Keynote I

Date: 29 August 2024 (Thurs)
Time: 9:30 - 10:30 am
Venue: V322, PolyU

Prof. Zijian Zheng

Associate Director of Research Institute for Intelligent Wearable Systems (RI-IWEAR)
Associate Director of University Research Facility in Materials Characterization and Device Fabrication (UMF)
Chair Professor of Soft Materials and Devices
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Title: A journey to soft and permeable electronic research

Abstract
Soft electronics plays an important role in the realization of health monitoring and rehabilitation, Internet of Things (IoTs), and soft robotics. In the past two decades, the research focuses have been devoted to developing soft electronics based on thin film materials and architectures that are non-permeable to air, moisture, and liquid. It is recently found that permeability is essential to the chronic biocompatibility of these soft devices, especially those closely attached on soft skins and tissues. This talk will discuss our research journey on developing soft and permeable electronics for wearable, skin-attached, and implantable applications. We will discuss the development of fibrous conductive materials, and their applications as building blocks for fabricating highly flexible, foldable, stretchable, and permeable electronic devices and systems, and how these soft systems are applied for health, medical, and training applications.

Biography
Prof. Zijian Zheng is currently Chair Professor of Soft Materials and Devices at the Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology, Associate Director of Research Institute for Intelligent Wearable Systems, Lead Investigator of Research Institute for Smart Energy at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). His research interests include surface and polymer science, nanofabrication, flexible and wearable electronics, energy conversion and storage. Prof. Zheng received his B. Eng. in Chemical Engineering at Tsinghua University in 2003, PhD in Chemistry at University of Cambridge in 2007, and postdoctoral training at Northwestern University in 2008-2009. He joined PolyU as Assistant Professor in 2009, and was promoted to tenured Associate Professor in 2013 and then Professor in 2017. He has published more than 200 papers in journals such as Science, Nat. Mater., Nat. Comm., Adv. Mate., JACS, Angew. Chem.. He also files more than 40 patents and is recipient of more than 20 academic awards. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of EcoMat (impact factor: 10.7), a flagship open-access journal in green energy and environment published by Wiley. He is Founding Member of The Young Academy of Sciences of Hong Kong (2018), Chang Jiang Chair Professor by the Ministry of Education of China (2020), Senior Research Fellow of the University Grant Commission of Hong Kong (2021), Fellow of International Association of Advanced Materials (FIAAM, 2021), Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC, 2022), and Young Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering Science (YFHKEng, 2024). He is awardee of the inaugural Hong Kong Engineering Science and Technology Award.

Keynote II

Date: 30 August 2024 (Fri)
Time: 9:00 - 10:00 am
Venue: Grand Ballroom, 2/F, New World Millennium Hong Kong Hotel

Dr Xiaodong He

IEEE Fellow, CAAI Fellow
Vice President of JD.com
Head of JD Smart Customer Service Product Department
Affiliate Professor at the University of Washington
Fellow of Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence

Title: Generative AI: Technical Frontier and Industry-Scale Practices

Abstract
The report will introduce the underlying technologies of artificial intelligence, including advancements in AI foundation large language models and multimodal large models. Using JD's Industry Practices as examples, it will discuss disruptive innovations in content production, services, and marketing, particularly breakthroughs in multimodal digital humans and cutting-edge explorations in embodied intelligence. The report not only explains the development trends of fundamental technologies but also combines industry case studies to provide insights and reflections on the large-scale industrial application of AI technologies.

Biography
Dr He Xiaodong is a world-class AI scientist, who has received a bachelor degree from Tsinghua University, a MS degree from Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a PhD degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Before joining JD. com, Dr He Xiaodong served as the Principal Researcher and Research Manager of the DLTC at Microsoft Research, Redmond in the US. He has published more than 200 theses related to artificial intelligence areas including natural language processing and multi-modal intelligence on language and vision, which have been cited over 50,000 times by Google Scholar, with his top 10 theses cited over 15,000 times. He has also won a slew of awards such as ACL Outstanding Paper Award and IEEE SPS Young Author Best Paper Award. He once served as the Chair of IEEE Seattle Section, and held an editorial position at several top journals. In 2021, he was included in the AI 2000 World Most Influential Scholar List, which was released by Tsinghua University-Chinese Academy of Engineering Knowledge Intelligence Joint Research Center. He was selected in three areas, including natural language processing, speech recognition, information retrieval and recommendation, making him one of the only 60 scientists across the world who were included in the list. After joining JD.com in 2018, Dr He Xiaodong has set up a series of intelligent man-machine interaction technology laboratories in Beijing, Chengdu and Silicon Valley, as well as an Intelligent Customer Service Product Department to promote the industrialization of technology. With his team, he has developed the first large-scale commercially applied emotional intelligent customer service system, which has served more than 500 million users as JD Retail’s core system, and achieved many bench-marking cases and successful practices.