The Faculty of Engineering and SenseTime Group Ltd (SenseTime) recently launched a new collaboration on Artificial Intelligence (AI) education with the signing of a collaborative agreement.  AI is the technology that uses machine intelligence to simulate human intelligence in performing tasks and solving problems.  Its areas of application include visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, machine translation and self-driving cars.  The technology has broad implications as a disruptive force that is reshaping the world and changing the ways humans will live and work in the future.

CUHK, which has a pool of top-tier talent in AI and sophisticated scientific research facilities, will collaborate with SenseTime, the world's leading AI company, to promote AI education in Hong Kong.  The collaborative agreement covers joint efforts to develop the new generation of AI talent in the coming three years.  And through participation in international AI competitions, exchange programmes and exhibitions, people with outstanding performance in AI will be encouraged to enroll in university engineering programmes.  The two parties will also actively engage in future educational activities by encouraging the young generation to explore AI and improve their understanding of the field, which includes the positive and ethical use of AI, as well as its limitations and risks.  In addition, both parties hope to extend their collaborative efforts to research activities on technological advancement and the societal applications of AI.

An AI Competition for Secondary Schools was held at the CUHK campus on 11 May 2019, with over 30 teams from 22 schools participated.  The event resulted in the team from St. Paul's Co-educational College winning the first prize with their project "Cantonese lip reading".  Lip reading has been a hot topic with well-developed models for English and Mandarin, but non-existent for Cantonese yet.  The Judging Panel was impressed by the sophistication of the team's work on the topic, the presentation skills of the team members, and the way they handled the Q&A.

After the Competition, the winning teams were presented with cash prize and certificates.  Additionally, the first prize team will receive continuous guidance and support from senior researchers of SenseTime during the coming year aiming for possible participation in national and world-class competitions.  The first and second prize teams will have the opportunity to visit SenseTime and the collaborating universities for internships and summer training. All members of the winning teams will be eligible for receiving scholarships from the Haitong International Securities Group Ltd when they enroll in AI-related programs in their university studies.