I would like to thank President Zhang and the University of Hong Kong, for conferring on me this Honorary Doctor in Science degree.
Born in Beijing and raised in Taiwan, I am also 香港女婿 and the husband of a Hong Kong U alumna. I have long admired the resilience and resourcefulness of Hongkongers, who have always successfully evolved and thrived while overcoming problems.
The world needs problem solvers. Forty years ago, most countries were concerned about over-population and the scarcity of goods and resources. Now those concerns are largely gone and are replaced by challenges of global warming and pollution. What does not change is that the world always needs new leaders with new skills and ideas to solve problems.
One hundred years ago, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the father of modern China, called the University of Hong Kong his “intellectual birthplace”. This university has a long tradition of educating leaders in all walks of life --commerce, government, medicine, engineering, science, arts, laws. The constant interactions of diverse expertise at the personal level on this campus is a potent formula for producing great leaders, ideas, innovations, and enterprises that can help to solve the world’s problems at hand and to solve other new problems that humans will face in the future.
With that in mind, I look forward to seeing continuing success by the University of Hong Kong in education and discovery to benefit the University and the people of Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area, and to help create a more peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable world.
