Newsletter – ISSUE 8
Directors' Message
Welcome to the eighth issue of CAL Gazette!
Time flies! This is the 8th issue of our CAL newsletter summarising the activities happened in the 2014/15 Fall semester. The three core values at CAL are 1) promoting coding to everyone, 2) engaging our CAL members via meaningful projects, 3) supporting our members in their start-up adventure. We have new development in each frontline, with the support from our over 400 active CAL members, and 18 CAL management directors.
The Hour of Code HK Campaign has marched into its fifth month, expanded from only one day (last Sunday of a month), to CoCoon (last Sat & last Sun of a month), and will expand to other local institutions. “We Can Code”, our signature project, is also evolving into different forms, including “Ambassadors Can Code” for British Consul General, and we are planning the next wave including “Lawyers Can Code”, “Bankers Can Code”. This coming Sat, will be the last lesson of the Go Code Junior class, consisting of 4 lessons in total. I am most delighted to tell you that I could see curiosity, happiness, and teamwork from each student who has joined this program supported by Sino Care program.
Internally, we are engaging more CAL members in CityU projects, including with SDS, GSO, CityU Walk App, Criminology student discovery projects. We have also received supports from HKTDC, and CityU KTO, Innovation Commons, for the ICT Expo 2015 at the HKCEC. One key highlight is that our Robot App developed by David Wong, has been featured in the closing ceremony of the IT Fest 2015, with another CAL member, One man band. We expect via this growing CAL platform, more students are able to unleash their potential, and demonstrate their innovative work to HK citizens.
Finally, the new TSSSU funding for 2015 has been released, out of the 10 awardee teams, at least six teams are formed with our CAL members. We hope that we are able to give appropriate support and mentorship to each member who would like to learn from this start-up adventure, for both learning how to succeed, and how to handle failure. Perhaps next issue, we will need a longer space to summarise the key points.
CAL Director
Crime Prevention Discovery Channel-Student Apps Forum:
Knowledge Creation across Disciplines
Crime Prevention Discovery Channel – Student Apps Forum on 2nd May was part of the teaching and learning project of Crime Prevention Discovery Channel. Generously funded by our University’s Office of Education Development and Gateway Education (EDGE) through the Teaching Development Grant, and kindly supported by CityU Apps Lab and Hong Kong Police Kowloon East Regional Crime Prevention Office, this project aimed at promoting an interdisciplinary initiative that involves students and faculties from natural sciences (EE & CS) and social sciences (CM and SS) in their pursuit of innovation and discovery, as well as knowledge creation and transfer so as to contribute to our society through Apps product design for a safe and sustainable community. Dr. Jessica Li from SS (the project principal investigator), Dr. Ray Cheung from EE (the Director of CityU Apps Lab) and Dr. Chitat Chan from SS were keen to offer students “something new” in this project. CityU students’ innovativeness had already drawn the interest of the Hong Kong Police Department and the Customs and Excise Department; a group of officers also came to CityU to support students in the Apps Forum.
Dr Jessica Li
Associate Director (Social Innovation)
Hello. I’m a visiting assistant professor at EE department. I come from Finland. My background is on software engineering. I’ve been teaching software development and service-oriented systems for several years. I originally joined EE department to develop education related to utilization of public cloud services and platforms, like Google App Engine and Amazon Web Services. Recently I’m pleased to have had the opportunity to join CAL community and management team. I’m hoping to get to know you and work together on different projects. I’m already very impressed to have met so many energetic and inspiring CAL members.
In addition to service-oriented systems, my research interests include tools for end-user driven programming and development, personalized service applications, and open data applications. I also believe that different kind of learning applications will be heavily utilized in the future. Thus, lots of interesting things and applications can be developed on that side, as an example, hour-of-code game developed for kids to support learning of logical thinking and programming. I’d also like to see applications utilizing open government data. Anyone interested? Please, come to talk and share your ideas.
Dr Anna Ruokonen
Associate Director (Cultural Innovation)
Directors' Message
Dr Ray Cheung
Welcome to the eighth issue of CAL Gazette!
