The Global and Community Engagement Program of the School of Engineering, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology successfully organized a seminar named 'The “Heartware” Required to Excel in the 21C Technology-centric World’ on 26 Sept (Wed). Mr Erwin Huang, CEO of WebOrganic, and Mr Andrew Ma, TEDxMongKok 2012 speaker, were invited to share their life journeys and careers to inspire students the meaning and the importance of heartware in the 21C technology-centric world.

The seminar was the 2nd 'Starting from Technology Seminar Series’ of the School of Engineering. Prof Hong Lo, Associate Dean of Engineering, said, 'The series aims to broaden the views of engineers about the world, so that they can understand their connection to the community. When they design something, they are actually designing for the community and making a big difference to this world.’

In the seminar, Mr Huang brought two heartwares and demonstrated how these IT products help the community. One is called Safety Bell which is using low technology, but helping the elderly who live alone at large. Another product is called Nike Fuel which helps people to be more self-aware and conscious as it tracks people’s activities and easily transfers every move into fuel. Mr Huang stressed that even soft things can also make our life a little bit better.

Mr Ma pointed out that people are not really communicating even though they have the most high-tech gadget. He believed that people would not change their lives with hardware or software alone, but heartware, which is a way to transfer hope, love and wisdom, could do. He also shared how he guided the university students as mentors to become the missing heartwares in the 21C technology-centric world.  

Mr Huang ended the seminar by giving tips to students on learning how to learn and knowing what you want to learn. Mr Ma encouraged students to try to find a mentor in life.

The event was well-received by over 120 HKUST students. It was organized by the Global and Community Engagement Program of the School of Engineering. The Program aims to encourage students to provide engineering solutions to answer the social needs locally or outside Hong Kong by applying their engineering know-how.