Media

HKU weekly notice

20 Oct 2017

 

“NO PLAY NO GAIN” Kindergarten Social Emotional Learning Project press conference
The “NO PLAY NO GAIN” project puts a focus on deploying parents as volunteers to partner with teachers in designing and conducting interactive group games for children at their kindergartens. Based on the concept of “play with rules, work with rules” the approach strengthens the collaboration capabilities of children and adults through social interaction. 

The project is sponsored by the Quality Education Fund and organised and managed by the Centre for Advancement in Inclusive and Special Education (CAISE) in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). Dr Sylvia Liu, an education consultant and the co-investigator of the project, has studied the use of interactive group games to develop children’s social competence since 2003. She and Dr Yuen Man Tak, the principal investigator of the project, will share the research findings in the press conference.

Press conference details are as follows:
Date:         October 21, 2017 (Saturday)
Time:         2:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Venue:       Rayson Huang Theatre, HKU
Speakers:  Dr YUEN Man Tak, Director of CAISE
                  Dr Sylvia Liu, Education consultant, Graduate of HKU Doctor of Education

For media enquiries, please contact Ms Emily Cheung, Senior Manager (Development and Communications), Faculty of Education, HKU (Tel: 3917 4270 / fax: 2517 0075 / email: emchy@hku.hk).

HKU and University of Zurich collaborative events
The University of Hong Kong and the University of Zurich will jointly hold a series of events on HKU campus and at outside venue on October 25 and 26, 2017 (Wednesday and Thursday). Media representatives are welcome to attend and interview participants.

October 25, 2017 (Wednesday)

Working together towards the WHO Decade of Healthy Ageing 2020 – 2030
Public Forum

Time: 9:30am to 12:30pm
Venue: Wang Gungwu Theatre, Graduate House, the University of Hong Kong

The World Health Organization (WHO) has set one of its goals to push for a 2020-2030 “Decade of Healthy Ageing”. The concept represents a paradigm shift in international thinking about ageing and health. Instead of focusing on illness symptoms alone, it puts the functional abilities of ageing individuals in their real-life environments on the centre stage. It requires innovative ways to measure healthy ageing in real life environments and provides a framework for systematically tailoring and incentivizing individualized healthy ageing interventions to improve real-life functioning on a population and global scale. The public forum will highlight the opportunities open to the two universities of combining high-level expertise on big health data with state-of-the-art conceptual frameworks, allowing to determine on the population scale how our environments can be designed to maximize opportunities for healthy ageing in both regions and worldwide.

The forum will be hosted by Professor Terry Lum, Head of Social Work and Social Administration, and Associate Director of the Sau Po Centre on Ageing at the University of Hong Kong; and Professor Mike Martin, Professor of Gerontopsychology, Director of the Gerontology Competence Center, and Managing Director of the Dynamics of Healthy Aging University Research Priority Program (URPP) at the University of Zurich. Both professors are members of the WHO’s Working Group on Metrics and Research Standards for Healthy Aging. They are currently working together to plan a study to develop a new approach to health metrics that is to become the international standard.

Date: October 26, 2017 (Thursday)

Two workshops jointly organised by the Center for Information Technology, Society, and Law (ITSL) of the University of Zurich and the Asian Institute of International Financial Law (AIIFL) and the Law and Technology Centre of the University of Hong Kong.

FinTech and Data Ownership: Legal Issues of Digital Business Models
Public Workshop

Time: 2:30pm to 5pm
Venue: Academic Conference Room, Faculty of Law, Centennial Campus, 11/F Cheng Yu Tung Tower, the University of Hong Kong

“FinTech” refers to new technologies that are used in the financial services sector that have the potential of being a transformative force to traditional financial services. Some of these new financial technologies have focused on ways of easing payments, whether domestic or trans-border, investments, asset management or on novel ways of lending credit by using peer-to-peer platforms. This workshop will feature a distinguished group of scholars and practitioners in both Hong Kong and Zurich working at the cusp of this new financial transformation. The workshop will explore FinTech from both the Asian and European perspectives, as well as the role that the ownership of data could play in the FinTech environment and in many other sectors of the digital economy, especially when data becomes ever more valuable as the technologies to analyse such data evolve.

The Future of Privacy Public Symposium

Time: 6pm to 7:30pm
Venue: Academic Conference Room, Faculty of Law, Centennial Campus, 11/F Cheng Yu Tung Tower, the University of Hong Kong

Rapid advances in information and communication technology have made information more accessible, bringing tremendous changes in people’s daily life. Nowadays, individual users can access easily information content, shop, book holidays, find directions, or track one's fitness simply by typing words or voicing questions. However, at the same time, how each person searches for and later uses the information can be tracked, collected and stored by third parties. Our digital footprints have raised important privacy concerns which are made even more critical in light of the seemingly ubiquitous internet, the increasing connection between things and people, and the ease with which personal data can be transferred across jurisdictions. The symposium features presentations on privacy by four leading scholars/practitioners working on the topical issue of privacy and data protection in Switzerland and Hong Kong. This symposium aims to address different dimensions of privacy challenges in today’s environment and will conclude with a lively panel discussion on the future of privacy.

