Universities in Africa need to forge closer linkages with institutions of higher learning in Hong Kong for mutual academic benefits, according to Professor Dennis Lo, President of the Hong Kong Academy of Sciences.
Lo, also an associate dean for research at the Faculty of Medicine at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, says there is a need to pick approaches suitable to institutions and centres of higher learning that get involved in collaborations.
Speaking at the inaugural Hong Kong Laureate Forum held from November 13 to 18, 2023, he said such collaborations could be realised in areas such as student exchange programmes and joint research and development activities.
“That is a reasonable situation and in Hong Kong, there is a studentship scheme which encourages students from abroad to join us. For instance, in my laboratory, I have a student from Pakistan, and I don’t see any reason why we would not extend that to our African and other developing world colleagues,” said Lo.
The Hong Kong Laureate Forum aspires to be a world-class academic exchange event to connect the current and next generations of leaders in scientific pursuit and to promote understanding and interests of the young generation in Hong Kong and around the world in various disciplines in science and technology.
According to Lo, exploring research collaborations between universities is important to allow access to the best scientific and engineering technologies in specific domains.
“With technology, it becomes cheaper as it goes. For instance, in my area of DNA sequencing computers process (using) slots, and every eighteen months the processing power doubles at the same cost.”
During the forum, various Shaw Prize winners were in attendance for the prize established in 2002 in Hong Kong awarded annually to individuals who are active in their respective fields, have recently achieved distinguished and significant advances, who have made outstanding contributions to academic and scientific research or applications, or who in other domains have achieved excellence.
“The Shaw Prize is a big international prize and the Hong Kong Laureate Forum is a vehicle in which we bring the winners to meet young people from Hong Kong and other places to have a close distance talk and interact with renowned international scientists and, hopefully, in the process they become inspired to be scientists in their own right,” said Lo.
He explained that when one looks at scientific publications, they are about stories of discovery, stories on inventions and young people like to listen to stories no matter where they come from as long as they “ignite the spark in them and some may eventually decide that science is for them.”
These stories aren’t just about resources, they are ideas that fire up people to want to do something: “I can imagine in areas like infectious diseases where there are many possibilities, human genetics, and evolution of the African population that have more genetic differences. I think it’s very interesting.”
By Ochieng’ Ogodo
