HKUST Annual Report 2018-19

39 HKUST World Economic Forum and Winter Davos 2019 A Memorandum of Understanding was signed in October 2018 with the World Economic Forum, following an invitation to HKUST to join the organization’s 28-member Global University Leaders Forum (GULF). The group fosters peer-to-peer dialogue between presidents of the world’s leading universities and collaboration with the main forum’s initiatives and activities. HKUST is the only member from Hong Kong. In January 2019, President Shyy joined the GULF session at Davos, Switzerland, and also met Prof. Klaus SCHWAB, Founder and Executive Chairman of WEF. HKUST now has more than 10 faculty members who are part of the on-going WEF Expert Network: Prof. Wei SHYY, Prof. Nancy IP, Prof. Pascale FUNG, Prof. HE Guojun, Prof. Kim CHOW Hei-Man, Prof. Matthew MCKAY, Prof. Yoshio NOZAWA, Prof. Albert PARK, Prof. Fugee TSUNG, Prof. WANG Yi and Prof. ZHANG Qian. The network forms a multidisciplinary community of leading minds that aims to improve the world by shaping the global agenda. Regional University Reach HKUST successfully hosted the 2019 Asian University Alliance Summit in April 2019. Over 15 Presidents and Vice-Presidents from member universities around Asia attended, engaging in constructive dialogue on the role of universities in advancing sustainability, innovation, and entrepreneurship ecosystems. HKUST is one of the founders of the 15-member alliance. HKUST also hosted several gatherings related to the Association of Pacific RimUniversities (APRU), an alliance of leading institutions from 17 Pacific Rim economies. The APRU international secretariat is now based at the University. At the three-day 16th Senior International Leaders’ Meeting in October 2018, more than 70 delegates discussed the Association’s latest strategic plan and issues ranging from closing the digital skills gap to ways to create impact through research. President Shyy gave the keynote address, focused on “HKUST in the Age of Innovation: Contributions, Opportunities, and Expectations”. At the two-day APRU Population Aging Conference in December 2018, 90 participants took part in discussions focused on the theme of “Dementia, Cognition, and Healthy and Productive Aging”. Separately, the Vice-President for Institutional Advancement was appointed Co-Chair for the APRU’s Asia Pacific Women in Leadership program. The program sets out to create initiatives to impact on higher education institutions across Asia Pacific. Also on the diversity front, the Asia Pacific Rising Stars Women in Engineering Workshop in October 2018was hosted by the University’s School of Engineering in association with top Asian and Oceania universities. The event brought together young female engineers and postgraduate students from leading institutions worldwide to explore a career in teaching and research in Asia Pacific. As part of the University’s effort to share best practices and exchange ideas on university advancement with professionals from around the world, the Director of Public Affairs co-chaired the planning committee (marketing and communications track) of the annual four-day Asia Pacific Advancement Conference. The conference was organized by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, a global association for professionals in advancement. The Director also shared her insights on crisis management citing a case study of HKUST at the event, held in Brisbane, Australia, in April 2019.