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Press Releases
Interview by The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups
Getting Ahead of the Curve – An Interview with Professor Helen Meng
Professor Helen Meng shared her insights on AI’s role in driving innovation and enhancing learning experiences, in a feature article by the HK Federation of Youth Groups – Professorial Publication Unit.
Interview by Nature
“Rebuilding Speech with Help from Artificial Intelligence”.
Professor Helen Meng was featured in an interview published by Nature, the prestigious international journal of science, in an article titled "Rebuilding Speech with Help from Artificial Intelligence." In the interview, Professor Meng highlighted how advanced AI technology is revolutionizing the lives of individuals with dysarthria by interpreting their unclear speech and converting it into intelligible communication. This groundbreaking innovation not only empowers individuals to express themselves more effectively but also significantly enhances their quality of life.
The Hong Kong International Computer Conference (HKICC) 2024
Moderator for “From Generative AI (GAI) to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)”
Professor Helen Meng was invited as a keynote speaker and panel moderator at the HKICC 2024, organized by the Hong Kong Computer Society. The theme of the conference was “From Generative AI (GAI) to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)”. Prof. Meng's talk was titled "Building a Responsible AI Future: Ethics, Safety, and Governance in Education and Research", and the panel she organized was titled "The Upsides and Undersides of AI".
Hang Lung Mathematics Awards 20th Anniversary Public Talk Series
The Good, Bad and Beautiful of Artificial Intelligence
The rapid expansion of AI technology resembles the American West in the 19th century - a new territory bursting with both opportunities and uncertainties. As we venture into the “Wild West” of an AI future, guided navigation will be needed to maximize its benefits and avoid pitfalls.
As part of the Hang Lung Mathematics Awards 20th Anniversary Public Talk Series themed “Shaping our Future”, we are proud to present our second panel discussion on “The Good, Bad, and Beautiful of Artificial Intelligence” in collaboration with Asia Society Hong Kong Centre.
This panel discussion will be held on Tuesday, June 4, 2024 at 5pm at Asia Society Hong Kong Center. We are honored to have Mr. Antoine Blondeau, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Alpha Intelligence Capital, an AI company invested in OpenAI, as well as Professor Harry Shum, Council Chairman of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, who is an expert in AI and a science and technology leader in the international academic, industry, and investment sectors, to have a dialogue on stage. The dialogue will be moderated by Professor Helen Meng, Patrick Huen Wing Ming Professor of Systems Engineering & Engineering Management at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Aside from the good and the bad, our speakers will also shed light on how AI gives the beautiful promise to a better future through groundbreaking innovations in its development, research and education.
May Measurement Month (MMM 2024) Public Awareness Campaigns
全民關注血壓月: 專家講座 / 五月量血壓挑戰 / 舊換新血壓計
To enhance public awareness of blood pressure management during the Global May Measurement Month (MMM) in May 2024, Professor Kelvin Tsoi organized a series of impactful campaigns in partnership with the JCSPHPC, as well as the SH BDDA. Notable events included the health talk “全民關注血壓月: 專家講座,” which drew over 200 participants, and the “五月量血壓挑戰,” which engaged around 100 participants. Additionally, the “舊換新血壓計” initiative further fostered education and awareness in the community regarding blood pressure management.
Professor Kelvin Tsoi invited opening guests to the MMM opening ceremony, including Professor Fong Hong, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of CUMC; Professor Philip Chiu, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at CUHK; Professor Samuel Wong, Director of the School of Public Health and Primary Care at CUHK; and Professor Vivian Lee, the regional lead of May Measurement Month (MMM) in Hong Kong; along with the speakers shared invaluable insights and health tips concerning hypertension and cardiovascular disease, greatly enhancing the campaign’s objectives.
