Shivang Singh, a year 4 BBA(IBGM) student, has been recognised as “Highly Commended Entrant” by The Global Undergraduate Awards (UA) for his research paper “Investigating the business ethics of bike-sharing companies”.

Every year, UA coordinates an awards programme for penultimate and final year undergraduate students, as well as students who have graduated within the programme year. Entrants can submit their work to one of our 25 categories, which represent a broad range of academic disciplines.

Shivang’s work was considered to be among the top 10% of academic coursework submitted globally in the “Business” category. His study draws on the evolution of the peer-to-peer based sharing economy and uncovers the non-compliance of bike-sharing companies with ethical conduct standards.

“I am deeply grateful to Mr. David Bishop for expanding my knowledge in business ethics, corporate governance and corporate social responsible. After further revision, I aspire to get it published in an academic journal,” said Shivang.

About The Global Undergraduate Awards

The Global Undergraduate Awards is the world’s leading academic awards programme which recognises top undergraduate work, shares this work with a global audience and connects students across cultures and disciplines.

Themed with ‘The Future of Business Education in the U.S. and China’, the Stanford China Economic Forum 2020 was held online on October 16 (Friday). Three Deans from the world-leading Business Schools were invited to the event to share their insights, including Professor Hongbin Cai, Dean of HKU Business School, Professor Ann Harrison, The Bank of America Dean of Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, together with Jonathan Levin, The Philip H. Knight Professor and Dean of the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University.

As the world begins to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, these challenging times call for more dialogue and collaborations across public health, education, government and business. The Stanford China Economic Forum aims at gathering business experts and scholars to promote dialogue, an open exchange of ideas, and collaboration across institutes, districts and countries. During the Forum, the Deans discussed the upcoming teaching and learning trends under various challenges brought by the pandemic, the rising tensions between China and US and the social movements. The ways on how to adapt and respond to all external factors that affect Education, as well as providing the best learning environment amidst major global incidents were the key focuses of the Forum.

A coin has two sides; and crisis always creates opportunities. Professor Hongbin Cai, Dean of HKU Business School believes that the wide use of remote teaching technologies during this challenging period will not be able to replace the tradition face-to-face teaching, however, will certainly add value to the future mode of teaching even after the pandemic. ‘Some of the teaching methods and technologies we are using now offer flexibilities to students and provide more effective ways to keep the class together,’ He said.

‘The current hybrid mode adopted allows students to participate in class despite the limitation of quarantine policies, travel restrictions or tight schedules for working students. In lectures with large group of students, technology also helps to encourage interaction between students and the lecturer. Students could raise their questions though the chatroom and get their queries settled.’  

Professor Cai also appreciated the efforts by Stanford University for organising this Forum during his wrap-up speech. ‘This is a very good opportunity for facilitating the collaboration between academics and students, across China and the US. As Hong Kong is a truly international place and HKU is a truly international university, I am looking forward to building a stronger collaboration across the Pacific Ocean. It is vital for us to build a stronger community to house people from different backgrounds sharing different views, and to mutually respect each other.’

From conference room to classroom

As one of the three winners of the well-recognised University Grants Committee (UGC) Teaching Award this year, Mr. David Lee, Principal Lecturer of HKU Business School, has received a number of awards for teaching excellence and innovation during his five years in HKU. Prior to entering the Education sector, Mr. Lee was having a promising career in the finance industry. The birth of his daughter however, was a turning point in life. “When I was working in the finance industry, I had to travel frequently, separated from my children at least one week per month. I thought if this continues, by the time my daughter is 20 I’ll have missed 5 years of her life and it didn’t seem worth it.” Based on Mr. Lee’s penchant for making a meaningful impact to the world, he eventually moved forward from generating value for shareholders, to nurturing leaders of tomorrow.

“New Normal” in Teaching

Mr. Lee observes that a lot of new technologies have emerged throughout the pandemic. For instance, virtual reality technologies have enabled students to attend field trips without physically traveling. But as the transfer of business knowledge requires minimal physical interaction, Mr. Lee believes that technology is not the most important component to business schools. On the other hand, as long as a teacher can engage students effectively, even the most traditional teaching tools can still deliver excellent classroom experiences.  

However, Mr. Lee does believe that a new teaching trend is incubating. With extensive experience teaching online even before the current pandemic, Mr. Lee believes that the pandemic will have students cherish classroom learning more. However, as online learning has proven its value throughout this pandemic, even when an effective vaccine for the coronavirus is made, online learning components will permanently stay in our education system. Only time would tell how the balance between online and classroom learning changes.

