News

COMP 45th Anniversary Distinguished Lecture Series

COMP launched the Distinguished Lecture Series in celebration of its 45th anniversary and the second lecture “Big Social Media Data and Its Challenges for Machine Learning” by Prof. Huan Liu, Professor from Arizona State University, was held on 17 April at PolyU with a full house participation. Attendees were impressed by Prof. Liu’s analytical insight and pioneering thinking. He examined some critical issues related to big social media data such as how to make `big’ data bigger, how to protect a user’s privacy without the loss of service utility, and how to evaluate machine learned results without ground truth and at scale. Throughout 2019, we will invite renowned scholars and researchers to deliver Distinguished Lectures on a wide range of hot IT topics, including AI, Big Data, Social Media, Machine Learning and Cloud Computing.

Computer App Programming (CAP) Competition 2019

COMP and the Hong Kong Association for Computer Education (HKACE) jointly organise the sixth edition of ”Computer App Programming (CAP) Competition” in 2019. To foster creativity and further promote STEM education, the competition is divided into “CAP Test” and “CAP Day” this year. On 10 April, “CAP Test” was held at PolyU which attracted 430 secondary school students to enroll. Dr Henry Chan, Associate Professor & Associate Head of COMP, delivered the welcome remarks and shared his view on learning with the students. The “CAP Test” included multiple-choice and short questions about probability, number system, linear programming, logical and IQ reasoning in order to assess students’ computational knowledge, logical thinking and problem solving skills. The top three students will be awarded with Champion, First Runner-up and Second Runner-up.

Virtual Reality Competition for Green Deck

We are pleased to announce that our students received the Second Runner-up Award and the Commendation Award with their projects “Promoting Horticulture in Green Deck” and “Wine Festival” respectively at the prize presentation ceremony of the “Virtual Reality Competition for Green Deck” on 3 April at i-Space@PolyU Library. Prof. Qin Lu, Professor of COMP, was invited as one of the judges while Dr Walter Fung, Teaching Fellow of COMP, provided guidance to students on project design. The judging criteria included innovativeness, graphic design, use of “FlexSim” features and presentation skills. The competition aimed to enhance the awareness and engagement of the Green Deck proposal among PolyU students by using cutting-edge technology to design scenarios for the proposed Green Deck. It was organised by PolyU’s Alumni Affairs and Development Office, Campus Development Office, Communications and Public Affairs Office, Department of Computing, and Pao Yue-kong Library. Award Project Title Awardee Department Second Runner-up Award Promoting Horticulture in Green Deck IP Ka Yan Lorelei SN LUO Yanwen Yami COMP MAK Sze Long Richard EIE Commendation Award Wine Festival CHAN Yuet Hang Noel COMP CHAN Yuet Yu Cherry COMP LAI Hiu Long Alex COMP        

COMP 45th Anniversary Distinguished Lecture Series

COMP launched the “Distinguished Lecture Series” in celebration of its 45th anniversary and the first lecture “AI at Dawn - opportunities and challenges” by Prof. Dacheng Tao, Professor of Computer Science at The University of Sydney, was held on 11 March at PolyU with a full house participation. Prof. Tao reviewed the recent progress on Artificial Intelligence (AI) by introducing some representative advancements from algorithms to applications, and illustrated the stairs for its realization from perceiving to learning, reasoning and behaving. He also brought some examples of AI challenges and share his insights and perspectives with the attendees. To read the poster of the seminar, please click here. Throughout 2019, we will invite renowned scholars and researchers to deliver Distinguished Lectures on a wide range of hot IT topics, including AI, Big Data, Social Media, Machine Learning and Cloud Computing.