CRHK Radio
Program –
同途有心人
Promoting Healthy Ageing and eHealth Care
Professor Kelvin Tsoi was a guest on the CRHK program “同途有心人,” where he discussed the benefits of the eHealth Care Project for the elderly. He also shared valuable insights on promoting healthy habits and enhancing community awareness of healthy ageing. This informative episode aired on August 18, 2024 on the CRHK1 channel.
Golden Age Expo (GAES) & Gerontech and Innovation Expo (GIES)
Public Education on Digital Health
Professor Kelvin Tsoi was invited by ORKTS CUHK to participate in the GAES and GIES, which was held at the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre in August and November 2024, respectively. It aimed to introduce the most advanced and innovative techniques applied in digital health management to the public, especially the golden age group and the elderly health centres.
Invited Presentation, International Forum on Quality & Safety in Healthcare
Using Digital Health in Enhancing Primary Healthcare
Invited presentation, International Forum on Quality & Safety in Healthcare organized
by the British Medical Journal (BMJ), a world-recognized top-ranking medical journal in August 2024 at Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. His talk was titled “Using Digital Health in Enhancing Primary Healthcare” and was delivered during the session on Shaping Healthcare Innovation. Furthermore, the BMJ Group also invited him to lead two sessions titled "AI Chatbots: Friend or Foe?" and "Conclusive Recommendations for Using AI Chatbots: Interdisciplinary Panel Discussion." He invited the World University Network (WUN) professors from Maastricht University, The University of Leeds and The University of Southampton, alongside with those from The University of Sydney, The University of British Columbia, and the University of Reading, met in Hong Kong and took part in these 2 key events. These sessions provided valuable insights into the evolving role of AI chatbots in healthcare, emphasizing their potential benefits and challenges to around 500 audiences.
Invited Talk at Artificial Intelligence and Health Sciences Symposium
"AI and Cognitive Health"
Dr. Stanley Ho Medical Development Foundation held two medical seminars at the ICBC Macau Center of Land Plaza, for the "2024 Artificial Intelligence & Health Sciences Symposium 2024", to explore the application, teaching and future development of artificial intelligence in the medical and health field, including sensory cognition and dementia.
Abstract of "AI and Cognitive Health"
With the global population ageing rapidly, a key health concern lies in Neurocognitive
Disorders (NCD), also known as dementia -- a common form being Alzheimer’s
Disease (AD).
NCDs are particularly prominent in older adults, which has an insidious onset followed
by gradual, irreversible deterioration in cognitive domains (memory, communication,
etc.. Thus the screening NCD is crucial for timely intervention to slow down disease
progression. We will present our work in the use of spoken language for assessing
cognitive health, including a carefully designed speech data collection protocol that has
contextual relevance to the linguistic environment in Hong Kong, Macao and the
Greater Bay Area, the development of AI-enabled speech and language analytics
approaches, and the use of different acoustic and linguistic features for the AD detection.
Experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of automating cognitive health
monitoring with the use of speech and language technologies, which offers the
advantages of accessibility, non-invasiveness and affordability. This work is funded
by the HKSAR Government’s Theme-based Research Scheme.
"In the Lead" forum by Goldman Sachs
AI Innovation and Reflection
Prof. Helen Meng was invited as a panelist to attend the "In the Leed" forum. AI technology is rapidly becoming popular through various AI chatbots.
During the event, Prof. Meng engaged in a conversation with Ms. Marie Louis Kirk, the Chief Administrative Officer of Asia Pacific and Head of Engineering at Goldman Sachs, discussing various applications of AI, including chatbots and the interpretation of medical images.
Prof. Meng mentioned that AI has not only been applied to various chat robots and medical image interpretation technologies, but also has a huge development space in smart city management, and it is also the direction for her to actively research and expand. In terms of supervision, Helen also mentioned transparency (the logical deduction of the training and output of AI models), data privacy (whether personal or confidential information is used to train large language models), bias and fairness (the bias that may be copied in the training process of AI models), and whether the development of artificial intelligence follows the principle of doing good will be the directions that require key norms.
