Two gatherings cum campus tours were successfully held on 7 and 16 November 2023 for Members of the Board of Governors, the Entrepreneur Committee, the Young Entrepreneur Committee and the Alumni Committee of the Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) Foundation, alongside other friends of the University. The goal was to enhance their understanding of HKBU’s strategic development and its state-of-the-art research facilities, including the Visualization Research Centre, the Motion Capture and Visualization Laboratory, and the Life Science Imaging Centre. The two events were well attended by around 50 Members and supporters of the University, including the Chairman Emeritus of the Foundation’s Board of Governors, Dr. the Hon. Wilfred Wong, GBM, GBS, JP.

The guests were warmly received by HKBU representatives including Dr. Clement Chen, GBS, JP, Chairman of the Council and the Court; Ms. Rosanna Choi, Treasurer of the Council and the Court; Professor Alexander Wai, JP, President and Vice-Chancellor; Dr. Albert Chau, Vice-President (Teaching and Learning) and Acting Dean of Arts; Ms. Christine Chow, Vice-President (Administration) and Secretary; Professor Johnny M. Poon, Associate Vice-President (Interdisciplinary Research) and Founding Dean of the School of Creative Arts; and Mrs. Lily Chan, Director of University Advancement and Secretary-General of the HKBU Foundation.

In his welcoming remarks, Dr. Clement Chen expressed his heartiest gratitude to Members for their tremendous support and significant contributions towards the University and the HKBU Foundation over the years. He highlighted the University’s impressive achievements, including the rising to the range of 301st-350th in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2024, and the exceptional performances achieved by HKBU’s athletes at the Asian Games and Asian Para Games held in Hangzhou in September and October 2023. He also shared that the HKBU Foundation has recorded steady growth in terms of both membership and donation totals since its inception in 2009. Its membership has risen from 131 to 922, an impressive growth of 604%. Up till 30 September 2023, it is highly gratifying that an aggregate sum of more than HK$4.82 billion in donations and donation pledges has been received from our loyal and long-standing supporters, providing a solid financial bedrock for HKBU’s advancement.

Professor Alexander Wai highlighted the University’s latest developments and its remarkable accomplishments over the past year. In particular, the University has jumped up 4 places to rank 64th in the QS Asia University Rankings 2024 and the Report of Quality Audit of HKBU released by the Quality Assurance Council of the University Grants Committee highly commended HKBU’s good practices in providing high-quality teaching and learning to nurture all-round, future-shaping young talents, affirming the University’s commitment in safeguarding academic standards in alignment with its Institutional Strategic Plan 2018-2028. He also thanked Members of the HKBU Foundation’s Board of Governors and its Committees for their dedicated contributions, fostering the development of HKBU’s key initiatives such as research in and strategic development of Chinese medicine as well as the advancements in art-tech. He expressed his hope to receive continued support from Members in our pursuit of excellence.

Professor Johnny M. Poon shared with the guests HKBU’s commitment to developing art-tech with the synergies created by the establishment of the School of Creative Arts, which attaches great importance to transdisciplinary teaching and learning to nurture the next generation of creative talent for Hong Kong and beyond. Furthermore, the School’s capacity to fuel the development of the creative arts will be substantially strengthened with the expected completion of the Jockey Club Campus of Creativity in 2024, which will feature cutting-edge facilities for a comprehensive range of creative arts disciplines.

The guests exchanged views with HKBU representatives on the development of the University’s innovative art-tech initiatives when they toured around the Visualization Research Centre, the Motion Capture and Visualization Laboratory, and the Life Science Imaging Centre. They were most impressed by the world’s first 360-degree immersive LED Visualization Cinema and the 180-degree iDome Cinema featuring at the Visualization Research Centre. They appreciated very much the world’s first and largest Labanotation and Motif annotated dance dataset with accurate 3D joint trajectories of our motion capture facility, as well as the high-performance Magnetic Resonance Imaging facility.