Live Report: PolyU – THE Innovation & Impact Summit - Conference Day 1

[Sponsored article] Welcome to the first morning of the two-day inaugural Times Higher Education (THE) Innovation & Impact Summit, at Hotel ICON, co-hosted by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) and THE. Featuring keynote speeches and a series of thought-provoking panel discussions under the theme of "Powering Universities' Economic and Social Impact through Innovative Research and Teaching, the summit is a key celebratory event of PolyU's 80th anniversary.

World-class speakers include high-profile innovators, entrepreneurs and policy-makers including Charles Chen, Founder of the Yidan Prize and Core Founder of Tencent Holdings Limited; Hermann Hauser, Co-Founder of Amadeus Capital Partners; Candace Johnson, Founder/Co-Founder SES, Loral-Teleport Europe, Europe Online, VATM, GTWN, OWNSAT, Success Europe; Greg Simon, Former Executive Director, White House Cancer Moonshot Task Force and Nicholas Yang, Secretary for Innovation and Technology, HKSAR government. Other influential higher education figures to address the Summit include leaders of renowned institutions from Australia, England, Finland, France, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan, Singapore, Spain, the United States.

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16:59

As we come to the end of the first day of what has been an insightful, knowledge-sharing and inspiring conference, John Gill, Editor, Times Higher Education summarises the presentations and panel discussions with the view that happiness and doing things that benefit society is an important measure of achievement.

Agreeing with the observation, Timothy W. Tong, President, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University says a key goal of PolyU is to help students be productive contributors to society. "This is part of a university's role to help people to be problem solvers," says Tong, bringing to an end the first day of the summit.   

Please join us again tomorrow for the second day of the inaugural Times Higher Education (THE) Innovation & Impact Summit, co-hosted by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) and THE for what promises to be another day of fascinating insights, keynote speeches and a series of thought-provoking panel discussions.

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16:45

On the topic of climate change, Johnson says satellites are helping to give scientists the tools to develop solutions. In the future, Johnson expects to see more collaboration between man and machines. Johnson then adds entrepreneurs can be nurtured, but one of the challenges that universities face, is receiving students too late. "It's like playing the piano, the earlier you start the better," says Johnson. "You need to learn to think based on your intuition, be inspired and not afraid to look at things in a different way," she adds before revealing she goes into hibernation before every satellite launch.