Naming Ceremony of the William M. W. Mong Engineering Building
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The Engineering Building is named after Dr William M. W. Mong, in appreciation of his magnanimous contribution over three decades in support of academic, research and technology development of the Chinese University. Rising over 13 storeys and covering a total area of 13,862 square metres, the William M. W. Mong Engineering Building is located on the central campus. The Building provides purpose-designed and state-of-the-art teaching and laboratory facilities for the Departments of Automation and Computer-Aided Engineering, Information Engineering, and Systems Engineering and Engineering Management. It is equipped with a multi-media lecture theatre with 243 seats. With the opening of this new Building, CUHK will be able to develop teaching and research in the engineering field, especially in the information and communication technologies. CUHK received further generous donation from Shun Hing Education and Charity Fund to establish Shun Hing Institute of Advanced Engineering (SHIAE). SHIAE will spearhead state-of-the-art advanced engineering research, create and sustain synergy with world-class researchers, transfer to industries cutting-edge technologies, and promote appreciation of engineering in society through education programmes. SHIAE will initially focus its research in two specialized areas: Biomedical Engineering, and Multimedia Technologies. CUHK's Engineering and Medical Faculties have collaborated in developing interactive computer-based technologies with wide applications in the medical field. A number of projects have already achieved great success, these include: virtual acupuncture, virtual bronchoscopy, and virtual arthroscopy. Another significant project is the Chinese Visible Human Project, in which several ultra-high resolution digital human datasets were successfully collected and processed. SHIAE will make further commitment in the research development of bio-nano sensor, medical imaging and other medical devices. In the area of multimedia technologies, CUHK will further pursue research in information retrieval, digital game, human-computer interaction, multilingual speech recognition and synthesis, and multimedia communication system. Mr David Mong, Chairman of Shun Hing Education and Charity Fund will chair the Advisory Board of SHIAE as its inaugural chairman. At the ceremony, Mr David Mong said, "The setting up of SHIAE aims not only at achieving good results in engineering research but is also destined to create the best research centre of the world in ten years. When that happens, the honour will belong to all Hong Kong people." "I firmly believe that advanced engineering research will make Hong Kong an education-based society and an economy that produces high value-added goods and services. But, what is most important is that the results of advanced technological research benefits all mankind and improves our quality of life," Mr Mong said. The Advisory Board members includes experts from renowned universities and research institutes around the world. One of the Board members, Professor Benjamin W. Wah, Franklin W. Woeltge Endowed Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA attended and addressed the ceremony this morning. Other Board members include Professor Victor Zue, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Co-Director of the Institute's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT, Dr Harry Shum, Managing Director of Microsoft Research Asia, Professor Yongmin Kim, Professor & Chair Bioengineering, University of Washington, Professor Nicholas Ayache, Research Director of The French Research Institute of Computer Science and Automatic Control, Professor Jack C. Y. Cheng, Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, CUHK, and Professor Peter Yum, Dean of Engineering and Professor of Information Engineering, CUHK. Professor Ching Pak-chung, Head of Shaw College and Professor of Electronic Engineering, CUHK, is the Director of SHIAE. Since it's establishment in 1984, Shun Hing Education and Charity Fund has donated approximately HK$300 million towards projects that benefit education, healthcare, recreation, sports and environmental protection over the years. Dr William M. W. Mong has been a staunch supporter of CUHK for over 30 years. With his generous donation, CUHK has been able to establish laboratories, scholarship funds, research facilities and launch innovative research. Thanks to the generous support of Shun Hing Education and Charity Fund in 2003, Chair Professorship of Mathematics was set up at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in CUHK. From
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