Grit trumps wit

During the interview, we were captivated by Mr. Lee’s memorable collection of thank-you cards written by students. “Receiving thank you cards and emails from former students sharing their updates are really gratifying to me as an educator.” Teaching in HKU for 5 years, Mr. Lee praised the good potential of HKU Students, yet the most memorable students are not those with the highest grades, but those that managed to overcome adversity. 

Mr. Lee believes that it takes short-term discipline and good time management to attain good grades in a course, but it takes grit, perpetual perseverance, and an indomitable will to deal with life crisises, learning his students’ success stories of surviving adversity has become an impetus for Mr. Lee to develop his pedagogy for the betterment of students.  

An epic journey upcoming

The remarkable honour from the UGC does not slow down Mr. Lee’s pace in his teaching journey. Instead, Mr. Lee is dedicated to create new initiatives for further advancing the knowledge of students and enriching their learning experience. He plans to develop a digital library over the next 3 years that houses a variety of resources related ethics and leadership. This will hopefully become a platform for Asian leaders to explore ideas and solutions to their business challenges, and also a business case bank for business education. Mr. Lee observes that existing business case studies on ethics and leadership are mostly Western-oriented and developing such resources based on Asia experiences is important. Attempting to create a new learning category within the academic circle is ambitious, but Mr. Lee looks to the future with vigor and optimism.

A team of two students from HKU Business School won the top 10 in World Asian Case Competition 2020. Themed on “Thriving business in the Asian region”, the competition requires participants to research on a self-picked business in the Asian region, featuring the business’s turning points, key success factors, future challenges and solutions, and takeaway lessons of the case. It provides participants with insights into a wide variety of companies in different industries in Asia, and enables them to sharpen their skills that will be useful for future case competition.

World Asian Case Competition (WACC) is an annual international case competition organised by the Academy of Asian Business. It was divided into three parts, namely (i) short proposal in around 400 words, (ii) final proposal in around 10,000 words, and (iii) final presentation for around 15 minutes.

Advisor:

Dr. Matthias BUEHLMAIER, BBA (IBGM) Programme Director, The University of Hong Kong

Team Member:

Mr. HO Wai Yiu Ryan, BBA(IBGM), Year 4
Mr. CHAN Chau Yin, BBA(Law)&LLB, Year 3
(This team comprises 1 more team member from other HKU faculty.)

Students sharing:

Through the studying of the fast-emerging markets and business in Asia, not only did we practise the skills that we learned, we also gained a more realistic and thorough understanding of different business opportunities in the vast Asian market. During the competition, we were able to sharpen our research skills and do an in-depth case study on Asian business model, which provided an opportunity for us to orientate ourselves in the business world. In a nutshell, the competition helped us to paint a broader and more colourful picture of the Asian market. We are grateful for having such valuable opportunity.

During times of economic uncertainty, what can you do to make your startup stand out in a crowd of competitors so that you can secure funding from investors?

On Saturday, October 10, 2020, more than 20 alumni entrepreneurs from various industries and business backgrounds attended the HKU Business School Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum to discuss how startup founders can leverage investors to scale up their business and unlock success.
Mr. Vincent Chan, Senior Managing Director and Head of Asia of Samena Capital and Mr. K.O. Chia, Director of Grace Financial were invited to share their insights on how to venture on a journey to being an effective entrepreneur, and hopefully the founder of the next unicorn.

They both emphasized that one of the critical success factors is people. Mr. Chan suggested that it is important to build a strong team who trust each other, and love working together as investors will not only consider your product, but also the structure and dynamics of your team. Mr. Chia also pointed out that the success of startup lies in its ability to uphold the core of your business and leverage on technology.

At the forum, alumni treasured the opportunity to network with speakers. Ms. Yina Chan (BBA (Acc&Fin) 2015), Co-Founder of Bamboo Network, learned that the true growth of a startup comes from within the team who is able to collaboratively turn a great idea into a profitable business, whereas the exponential growth comes from investors who usually look beyond monetary terms, such as the quality of the founding team and customer-engagement model. Mr. Harris Cheng (BEcon&Fin 2017), Co-Founder and CEO of Freehunter was thrilled to reconnect with Mr. K.O. Chia, who inspired him to pursue his startup dream when he was a year-3 student struggling with his career path.

