On 13 and 14 August, the annual Hong Kong Universities Rowing Championships were held on the Shing Mun River. After rounds of fierce competition with teams from seven other universities in Hong Kong, the CUHK Rowing Team took both the men and women’s championship and bagged the overall championship, making this the team’s 15th consecutive victory! What is the story behind this invincible team?

The CUHK Rowing Team was formed in 1986 to compete in the 1st Hong Kong Intervarsity Rowing Championships. However, the beginning was not easy. The team was beaten twice in the first two years of the competition by the University of Hong Kong. After a success in the third year, many rowers left the team, leaving the new members to continue by themselves. Realizing the importance of support from older members, alumni members took up the role of training new members and this has become the tradition since then. Now, members who have graduated still come back from time to time to share their valuable experience with new members.

As well as maintaining the bond with the CUHK Rowing Team, alumni rowers made the sport accessible to more by helping colleges to organize their own rowing teams. With a mission to contribute to society, they took on the challenge to row back and forth from Hong Kong to Macau to raise funds for dolphin conservation in 2015. This venture successfully raised over HK$260,000 and set a new record for Hong Kong rowing.

This year is the 30th anniversary of the CUHK Rowing Team. To celebrate this special occasion, a video of the team’s inspiring story was made as one of the ‘CU50 • The People’ video series. Let’s watch the video and witness the growth of the team.

The Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations (HPAIR) 2016 Asia Conference started on 19 August at CUHK. Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, HPAIR Asia Conference is Harvard University's largest annual student event in the Asia-Pacific region. This year, with the theme of ‘EMPOWER’, the 5-day event attracted more than 500 university students from around the globe.

The bidding process for the HPAIR Asia Conference hosting began a year ago. After submitting a nearly 200-page proposal to the HPAIR Executive Board and numerous rounds of video conference interviews, representatives from CUHK outperformed teams from other universities and won the bid on behalf of Hong Kong.

More than 90 distinguished international speakers were invited to give their views to the students. They included Dr. Han Seung-soo, the Former Prime Minister of Republic of Korea, Ms. Tawakkol Karman, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Prof. Sir James Mirrlees, Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences, as well as CEOs and senior executives at leading companies, such as BlackBerry, MTR, Li & Fung Group, to name but a few. Through plenary sessions, panels, keynotes, workshops, and case studies, the Conference provided valuable opportunities for in-depth discussion about the most pressing global issues across a wide spectrum, from business and sustainability, to entrepreneurship, humanitarian affairs and diplomacy.

Prof. Joseph Sung, Vice-Chancellor of CUHK also attended the opening ceremony. He was proud for the CUHK students for winning the bid to host such a large-scale and prestigious international event. He believes that “A global mindset is an essential quality for our young leaders,” and that “all participants in HPAIR will have influential exchanges and gain inspiration that will lead to new thinking about life, careers and our world.”

CUHK has launched the ‘Engineering Medical Innovation Global Competition’ (EMedic Global 2016), the world’s first medical innovation challenge which invites university students from around the world to design and develop clinically-driven and patient-centered technology innovations for the future of medicine and healthcare. Out of the 40 student teams from all over the world, the CUHK team took the Gold Award with their project on ‘Surgical Robotic System for Endoscopic Submucosal Dissection’, which makes endoscopic submucosal dissection easier and reduces the risk of medical error. Another CUHK team received the Bronze Award for their project on 'A Soft Earthworm-like Robot Targeted for GI Tract Inspection'.

The application of innovation technology in medical services has become a global trend. CUHK is dedicated to encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration, which is the key to developing promising and innovative healthcare technologies and devices that raise clinical care standards and efficiency to benefit patients. As early as 2009, the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Medicine launched the undergraduate programme on Biomedical Engineering to nurture talents. In 2015, CUHK established the Chow Yuk Ho Technology Centre for Innovative Medicine which serves as a platform for engineers and clinicians to work together in enhancing knowledge transfer of innovative technologies into clinical practice for the benefit of patients. The competition, which is organized by the Chow Yuk Ho Technology Centre for Innovative Medicine, is designed to advance biomedical engineering and promote international exchange.

Submissions are screened by an international judging panel which consists of faculty members, clinical practitioners and industry representatives, and is chaired by Prof. James Goh, President of the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering. Out of the 40 submissions, 27 finalist teams from Canada, the UK, the US, Switzerland, Mainland China, Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong were shortlisted and gathered at CUHK for the final contest. As a bonus, winners are being offered a short term stay at the Soft Landing Centre at the Hong Kong Science Park (HKSTP) where they will be granted support services for technology transfer.

Following the competition, CUHK and HKSTP jointly organized the first international Engineering Medical Innovation Summit, which served as an excellent platform for medical specialists, engineering professionals, healthcare organizations and research institutions to share knowledge, innovative ideas and wisdom and work together in enhancing knowledge transfer of innovative technologies into clinical practice.