Invited Speaker and Panel Moderator at International Artificial Intelligence and Creativity Conference
Building a Responsible AI Future: Ethics, Safety and Governance in Education and Research
The first International Artificial Intelligence and Creativity Conference (IAICC), jointly organised by The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Shenzhen Research Institute (SZRI) and CG Global Entertainment Ltd. (CGGE), was held recently in Shenzhen. Over 1,000 academics and professionals in the fields of artificial intelligence and creative industries gathered to discuss the theme of “AI Technology Meets Creative Minds”.
Prof. Helen Meng was invited as one of the invited speakers and panel moderators of the session "Navigator the Opportunities and Risks of AI in Real Applications".
Oral Presentation at Ageing and Technology Conference
Age-Friendly Digital Society: Overcoming Challenges in Technology Adoption among Older Adults
Dr Xianmin Gong and his co-authors was invited to deliver the oral presentation titled "Revisiting gain-loss framing in the context of advertising: The impact of loss framing on attention and consistency (but not intensity) of purchase intentions,” at the Ageing and Technology Conference in January 2024. The theme of the conference was “Age-Friendly Digital Society: Overcoming Challenges in Technology Adoption among Older Adults”.
AI Research Presentation at Digestive Disease Week 2024at
Digestive Disease Week
Dr Thomas Lam’s AI research on the level of acceptance and trust of artificial intelligence among gastroenterology nurses was invited to present at Digestive Disease Week in Washington, D.C., United States, on May 19, 2024.
Dr Lam’s research on long term effect of colorectal cancer screening by colonoscopy vs fecal immunochemical test in Chinese population, development of an artificial intelligence-assisted voice analytic tool to assess the consciousness level of patients after sedated endoscopy, and systematic review and meta-analysis on real-time use of artificial intelligence in characterization of diminutive polyps during colonoscopy was also invited to present in Digestive Disease Week, Washington D.C., United States on 18, 19 and 21/5/2024, respectively.
Invited Lecture at Artificial Intelligence in Digestive Endoscopy Conference
消化內鏡人工智能會議
Dr Thomas Lam was invited to present an invited lecture titled “Level of acceptance and trust of artificial intelligence among gastroenterology nurses” at the Artificial Intelligence in Digestive Endoscopy Conference (消化內鏡人工智能會議), Taizhou, Jiangsu, China.
Invited Talk at Multi-Modal Symposium 2024
Multi-Modal Symposium 2024
Recently, the development of multi-modal large models has progressed rapidly, covering various research topics including text-to-image and text-to-video generation, more comprehensive image and text understanding, 3D visual scene understanding, and Embodied AI. At this stage of rapid development in multi-modal technology, we have specifically organized the Multi-Modal Symposium. This symposium aims to invite experts to share their recent public research findings and discuss advancements in the area of multi-modal models.
Dr Xixin Wu was invited to deliver a talk titled "Speech foundation models" at the Multi-Modal Symposium 2024 in Hong Kong and to share his recent research insight with the audiences.
Supporting Use of AI-enabled Speech and Language Technologies
Cantonese automatic speech recognition technologies 廣東話自動語音識別技術
Prof. Helen Meng's team supported the Government Information Bureau of Macao SAR in the use of Cantonese automatic speech recognition technologies developed in her research project, integrated with generative AI technologies, to automate the workflow in documenting public speeches in textual form. It shows good potential in enhancing the efficiency in the workflow.
May Measurement Month (MMM 2023) Public Awareness Campaigns
全民關注血壓月: 專家講座
五月五天五連拍
Professor Kelvin Tsoi led two activities in the Global May Measurement Month to promote the importance of blood pressure management and hypertension, including a public talk (全民關注血壓月: 專家講座) and a blood pressure measurement challenge (五月五天五連拍).
