24 IN FOCUS Young Engineers When assessing my postgraduate options following my undergraduate studies, HKUST continued to stand out because of its academic reputation in engineering and tranquil environment – an ideal place to avoid hectic city life and concentrate on learning. It is, though, impossible to truly escape crowds in Hong Kong and, given the University’s increasingly high pro le and booming enrolment, space issues have sometimes arisen at campus facilities such as the canteen. But you can never be sure when! Fortunately, during my undergraduate studies, I had learned the bene ts of being comfortable in handling data. I decided to make a change – using a data-driven approach. My vision was a real-time platform that could collect, analyze, and communicate information to let the University community know the busy-ness of various locations and better plan their time. For example, when to eat given the current numbers of people in the restaurants. First, I teamed up with my MPhil classmate Steve KU Bon-Kyung and other students. Then, a er gaining permission from the University’s Information Technology Services Center, we started to explore wi- access data, which o ered a reliable estimation of crowded areas on campus. Under the supervision of big data analysis and visualization expert Prof. QU Huamin, Computer Science and Engineering, we developed techniques to analyze the situation at di erent places, such as the waiting time at bus stops and available seats in food outlets, and built an appealing public interface to relay the information. However, even the greatest of prototypes can be far from what is needed in a real application. The chance to move forward arose when working with the School of Engineering on our demonstration of the “Pulse” platform for HKUST’s Information Day, a popular annual event introducing the University to potential undergraduates and their families. Using sta members’ feedback prior to the occasion, we were able to optimize Pulse to cater to user needs and display real-time crowd distribution, movement, and the status of various campus facilities on the large overhead screens in the Engineering Commons. Added convenience for the campus community and a live showcase of HKUST technology for visitors! We now plan to add new data sources, such as cameras, to improve facility status data. Meanwhile, we are aiming to make Pulse more widely available via the University’s visitor center and “USThing” app, which provides handy mobile access to di erent student services. As part of HKUST’s newly launched Sustainable Smart Campus initiative, I also hope our work will contribute to a more connected campus. WU Aoyu MPhil in Computer Science and Engineering ( ) BEng in Electronic Engineering, and in Computer Science ( ) The Dream Team Three School of Engineering students discuss how they are activating their individual ideas for hi-tech change *English added to graphic. Not included in app. Wu Aoyu in front of the Pulse platform, which shows whether campus facilities are busy or not. Pulse Crowd Flow Platform
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDk5Njg=