted training programs have been developed to improve the use of speech prosody and cross-domain emotion recognition of autistic children in Hong Kong. The PolyU Young Innovative Researcher Award (YIRA) is a university-wide award to honour young PolyU researchers under the age of 35 who have demonstrated novelty, contributed to technology advancement, and propelled transformational innovation into solutions for addressing problems in society with a vision for a positive change to the future. Among 59 submissions across 22 departments covering all faculties and schools, Dr. Chen has been selected as one of the six YIRA awardees and received research funding support of HK$500,000 and a personal cash prize of HK$20,000. We are very proud of Dr. Chen’s achievement which is in line with the University’s commitment to research excellence and innovation. Congratulations!

CBS Minor in Korean student wins the 1st place in the Korean Speech Contest in Hong Kong

Ms. LEE Nok Sze Eunice, a CBS Minor in Korean student has won the champion prize in the 6th Korean Consul General Cup Korean Speech Contest. The prestigious contest is hosted annually by the Consulate General of the Republic of Korea and the Korean Cultural Center in Hong Kong. The prizewinner is nominated to represent Hong Kong in the speech contest organized by the King Sejong Institute Foundation to be held in Korea this October. Congratulations! Details of the competition: https://hk.korean-culture.org/en/1073/board/745/read/115889

CBS undergraduate students excel in national translation competition

Congratulations to our undergraduate students MA Jianfei (BALT Year 1 student) and LIN Meishan (BACBS Year 3 student) for winning the first-class awards in the China Young Translators’ Contest (B Category). Organized by China Translation Corporation, the biggest state-level enterprise of language services in China, the competition has attracted over 10,000 participants, including students of over 1,600 local and overseas schools, language professionals and amateur translators. Competing with other language undergraduate students, it is remarkable that our students are capable to make themselves the top 5% of the participants. Well done!   Details of the competition: https://www.saikr.com/vse/Translation Online coverage: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7103531054967144963/

CBS Associate Professor’s project on neurolinguistics funded by China’s Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST)

CBS Associate Professor Dr. ZHANG Caicai’s project has been awarded the prestigious fund by China’s Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), under the Young Scientist category of the National Major Project on Brain Science. The funded project is entitled “Neurocognitive markers for typical language development and language disorders in children: A longitudinal study based on long-term memory, sleep and brain development”. The MOST’s National Major Project on Brain Science involves 59 research areas and directions with overall funding beyond 31 billion. Among all successful proposals, Dr. Zhang’s project is the only one in Hong Kong funded in the area of brain and cognition mechanisms under the Young Scientist category. We are very proud of Dr. Zhang’s achievement in pioneering a new source of funding for research in the area of language, cognition, and neuroscience. Congratulations!

CBS Research Assistant Professor’s project selected as Champion Project of the World Summit on the Information Society Prizes 2022

On top of the nomination for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Prizes 2022, the project on COVID-19 vaccine opinion analysis conducted by CBS Research Assistant Professor Dr. CHERSONI Emmanuele and his team has been selected as one of the 5 champion projects under the E-science category. 90 champion projects from 18 categories will compete in the final phase of the contest. 18 winning projects will be announced at the WSIS Forum 2022 in Geneva from 30 May to 3 June. The WSIS Forum is the world's largest annual gathering of the 'ICT for development' community, co-organized by International Telecommunication Union (ITU), The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Congratulations and we wish the team the best of luck!   Details of WSIS Prizes 2022: https://www.itu.int/net4/wsis/stocktaking/Prizes/2022/ Details of the WSIS Forum 2022:  https://www.itu.int/net4/wsis/forum/2022/en Project website: http://ailab.uniud.it/covid-vaccines/

Multilingual Communication Course and Cross-cultural Communication Training for Future Leaders

Hosted by the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies (CBS), the second Gifted Education Fund (GEF) programme entitled “Multilingual Communication Training and Cross-Cultural Communication Course for Future Leaders” is now open for application. To unleash the potential of gifted students, CBS offers the GEF programme to secondary students with funding from the Gifted Education Fund of Education Bureau and support from the Department of English and Communication (ENGL), The HK PolyU-PKU Research Centre on Chinese Linguistics (RP2U2), The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK), the Centre for Translation Studies (CTS),  the Research Centre for Professional Communication in English (RCPCE), and the International Research Centre for the Advancement of Healthcare Communication (IRCAHC). The 11-month course aims to help students to better understand the different cultures and languages that weave the fabrics of Hong Kong, the nation, and the world. It offers a golden opportunity for talented secondary students to equip themselves with knowledge and skills in areas of languages sciences, and strengthen their ability in communications and cross-cultural exchanges. Students will also develop positive values and attitudes that are useful for personal growth and becoming future leaders one day. This programme is free of charge and 30 students will be selected to participate in this programme, which is tentatively scheduled from June 2022 to April 2023. Schools, parents and guardians are cordially invited to nominate Secondary 1 to Secondary 5 students to apply for this programme. Please complete the application form and send it by post on or before 27 May 2022 (Friday) to the following address: EF406 Chan Sui Wai Building The Hong Kong Polytechnic University 11 Yuk Choi Road, Hung Hom, Kowloon (Attn: Ms Karen HO) Please also send a soft copy of the application form to Miss Karen Ho at gef202112@gmail.com. For the application form and programme details, please refer to the Education Bureau’s website and the programme outline. Should you have any enquiries, please contact Miss Karen Ho via email at gef202112@gmail.com.  