Blood Pressure Meter Delivery Activity
「愛分享」血壓健康送暖行動
With a generous donation from CUHK Alumni Charity Foundation, Professor Kelvin Tsoi led his team to organise an activity (「愛分享」血壓健康送暖行動) to deliver blood pressure meters to residents of Lamma Island. In addition, educational videos have been disseminated on social media to raise awareness of healthcare management and home blood pressure measurement.
BDDA Partners with Global Institutions to Establish Principles on AI for Climate Action
The Stanley Ho Big Data Decision Analytics Research Centre (BDDA) partnered with key global institutions from 2020 to 2022 to co-establish the "Principles on AI for Climate Action," contributing expertise to the global dialogue on ethical and impactful use of AI for climate solutions.
Nature Index 2022 AI and robotics
AI helps computers to see and hear more efficiently
Prof Helen Meng is the founding director of the CUHK Stanley Ho Big Data Decision Analytics Research Centre (BDDA), which she helped establish in 2013 and continues to lead. An engineering and data-analytics specialist, Meng’s team has developed AI technologies that analyse human speech to detect early signs of neurocognitive disorders through a mobile app—offering a non-invasive, cost-effective alternative to traditional diagnostics. They are also pioneering speech-reconstruction tools to aid patients with motor-speech impairments and pronunciation-assessment systems for language learners. Under her guidance, BDDA has become a hub for transforming big-data research into practical solutions in healthcare and education.
Prof. Helen Meng Recognized as One of JESSICA Most Successful Women 2022
Prof. Helen Meng honoured by《旭茉JESSICA》 for her leadership in AI and STEM
In July 2022, Prof. Helen Meng of The Chinese University of Hong Kong was honoured as one of the “Most Successful Women 2022” by the lifestyle magazine 《旭茉JESSICA》. The award celebrated her trailblazing career—from earning multiple degrees at MIT to becoming the first female Professor in HKU’s Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management in 1998. The feature highlights her pioneering research in speech and AI technologies, including establishing CUHK’s Microsoft–CUHK joint lab and founding the SenseTime-CUHK Media Science, Technology and Systems Joint Lab. According to the profile, Prof. Meng remarked, “Research is about facing failure and learning from it,” underscoring her resilience and commitment to breaking gender norms in engineering
CUHK Promotes “May Measurement Month” in Response to World Hypertension Day
BDDA, together with Faculty of Medicine and School of Public Health raise public awareness of blood pressure.
To foster the awareness of blood pressure management of the public in the Global May Measurement Month in May 2022, a series of campaigns had been launched which were led by Professor Kelvin Tsoi with the Jockey Club School of Public Health and Primary Care, Stanley Ho Big Data Decision Analytics Research Centre and the CUHK Medical Centre. Around 8 videos and 17 posts were posted at Facebook, focusing on the importance and ways to keep a healthy blood pressure, and these have attracted over 13,000 and 20,000 individuals, respectively.
Also, Professor Tsoi spoke in two online talks held on 7 May and 17 May, to educate the public about the importance of maintaining a normal blood pressure and deliver healthy tips on the blood pressure management. The seminars attracted more than 9300 participants.
In addition, to attract more participants to MMM events, Professor Tsoi was invited by Mr Lawrence Cheng Tan Shui, to participate in the HiEggo online channel, to publicize in social media about the importance of health management.
Prof. Helen Meng Appointed Convenor in HKSAR Digital Economy Development Committee
CUHK Professor helps drive talent cultivation in Hong Kong’s digital economy
In July 2022, Professor Helen Meng of The Chinese University of Hong Kong was appointed as a member of the Hong Kong SAR Government’s Digital Economy Development Committee (DEDC), chaired by the Financial Secretary, Mr. Paul Chan. Professor Meng serves as Convenor of the Talent Cultivation Sub-group, contributing her expertise in AI and STEM education to advise on policy strategies for nurturing digital talent and advancing Hong Kong’s digital economy. The committee’s first meeting was held on 11 July 2022, bringing together experts from academia, industry, and government to chart Hong Kong’s digital future.
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