President's Message (9 December 2023)

Dear members

In about two weeks Christmas will be upon us. I wish you all a very merry Christmas filled with happiness, good health, and treasured time with loved ones.

At the approach of every Christmas one is always reminded that the year is coming to an end. I hope that all of you, looking back, can say that 2023 has been a year distinguished by personal milestones and cherished moments. Mine can certainly lay claim to being truly satisfactory, especially since its latter half was devoted to serving as the HKIE’s President. The past few weeks, I’m glad to say, have added quite a few items to my “year-end list of accomplishments”. Allow me to talk to you about them before your family and friends rightly claim your full attention amid the festivities.

I was among those who, on 12 November, presided over the Institution’s signing of a Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) with the Guangdong Institution of Engineers. This MRA initiated a pilot project as a result of which qualifications in four of our disciplines—Civil, Geotechnical, Electrical, and Control, Automation & Instrumentation—are made to correspond to qualifications in five of the Mainland’s disciplines. The project’s scope will be expanded in time to encompass other engineering disciplines. We put great stock in this MRA’s ability to open up career opportunities for engineering talents in both Mainland and Hong Kong.

One glaring evidence of the Mainland’s growing importance in the international engineering scene is the massive attendance, by world engineering leaders, of the International Engineering Education Symposium 2023 – China Week (IEES 2023 CW). I personally witnessed this spectacle while attending, from 15 to 17 November, this Ningbo-hosted, HKIE-co-organised symposium, where I was privileged to deliver the welcome address in its opening ceremony. Featured in the symposium were keynote reports, forums, and panel discussions dealing with the various ways in which engineering education—when directed into the right channels and properly administered—can be instrumental in tackling such central issues in human progress as carbon neutrality, sustainable development, and AI. Words can hardly express my gratitude to the participants and the other co-organisers for having contributed so richly to discussions on a topic so dear to my heart. 

November, which on the face of it was a month full of weighty commitments, was in fact interspersed with lighter moments. These were well furnished by the Protégé Chill Series, which, as you will probably guess from the name, is a series of workshops designed by members of this session’s President’s Protégé Scheme to expose members to those skills and knowledge that, though useful in themselves, are not directly related to engineering. I had a great time during the session on the 14th of the month, which was about how to get better at impromptu speaking—the art of delivering a speech with little to no time for preparation on a randomly selected topic. The next one, scheduled for 17 January 2024, will find the protégés and other young members having a chitchat with Ms Winnie Ho (Secretary for Housing) about the 2023 Policy Address. I’m sure I will enjoy it just as much.

So far, December has been every bit as satisfying as its predecessor. The 5th to the 8th were taken up by my Dubai visit, which began, on the first day, with a cocktail reception that we co-hosted with Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Dubai and the Hong Kong Climate Change Forum. Cross-sector engineering stakeholders spanning multiple continents were represented in the reception, and Mr Tse Chin-wan (Secretary for Environment and Ecology) was there as our Guest of Honour. The time was spent networking cross-culturally and exchanging thoughts on green issues with one another, and I’d say it was very much well spent.

Another focus of the visit was the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. I participated in a set of events: workshops, panels, talks, and keynotes on themes ranging from “Technology for Climate” to “Multilevel Action”. These events were designed to unite a diverse range of stakeholders—all levels of government, youth, investors, frontline communities, indigenous people, and others—around specific solutions that must be scaled up this decade to limit warming to 1.5 degrees, build resilience and mobilise finance at scale. It is a life-changing experience to be part of this great conversation, and I am still letting the insights I gained sink in.

Having given you an overview of my engagements in the recent past, I would like to wrap things up by updating you on one of the most exciting things that we can expect in the future—the Hong Kong Engineers Week 2024 (HKEW 2024). Some of the activities of HKEW 2024 have already been launched and are now accepting applications. One of them, “Engineering Alliance”, is recruiting young, gifted HKIE members to engage in engineering tasks and challenges. Those who enter the grand final after passing the initial rounds will prove their mettle in two contests that showcase engineers’ professionalism. 

In some other activities students will take centre stage. There is the “Our Future Engineers” Quiz Contest, in which each participating HKIE member will return to his or her alma mater to form a team of four secondary students for an engineering Q&A contest; the “Our Dream City” Design Competition, for which primary school students will exercise their youthful imagination in visualising a city of their dream; and finally, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Tertiary Institution Innovation Project Invitational Competition, which will involve engineering students of tertiary institutions.  Applications to all these are now open. 

Of course, what you have known all along about the HKEW 2024 still hold true: There will still be, in March 2024, an HKEW Carnival, Career Fairs, and the HKIE Grand Award Presentation Ceremony. Further updates on these are coming up—stay tuned.