9 March 2016 Dear alumni, I hope you all had a festive New Year and that the Year of the Monkey will bring good health and prosperity to you and your family. CityU got off to an energetic start in 2016 in the 20th Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon. Despite the heavy downpour on the day of the race, the CityU Marathon team of over 1,200 runners demonstrated their strong team spirit, determination and unity, which well deserves our applause. Altogether 261 students, 82 staff members and their families participated in the event. The largest group of 889 runners came from our alumni and their family members. A big “thank you” also goes to our support team and volunteers who cheered for our valiant runners in the pouring rain. To further support and enhance the marathon spirit, the CityU Marathon Club, a voluntary interest group initiated by alumni, students and staff members, will host an array of running events over the next few months. We look forward to your participation and will keep you posted! Meanwhile, it was great news to learn that alumnus Dr David Chung Wai-keung (Engineering Doctorate) was recently appointed as the Under Secretary for Innovation and Technology of the HKSAR Government. Promoting innovation to benefit society is the centerpiece of CityU’s unique Discovery-enriched Curriculum, and I congratulate Dr Chung on his distinguished achievements. Another piece of good news was that a graduate from the Department of Applied Social Sciences, Mr Leung Tsz-tun, was presented the 25th Outstanding Social Workers Award by the Hong Kong Social Workers Association. This is a significant recognition for Mr Leung’s outstanding work in education on life and death and bereavement counselling services. We have recently launched a new initiative, the CityU Innopreneurship Ecosystem, to provide networking opportunities for CityU alumni, students and staff who are interested in innovation and entrepreneurship. The initiative provides information sharing activities, mentoring networks, funding schemes, and incubation programmes. Our alumni are welcome to take advantage of this platform to advance their talents and aspirations. CityU takes pride in our unique garden-like campus which integrates harmoniously with the modern architecture of our dynamic University. We thank our hard-working gardeners for the more than 60 different kinds of colourful shrubs which grow in our gardens. To honour our gardeners, the University will be organizing a number of activities in the next few months to celebrate the flowers on our campus. Some of the gardeners will also be invited to serve on a selection panel tasked to select a University Flower as the floral emblem to represent CityU. I hope you will give these activities your strong support to promote our appreciation of nature. Best wishes, Way Kuo |
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