CBS Research Assistant Professor’s project nominated for the World Summit on the Information Society Prizes 2022

Conducted by CBS Research Assistant Professor Dr. CHERSONI Emmanuele, PhD graduate Dr. Enrico SANTUS and the team of the University of Udine in Italy, a project on using Natural Language Processing technologies for monitoring and analysing COVID-19 vaccine opinions on Twitter has been nominated for the "E-science" category of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Prizes 2022. Directly sponsored by the United Nations, the WSIS Prizes 2022 is a global event that recognises WSIS stakeholders by identifying and showcasing their successful and impactful ICT-related implementation of the WSIS Action Lines and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Out of a thousand submitted proposals, the team’s work was selected together with other 19 outstanding projects that promote beneficial ICT applications in the field of E-science. Congratulations!   Details of WSIS Prizes 2022: https://www.itu.int/net4/wsis/stocktaking/Prizes/2022/ Project website: http://ailab.uniud.it/covid-vaccines/

Outstanding Alumni Award of PolyU CBS 2022 - Result Announcement

The Outstanding Alumni Award of PolyU CBS aims to give public recognition to outstanding CBS graduates for their professional achievements and significant contributions to the community and their alma mater. We are delighted to announce the following result of the CBS Outstanding Alumni Award 2022:   Dr. Enrico SANTUS Outstanding Young Alumni Award in Professional Achievement of PolyU CBS 2022   Ms. Zelia WONG Outstanding Young Alumni Award in Community Service Achievement of PolyU CBS 2022     Read more about the stories of our awardees:     Dr. Enrico SANTUS Doctor of Philosophy, The Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, 2017 Currently the Director (AI and ML) at Bayer, Dr. Santus is being honoured for his remarkable professional achievement in the domains of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP). He was granted the Hong Kong PhD fellowship to pursue a PhD in Computational Linguistics at PolyU and followed by three years of postdoctoral fellowships at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) and the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dr. Santus has been dedicated to the research and application of AI for various purposes including sentiment analysis, fintech, healthcare, fake news detection and deciphering lost languages. In his current workplace, he has contributed to the exploration, design and implementation of numerous AI solutions for pharmaceutical and crop sciences. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, he has supported numerous efforts against the virus and toward a more sustainable, effective and personalized healthcare system. Being recognized as a young and innovative expert in the field, Dr. Santus is indeed a successful interdisciplinary talent with a strong presence in both academia and the industry. He is an active NLP champion who published over 69 papers in top-tier conferences and journals and received numerous grants and awards. He advises several laboratories, foundations and start-ups and his projects have been featured in mainstream media around the world. He was the first author of a fact sheet about AI for the American Congress, while he was also invited to speak at the White House Office of Records Management in 2019.      Ms. Zelia WONG BA (Hons) Language Studies for the Professions, 2008 Ms. Wong is an award-winning professional emcee with a heart to serve the community. During her studies at CBS, she volunteered to teach Chinese to ethnic minority students and since graduation, she has devoted a great deal of time and effort in leveraging her expertise to benefit the underprivileged community and create positive impacts on society. Ms. Wong has served as the key player in several charitable organizations, and her sterling contributions include hosting fundraising events that helped students in rural areas of Mainland China; initiating the largest sign language lesson that set a new Guinness World Record to promote social inclusion; and volunteering in the training courses for local non-profit organizations such as Border District, Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups and Reading Dreams Foundation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ms. Wong has been actively engaged in supporting different walks of life in Hong Kong. To support the beauty industry in overcoming the financial downturn, she hosted over 20 online talks to promote the pandemic relief measures and organised online training courses that benefited more than 200 businesses. Meanwhile, she has also provided free online courses for children from low-income families. As a successful practitioner in the industry, Ms. Wong is also keen on giving back to her alma mater. She was the emcee of the previous PolyU alumni award ceremony and several departmental homecoming dinners, while she has also offered guest lectures for CBS classes and served as a mentor for CBS Mentorship Programme since 2019.     Congratulations to the two outstanding CBS alumni who are accomplished in their respective fields and draw positive attention to their alma mater. We would also like to thank the panel of judges for their commitment to the selection process.

CBS-trained student’s paper selected for an international academic forum

Miss Tin Yan MOK, a secondary school student participant of the PolyU Junior Research Mentoring Programme trained by CBS team, has been selected for a poster presentation at the 35th Annual Conference on Human Sentence Processing with the team’s work on the topic of Language and Dementia in Ageing. As the team representative, Miss Mok will present their linguistic research among many top-ranked and top-reviewed selected papers. A big round of applause to the high-achieving student, as well as the CBS mentors Professor Wang Shiyuan and PhD student Ms Hui Nga Yan who provided kind guidance and support to make it happen. We will continue putting effort into knowledge transfer and talent development activities with an aim to educate and empower young people.

CBS Professors win the President’s Awards for Outstanding Achievement 2021

Congratulations to our Prof. CHAN Shui Duen and Prof. ZHU Xinhua, who were awarded the Team Award - Knowledge Transfer: Society under PolyU President’s Awards 2021 in recognition of their remarkable leadership and commitments to the research and service projects that benefit non-Chinese speaking students and learners of the Chinese language in Hong Kong. The President’s Awards for Outstanding Achievement 2021 is a university-wide award to recognise the distinguished accomplishments and contributions of PolyU staff members.