The 6th International Symposium on Emerging Technologies for Education (SETE 2021) and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Artificial Intelligence Summit Forum was held in Zhuhai on 11 November 2021. The summit was supported by Zhuhai Science and Technology Association, organised by UIC and Hong Kong Web Society. The high standard international academic conference attracted over 300 participants, including scholars and experts from home and overseas, and representatives from public and private sectors.
At the summit forum
More than twenty scholars gave keynote speeches on the forum, including Prof Mei Hong, Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the World Academy of Sciences; Prof Zhao Wei, the 8th President of the University of Macau and Head of Academic committee of Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology Chinese Academy of Sciences; Prof Lionel M. Ni, Founding President of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou); Prof Tang Tao, Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and UIC President. The summit was hosted by a General Co-Chair and UIC Vice President (Research and Development) Prof Jia Weijia.
Group photo of guests
In his speech, Deputy Director of the Department of Science and Technology of Guangdong Province, Mr Yang Jun, affirmed the roles of science and technology in the education sector, where the development of higher quality, level, and fairness will be seen as it has been integrating modern technologies such as Information Technologies (IT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Virtual Reality (VR). The conference gathered outstanding educators, scientists and representatives from industries and associations, with education and science and technology combined, which would promote the development of AI and education sectors.
Mr Yang Jun
Prof Tang Tao said in his speech that Zhuhai shared advantages as a city with emerging industries and a high-tech innovation base. The construction of the Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin has also brought new opportunities and new space for Zhuhai's development. UIC will take advantage of the second-phase campus, continue introducing talents, strengthen Industry-University-Research Collaborations and transform scientific research achievements. It will also deepen the cooperation with Beijing Normal University and Hong Kong Baptist University to contribute to the Bay Area's talent cultivation and economic development.
Prof Tang Tao
Prof Mei Hong gave an online speech on "How to build an Artificial Collective Intelligence System". His first gave a brief overview of typical Collective Intelligence phenomena in physical and cyberspaces and CI-related research and practice. After that, a general understanding of CI from micro and macro perspectives is presented. Based on this understanding, the concept of artificial collective intelligence (ACI) was introduced. He also presented a constructive model for collective intelligence and the classification for collective intelligence systems/phenomena.
Prof Mei Hong giving an online speech due to COVID-19 prevention measures
Prof Zhao Wei gave a keynote speech on science, industry, and commerce of data. He raised his view that data is natural superficies with its internal principles to be found in the emerging data science subject for further development of humanities. According to him, data-related industries and commerce would not develop without fair data sharing on a large scale.
Prof Zhao Wei
Prof Lionel M. Ni spoke on the topic "Cultivate Innovative Talents and Push the Frontiers of Science", introducing the prospects of Hong Kong University of Science and Technologies (HKUST). According to him, HKUST (Guangzhou), established under the Unified HKUST-Complementary Campuses umbrella.
Prof Lionel M. Ni
Prof Tang Tao considers the rapid growth of the Internet and AI as factors bringing both challenges and opportunities to education development in the Big Data Era.
Prof Tang Tao
In the afternoon, twelve scholars gave academic talks. They come from Peking University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, City University of Macau, Southern University of Science and Technology, University of Technology Sydney, and the Canadian Academy of Engineering.
SETE is an influencing academic conference. It aims to build an exchange platform for scholars of the educational technologies field. A total of 43 papers from scholars at home and abroad were included in this conference, which Springer LNCS will publish. Liu Menglian from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies and Chen Shuchi, Wang Shan from Macau University were presented Excellent Paper Award, respectively. In addition, academic papers of UIC's staff were also published. Authors included Dr Lee Shu-Tak, Prof Zhang Hui, and Dr Peng Xiaoling from Division of Science and Technology (DST), Mr Jonas Kelsch of English Language Centre (ELC), and Dr Leung Hoi-Yung of Division of Culture and Creativity (DCC).
On the morning of 12 November, academic research papers were presented with workshops at UIC. In addition, scholars engaged in discussion on education-related topics, which combined AI, digital technologies, emerging technologies for education, etc. Also, the organisation committee organised two workshops, "The 5th International Symposium on User Modeling and Language Learning (UMLL 2021)" and "The 4th International Workshop on Educational Technology for Language Learning (ETLL 2021)".
At the same time, the theme event of "Internet of Things Entering UIC" was held. Experts and scholars conducted academic exchanges on the future of the Internet of things, blockchains, data mining, etc.
From MPRO
Reporter: Du Jiewen
Photographer: Ivy Liao
Editors: Covee Wang, Deen He