We believe Hong Kong people have what it takes to become an entrepreneur and innovator – resilience, industriousness and discipline. To realise these potentials, HKU Business School is developing an entrepreneurial ecosystem that helps support our students and alumni and fuel our economic growth.

Mr. David S. Lee, Principal Lecturer of HKU Business School, received the University Grants Committee (UGC) Teaching Award 2020 under the category of Early Career Faculty Members for his outstanding teaching performance and excellent scholarly achievements. He is the first business discipline faculty member in Hong Kong to receive such prominent teaching honour.

The press release can be accessed at: https://www.hkubs.hku.hk/media/press-release/mr-david-s-lee-wins-ugc-teaching-award-2020.

The annual UGC Teaching Award was introduced in 2011 to honour those who excel in teaching in the UGC sector. The Award does not only recognise past and present teaching performance and achievements, but also the teachers’ leadership in and scholarly contribution to teaching and learning within and across universities. 

Out of the 34 winning teams, four teams from HKU Business School won the championships in 2020 PwC’s STEM Challenge. The Challenge attracted 1,700 teams from 100 universities from Hong Kong, China and other countries around the globe. It aims to raise the awareness among university students, to promote firm’s diversified digital services and to demonstrate PwC as a promising platform for the STEM talents to develop their long term career.

The Challenge was divided into two rounds (First round – submission of business solutions; Final round – presentation). Both rounds were conducted via online channels due to Covid-19.  Participating teams were required to choose one out of 12 topics under four major categories including Customer Experience, Operation Management, Risk Control and Product Innovation and came up with business solutions under the selected topic. Shortlisted teams researched with professional coaching from mentors and worked on the final presentation.

Sharing from the champion teams:

Team 1: 後浪中的alpha
Risk predict model based on IoT transaction data (基於物聯網的交易數據風險預警模型)

Team members:
Ms. YAO Jiaxin, BBA(Acc&Fin), Year 3
(Remarks: The team comprises two more members from other universities in Hong Kong.)

“The PwC’s STEM Challenge is an innovative case competition aimed at unleashing students’ STEM potential by developing diversified digital products and services under various scenarios. Among four categories and 12 topics about different aspects of digital innovation, our team chose Risk Predict Model based on IoT Transaction Data, which was specifically used in supply chain finance. Through joining this Challenge, we developed a deeper understanding of building smarter finance model by using different new technologies, which is also a global trend for us to get used to.

Two key takeaways:
1.    Do not be afraid of big challenges, break them down into small and manageable steps, significant changes and big rewards are possible.
2.    Rely on teamwork, team members from different backgrounds can provide us with opportunities to develop our product from multi-angles which increase the overall competitiveness of the product.”

Team 2: BitDynamics
Financial Companies Digital Transformation Strategy Researching (金融公司數字化轉型研究-從戰略到技術)

Team members: 
Ms. HO Cheuk Yan Sabrina, BBA(Acc&Fin), Year 4
Mr. LIU Chun Kit, BBA(IS), Year 3
Mr. WONG Pak Ho, BBA(IS), Year 4
(Remarks: The team comprises one more member from other universities in Hong Kong.)

“It was our great pleasure to win the championship in the 2020 PwC’s STEM Challenge. The journey was fruitful and rewarding. Throughout the Challenge, we were encouraged to study the Hong Kong FinTech landscape and banking digital transformation trends. This led us to the realisation of the huge potential benefits that FinTech could bring to the banking industry. The task of formulating a digital transformation solution for banks also provided opportunities for us to learn the problem solving and strategic planning skills. All in all, we would like to thank PwC and our mentors for the opportunity and support.”

Team 3: The Fast and The Curious
RPA (Robotic Process Automation) technology in epidemic age (疫情時期的機器人流程化技術)

Team Members:      
Mr. KALA Divyansh, BEcon&Fin, Year 3
Mr. LOHIA Saharsh, BBA(IS), Year 3
Ms. SOOD Preksha, BEcon&Fin, Year 3
(Remarks: The team comprises one more member from other HKU faculty.)

“The journey of our team, The Fast and The Curious, in the 2020 PwC’s STEM challenge was great and fulfilling. This Challenge provided us with a great platform to build and showcase our knowledge. It also allowed us to realise how RPA technology helped to reduce the risks during the pandemic. Throughout the Challenge, we received full support from PwC and our mentor who helped us set the direction for our solutions and eventually emerge as the winner.”

