The recent launch of the GREAT Smart Cities Center is set to provide an interdisciplinary home for academics, industry, and government to collaborate on future city development and advances. GREAT refers to the attributes of a good future city, namely, Green, Resilient, Empowering, Adaptable and Transformative while “Smart” means the intelligence applied to these ve attributes. The Center, which held its inaugural symposium in , brings together academics from a range of areas across the University to foster di erent aspects of smart city development and to demonstrate how such synergy can tackle problems that are beyond any one discipline. “The Center can create common ground,” said Chair Professor LO Hong-Kam, Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of the GREAT Smart Cities Center. Sample projects associated with the Center include enhancing walkability in Hong Kong, smart urban water supply systems, and a personalized real-time air quality informatics system for exposure (PRAISE-HK). Along with cutting-edge research, the Center strives to foster the expertise and professionals who can contribute to smart city development, facilitate policy formulation, and help develop large-scale projects and interdisciplinary collaborations. The creation of the Center is in line with global and local developments in this area. At its rst symposium, academics and professionals from Hong Kong, Mainland China, Japan, Korea, Singapore and the US o ered a variety of perspectives on smart city development. The University’s smart city development platform will foster interdisciplinary advances. Research on the environment, health and well-being has gained a valuable platform for translating concepts and laboratory studies into products to address community needs with the establishment of the HKUST-CIL Joint Laboratory of Innovative Environmental Health Technologies. The joint lab set up by the University and Chiaphua Industries Limited (CIL) will initially seek to translate HKUST smart disinfectants focused on HiNW light disinfection, a malodor control hydrogel, and colloidal antibacterial technology into commercial products. Lab researchers will work with government departments, non-governmental organizations, and establish a global network of research partners to further extend its reach and capabilities. Healthy development HKUST has become the rst university globally to set up an arti cial intelligence lab with Korean internet search portal NAVER and its global mobile platform LINE. The joint lab partnership with the University’s Big Data Institute will enhance research on data science and arti cial intelligence through the development of algorithms, models and prototype implementations on smartphones and other mobile platforms. In addition, it will support a PhD student fellowship program and organize workshops and events. Joint AI lab launched with NAVER/LINE 07 IN FOCUS GREAT expectations for urban living
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