Time flies! This is the 8th issue of our CAL newsletter summarising the activities happened in the 2014/15 Fall semester. The three core values at CAL are 1) promoting coding to everyone, 2) engaging our CAL members via meaningful projects, 3) supporting our members in their start-up adventure. We have new development in each frontline, with the support from our over 400 active CAL members, and 18 CAL management directors.
The Hour of Code HK Campaign has marched into its fifth month, expanded from only one day (last Sunday of a month), to CoCoon (last Sat & last Sun of a month), and will expand to other local institutions. “We Can Code”, our signature project, is also evolving into different forms, including “Ambassadors Can Code” for British Consul General, and we are planning the next wave including “Lawyers Can Code”, “Bankers Can Code”. This coming Sat, will be the last lesson of the Go Code Junior class, consisting of 4 lessons in total. I am most delighted to tell you that I could see curiosity, happiness, and teamwork from each student who has joined this program supported by Sino Care program.
Internally, we are engaging more CAL members in CityU projects, including with SDS, GSO, CityU Walk App, Criminology student discovery projects. We have also received supports from HKTDC, and CityU KTO, Innovation Commons, for the ICT Expo 2015 at the HKCEC. One key highlight is that our Robot App developed by David Wong, has been featured in the closing ceremony of the IT Fest 2015, with another CAL member, One man band. We expect via this growing CAL platform, more students are able to unleash their potential, and demonstrate their innovative work to HK citizens.
Finally, the new TSSSU funding for 2015 has been released, out of the 10 awardee teams, at least six teams are formed with our CAL members. We hope that we are able to give appropriate support and mentorship to each member who would like to learn from this start-up adventure, for both learning how to succeed, and how to handle failure. Perhaps next issue, we will need a longer space to summarise the key points.
CAL Director
Dr Jessica Li
Crime Prevention Discovery Channel-Student Apps Forum:
Knowledge Creation across Disciplines
Crime Prevention Discovery Channel – Student Apps Forum on 2nd May was part of the teaching and learning project of Crime Prevention Discovery Channel. Generously funded by our University’s Office of Education Development and Gateway Education (EDGE) through the Teaching Development Grant, and kindly supported by CityU Apps Lab and Hong Kong Police Kowloon East Regional Crime Prevention Office, this project aimed at promoting an interdisciplinary initiative that involves students and faculties from natural sciences (EE & CS) and social sciences (CM and SS) in their pursuit of innovation and discovery, as well as knowledge creation and transfer so as to contribute to our society through Apps product design for a safe and sustainable community. Dr. Jessica Li from SS (the project principal investigator), Dr. Ray Cheung from EE (the Director of CityU Apps Lab) and Dr. Chitat Chan from SS were keen to offer students “something new” in this project. CityU students’ innovativeness had already drawn the interest of the Hong Kong Police Department and the Customs and Excise Department; a group of officers also came to CityU to support students in the Apps Forum.
Dr Jessica Li
Associate Director (Social Innovation)
Dr Anna Ruokonen
Hello. I’m a visiting assistant professor at EE department. I come from Finland. My background is on software engineering. I’ve been teaching software development and service-oriented systems for several years. I originally joined EE department to develop education related to utilization of public cloud services and platforms, like Google App Engine and Amazon Web Services. Recently I’m pleased to have had the opportunity to join CAL community and management team. I’m hoping to get to know you and work together on different projects. I’m already very impressed to have met so many energetic and inspiring CAL members.
In addition to service-oriented systems, my research interests include tools for end-user driven programming and development, personalized service applications, and open data applications. I also believe that different kind of learning applications will be heavily utilized in the future. Thus, lots of interesting things and applications can be developed on that side, as an example, hour-of-code game developed for kids to support learning of logical thinking and programming. I’d also like to see applications utilizing open government data. Anyone interested? Please, come to talk and share your ideas.
Dr Anna Ruokonen
Associate Director (Cultural Innovation)
about the author: CAL
