Media

Microsoft Chief Technical Officer and Senior Vice President Mr. Craig Mundie gave a lecture at HKU on the Role of Computing in the Sciences

24 Oct 2005

Microsoft's Chief Technical Officer and Senior Vice President Mr. Craig Mundie and other senior staffs were invited to visit HKU today. After meeting the Acting Vice-Chancellor, Professor C.F. Lee, and other senior staffs from the Engineering Faculty, Mr. Mundie gave a public lecture at HKU to outline how the traditional role of computational modeling has changed and its latest applications to cope with the fast-changing scientific world in a distinguished lecture organized by HKU's Engineering Faculty.

IT has transformed many aspects of our daily lives and major scientific disciplines from biology to geophysics. It is influencing all parts of scientific process, from persisting real-world and simulated data, data mining and algorithms, through interpretation, insight and publishing. At the lecture, Mr. Craig Mundie said: "Microsoft believes that software is going to be the center of many scientific disciplines, and that science and engineering and computational sciences can benefit further from more formalized integration of all disciplines. We engage actively with academia in science and engineering to discuss possible collaborations in developing breakthroughs on science and society."

Mr. Mundie's experience in computing and telecommunications technologies is well recognized. In Microsoft, he reports directly to Chairman Mr. Bill Gates and works with him to develop comprehensive technical, business and policy strategies for Microsoft Corporation on a global scale. In August 2000, he was named by US President Clinton to the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee to advise White House staff on issues affecting the country's security on telecommunications infrastructure. Since 2002, he served on the Council on Foreign Relations Inc., which is dedicated to increasing America's understanding of the world and contributing ideas to US foreign policy.

The Faculty of Engineering is one of the founding faculties of the University when it was established in 1911. The faculty is dedicated to academic research of the highest quality and to provide a first rate education to young engineers. This Distinguished Lecture is an on-going effort to contribute to Hong Kong's developments in a knowledge-based global economy.

After the lecture, Professor TS Ng, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, presented a souvenir to Mr Mundie.

For enquiries please contact Miss Cherry Cheung, Senior Press Officer, the University of Hong Kong at 2859 2606.