October 26, 2017 (Thursday)

Before the Screen, Behind the Curtains: Ye Si and Postcolonial Culture. A Conversation about Roasted Chestnuts in Zurich and beyond

Time: 6pm to 9pm
Venue: Fringe Club, 2 Lower Albert Road, Central, HK

“All I bought was a bag of roast chestnuts from a stand / the crisp shells and sweet kernels are like the local scenery of my hometown” (“Roast Chestnuts in Zurich”)—Leung Ping-kwan (Ye Si) magically connects Zurich and Hong Kong through roast chestnuts that can be found in both cities. Being a renowned writer and scholar in Hong Kong, and a recipient of the Honorary Doctoral Degree conferred by the University of Zurich, Leung Ping-kwan himself is certainly an exemplar of how Hong Kong and Zurich cross path with one another, culturally and intellectually. Leung’s creative works thereby serve as an entry point to explore how Hong Kong literature and culture are perceived, and interpreted in various local and global contexts. Following an introduction by Ben Wong who directed Boundary, a documentary on Leung Ping-kwan which was partly filmed in Zurich and Switzerland, guest speakers from Zurich and Hong Kong will give insights on the poet’s relation to the two cities.

Media contact:
University of Zurich
Beat Müller
Head of Media Relations
University of Zurich
Phone: +41 079 536 66 00
E-mail: beat.mueller@kommunikation.uzh.ch

The University of Hong Kong
Melanie Wan
Senior Manager (Media), Communications and Public Affairs Office
Phone: 2859 2600
Email: melwkwan@hku.hk

UMAG exhibitions
1. Fibres of Life: IKAT Textiles of the Indonesian Archipelago Following the footsteps of a vanishing craft

Period: Now till November 26, 2017 (Sunday)

Looking at Peter Ten Hoopen’s Pusaka Collection from a scholarly point of view, it is worth acknowledging how it illustrates the concept of ‘unity in diversity’, which the young state of Indonesia chose as its motto upon independence. Here, the interwoven-ness of styles from its islands matter, as do their marked individuality and idiosyncrasies. Moreover, it allows for the study not just of the people’s finery, but also of their daily attire, which is lamentably absent in most collections.

An ironic illustration of the effect of this collecting method comes from Ili Mandiri on Flores. As its dark red bridewealth sarongs have been prized and venerated by the local population, this is what most sophisticated collections have aimed to obtain. The simple but lovely indigo sarongs for everyday use have been almost entirely ignored by collectors. Hence they nearly always end up worn to shreds and very few survive — rarer now than the precious and respected, hence eagerly collected, bridewealth sarongs.

What knowledge is conserved about ikat textiles and their use in the Indonesian archipelago consists primarily of the records of missionary and scientific fieldwork, predominantly compiled by non-Indonesians. The coverage is thin— many weaving regions are covered by only one or two sources, and several regions have never been studied in any detail. Much traditional knowledge is being lost, especially in the more remote island regions in the Indonesian archipelago, which require concerted effort if any trace of their culture is to survive.

Venue: 1/F T.T. Tsui Building, UMAG, HKU, 90 Bonham Road, Pokfulam

2. Hong Kong by Guo Zhiquan: Cityscapes in Ink

Period: Now till November 12, 2017 (Sunday)

Born in Leshan (Sichuan Province, China) in 1942, Guo graduated from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute and has exhibited widely in China. This is his first solo show in Hong Kong. Guo is a member of the Henan Artists Association, the Chinese Academy of Poetry, Painting and Calligraphy, and he is affiliated with the Ministry of Culture, as well as the East & West Artists Association. He worked as the Dean of the Fine Arts Department of Luoyang University in 1986, where he specialised in landscape paintings, as well as bird-and-flower work and art criticism.

Guo is regularly the subject matter of art critics. For example, in 1993 Muxun LU, a renowned Chinese contemporary theorist, wrote an article titled ‘Boundless World Shaped by the Soul of Mountains and Rivers’, engaging with the artist’s exemplary landscape paintings. Subsequently, Guo exhibited at the National Art Museum of China and Tsinghua University, among other more academic institutions, and his work has been reviewed and praised by many established critics.

Venue: 2/F Fung Ping Shan Building, UMAG, HKU, 90 Bonham Road, Pokfulam

Opening Hours:
09:30 – 18:00 (Monday to Saturday)
13:00 – 18:00 (Sunday)
Closed on University and Public Holidays
Tel/Email: (852) 2241 5500 (General Enquiry) / museum@hku.hk
Admission: Free
Website: www.umag.hku.hk/en/

Media enquiries:
UMAG Communications Officer Miss Elena Cheung, Tel: (852) 2241 5512, Email: elenac@hku.hk
UMAG Programme Assistant Miss Chelsea Choi, Tel: (852) 2241 5509, Email: cchelsea@hku.hk