Research Grants Council Collaborative Research Fund Project Kick-off Ceremony

Today the Department of Computing (COMP) hosted the Collaborative Research Fund (CRF) Project Kick-off Ceremony at PolyU for the project “Multi-sourced Event Detection and Multi-dimensional Analysis based on Event Cube”. Coordinated by Prof. Qing Li, Chair Professor of Data Science and Head of COMP, the project was granted over HK$5.3 million from the Research Grants Council in 2018/19. At the ceremony, under the witness of our Officiating Guest, Prof. Guohua Chen, Associate Vice President (Research Support) of PolyU, Prof. Li signed a collaborative agreement with the Co-Principal Investigators: Prof. Lei Chen from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; Prof. Ho-fung Leung from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Dr Nancy Yu from the Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences, City University of Hong Kong; and Dr Hong-va Leong, Associate Professor and Associate Head of COMP. Social media plays a vital role in affecting public opinions and policy making, and topics like event detection and mining, public sentiment analysis, etc., become increasingly hot in social science and financial research. Targeting at youngsters suicide detection, this CRF project aims to provide insight on event detection and prediction underlying the Big Data. The project team proposes to develop techniques for untargeted event detection (UED) and targeted event detection (TED) from multi-sourced data, and build event cube models to support various event queries and analysis thereon.

Faculty of Engineering Awards Presentation Ceremony 2017/18

Congratulations to four COMP academic staff on receiving Faculty of Engineering (FENG) Awards 2017/18 in recognition of their excellent performance and achievements in research and scholarly activities. Prof. H.C. Man, Dean of FENG, officiated the Spring Reception cum Faculty Awards Presentation Ceremony on 22 February. Dr Miranda Lou, Executive Vice President, and Prof. Alex Wai, Vice President (Research Development), presented certificates to the awardees. Faculty members and industry guests were also invited to share the joy together.   Awardee Award Prof. CAO Jiannong, Chair Professor Research Grant Achievement Award 2017 Dr KUMAR Ajay, Associate Professor Faculty Outstanding Award in Research and Scholarly Activities (Individual) 2017/18 Dr YIU Ken, Associate Professor Research Grant Achievement Award 2017 Prof. ZHANG Lei, Chair Professor Research Grant Achievement Award 2017

PolyU Long Service Award 2018

PolyU Long Service Award scheme has been introduced since 1990 to foster a sense of belonging among PolyU staff members. This year, we are glad to announce that seven COMP staff members were honoured for their dedicated services to the University over the years. On 22 February, Prof. Philip Chan, Interim President of PolyU, officiated the award presentation ceremony at Jockey Club Auditorium by expressing his gratitude to all long-serving staff who contribute significantly to the University. Awardee Position Dr CHAN Henry Associate Professor and Associate Head Mr CHEE Anthony Technical Officer Mr CHIU Ting Shing Assistant Technical Officer Mr LEUNG Frankie Technical Officer Prof. LU Qin Professor Dr XIAO Bin Associate Professor Prof. YOU Jane Professor and Associate Head

Outstanding Student Awards Presentation Ceremony 2018

Congratulations to Miss Ying Jiao, our final year student of BSc (Hons) in Computing, on receiving the “Outstanding Student Award of Department” for her excellent academic performance, active involvement in extra-curricular activities and good personal qualities. The Outstanding Students Award Scheme is one of the most prestigious award schemes in PolyU which is set up to recognise high achievers. Prof. Philip Chan, Interim President of PolyU, officiated the awards presentation ceremony today and presented the Certificate of Award to the top undergraduate students who excel in both academic and non-academic pursuits. Miss Jiao has not only maintained a decent academic profile but also participated in co-curricular activities enthusiastically and provided volunteer services to PolyU over the past years. Her leadership ability can be demonstrated by organising events for Chinese Mainland Students’ Association and leading the project group in a Service-Learning subject. Miss Jiao is planning to pursue further study after graduation and aims at making contributions to facilitate mankind’s life by exploring new IT technologies in her future career.

Global Game Jam 2019

Organised by Cyberport, COMP and School of Design of PolyU, the fourth Global Game Jam (GGJ) Hong Kong was successfully held at Cyberport from 25 to 27 January, attracting over 400 students and professional game designers to create 73 games under the global theme of “What Home Means to You”. This year, over 47,000 jammers from 860 jam sites located in 113 countries participated. In the time span of 48 hours, participants formed teams and completed full game development cycle from ideation to testing, including game design, programming, sound design, and user interface configuration. The best teams in nine different categories were awarded. The GGJ is the world's largest game jam event taking place around the globe at physical locations, providing a creative platform for talented individuals to contribute to game development. It encourages participants to foster new friendship, increases their confidence and boosts opportunities within the community.

Masters of Abstraction - Laureates of Mathematics and Computer Science

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