Bulletin Spring 1990

Sir Quo-wei Lee Honoured Sir Quo -we i Lee, chairman of the University Council since 1982, was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws by the University of Hong Kong on 22nd March. A leading local banker, Sir Quo-wei has a highly distinguished record of public service. He was a member of the Legislative and the Executive Councils, and has been chairman of the Hong Kong Heart Foundation and the Hong Kong Kidney Foundation. He was also chairman of the Education Commission and has made significant contribution towards the development of local education. Sir Quo-wei was awarded the CBE in 1977 and knighted in 1988. Vice-Chancellor Honoured Professor Charles K. Kao, the Vice-Chancellor, has been elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering, USA. The National Academy of Engineering is a private honorary organization established in 1964. Through the National Research Council, it advises the US federal government on matters pertaining to science and technology. The academy also recognizes distinguished engineers, sponsors engineering programmes aimed at meeting national needs, and encourages education and research. The academy honours only those who have made 'important contributions to engineering theory and practice', or those who have demonstrated 'unusual accomplishment in new and developing fields of technology'. Prof. Kao is famed for his pioneering work on optical fibres. His research has helped reshape the whole of the world's telecommunication networks. Fong Yun Wah Hall Opened The Fong Yun Wah Hall was formally opened by Mr. John Higginbotham, Commissioner for Canada, and Mr. Fong Yun Wah, MBE, JP, chairman of the Fong Shu Fook Tong Foundation, on 15th March. The new hall, with a total floor area of 282 square metres, has been built with a generous donation of HK$1.3 million from the Fong Shu Fook Tong Foundation. It is an extension to the Fong Shu Chuen Building which houses the New Asia - Yale-in-China Chinese Language Centre, and will provide additional teaching facilities and student/staff amenities for the language centre. First User of IBM's RIOS System This university has become Southeast Asia's first user of the RIOS workstation, th e latest I BM product, through an ‘Early User Agreement' with IBM. Initial experimentation with RIOS carried out by the University's Engineering Programme shows that the model excels in speed performance. It can run 20 times faster than a high-speed personal compute r and can be extremely useful in researches on computer- aided design, multimedia, chemistry and physics calculations, large systems simulation, and artificial intelligence. Optical Fibres Used to Link up Computers on Campus The University has linked up the computing networks in the Department of Electronic Engineering and the Computer Services Centre (CSC) through an optical fibre link. The 400-metre long, six-core optical fibre is ducted through a new cable-ducting route at the University and has initially been routed to Mong Kwok Ping Computer Communication Laboratory at the Department of Electronic Engineering, where a pair of fibres was fusion spliced for connection to the Departmental Computing Laboratory. Three-way communications among the CSC, Mong Kwok Ping I NEWS 8