Team 4: STEMnovators
Lightweight dynamic cyber risk dashboard (輕量級動態網絡風險儀表應用)

Team Members: 
Mr. CHEUNG Yik Fung, BBA(Acc&Fin), Year 4
Ms. HUI Yi Lam Yvonne, BBA(Law)&LLB, Year 4
Ms. LEUNG Gianna Wai Tak, BBA(Acc&Fin), Year 4
(Remarks: The team comprises one more member, Mr. KOO Chak Yin, who is HKU Business School alumni currently studying a Master programme in HKU.)

“Before joining this Challenge, even though we were interested in learning more about cybersecurity, we had no idea how and where to start. After joining this Challenge, we received valuable advice and updates from our mentor regarding cybersecurity. Our mentor also gave us feedback on our drafted dashboards which alleviated our queries and concerns on cyber risk management. The process from data research to dashboards design, and lastly to the making of website simulator was surely one of the most challenging yet rewarding experiences we have ever had so far.”

Learn more:
https://www.instagram.com/pwc_cnhk_campus/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/2020-pwcs-stem-challenge-participants-reward-mentors-tracy-mak/

On December 10, 2019, the Vice-President and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning) announced the recipients of the University’s Teaching Excellence Awards 2019. Mr David Lee and Mr David Bishop in the Faculty of Business and Economics received the HKU Teaching Innovation Award (Team Award) for FinTech Ethics & Risk (HKUx’s FinTech Massive Online Open Course).

This year has delivered a series of challenges that have never been seen before. Part of the struggle has been trying to deliver world-class teaching without many of the face-to-face elements students are used to. To support student learning during the Covid-19 pandemic, technology has been adopted to deliver everything from lectures, to tutorials, workshops, forums, study groups, assessments, and guest speakers. The weapons of choice? Think of all the platforms used in the business and personal world, from Zoom to Microsoft Teams, and all the way to YouTube, WeChat, WhatsApp, and Facebook.

Positivity in the face of Covid-19

Many students say that regardless of the situation, the outcomes have been a positive during the past semester. “Overall, I think my online learning experience was great because I got to learn and review all the videos in my own pace which provides me with great flexibility in my daily schedule,” says Chloe Yip, a BBA (Accounting and Finance) second year student. The feedback was shared by Martin Ngan, a second year student in BBA(Law)&LLB double-degree programme: “Online learning was an interesting experience. It is convenient as we could attend our lecture as usual through Zoom or watch the recorded lecture anytime. Online learning is very convenient at the same time as we can arrange our timetable flexibly without being restrained by time and location,” he says.

What did the professors think about teaching in the midst of a pandemic? For Dr. Olivia Leung, Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning) at HKU Business School, the key is to utilise the power of EdTech to deliver good outcomes. “A high quality online course is engaging, interactive, and effective in supporting students,” she says. “Compared to face-to-face courses, online courses require teaching materials to be more accessible, concise, logical, and user-friendly. To build a supportive and positive online learning community with students, teachers need to create their online teaching presence to add the human element,” Dr. Leung adds.

Technology takes time

In a dynamic environment when everything changes by the week, there are always going to be teething pains. “Online learning blurred the lines between the comforts and relaxation of home with the responsibilities and pressures creating a somewhat continuous unsettling stress,” says student Antonio Velasco, a non-local BBA third year student.

When assessing online learning, Martin says it is ideal for things involving many people. “For group project discussion, we usually meet through Skype anyway. As most of us are busy meeting online is the best way to gather everyone. It is efficient with no time or venue constraint, and we can share our screen easily which facilitates the meeting,” he says.

Teachers and tutors could schedule live online office hour slots to meet with each student or each project group.

Dr. Olivia Leung

Focus on new skills

In Dr. Leung’s opinion, the online teaching process requires some retraining. “Staff who did not have much prior video lecturing, recording or editing experience took some time to equip themselves with these skills in the beginning of this past semester. Other than technological challenges, some staff find it difficult to assess how much students have learnt and enhance students’ morale when face-to-face lectures are not possible,” she says. “To enhance morale, teachers could actively approach students online to initiate communication with students and to listen to their needs. For example, teachers and tutors could schedule live online office hour slots to meet with each student or each project group,” Dr. Leung adds.

At the end of the day, there were humorous situations that were able to shine a light on the dark. “You must be extremely careful when you are having an online tutorial at home as I have always been interrupted by parents or siblings, asking me to have dinner, soup, or fruit with a loud voice while I am answering questions,” says Martin with a laugh.