Hong Kong shines at Silicon Valley tech festival with record 51 awards

Hong Kong has achieved record-breaking success at a US technology innovation event, securing 27 gold medals, 16 silver and eight special prizes.

The innovation team from Lingnan University emerged as the biggest winner among the 50-strong delegation from eight institutions in its debut at the 11th Silicon Valley International Invention Festival, held in Santa Clara, California, from Friday to Sunday last week.

It received 13 awards – eight gold medals and five prizes spanning fields such as artificial intelligence (AI), smart manufacturing and smart transport.

Joe Qin, the university president and chair professor of data science, who led the delegation to the festival, said the achievement reflected international recognition of the scholars’ high-quality research.

He added that the win, along with successes in other competitions, also highlighted the university’s strength in knowledge and technology transfer on the global stage.

“We are committed to becoming a leading liberal arts research university in the digital era and will continue to fully support our researchers in their pursuit of scientific breakthroughs,” Qin said.

Among the university’s winning projects is an AI-based fencing training system, which analyses fencers’ movements and provides personalised feedback through wearable sensors and deep learning techniques. It won a gold medal as well as the Prize of the International Federation of Inventors’ Association.