On Saturday, 20 May 2017, the City University of Hong Kong (CityU) organised Computer Science Challenge (CSC) – an exciting ‘learn-while-you-play’ contest for secondary school students in the city. Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) seeks to promote STEM education and help unleash the potential of the next generation. Partnering with CityU, ASTRI was a Platinum Sponsor in the CSC contest that tested the students’ ability and knowledge in different areas of computer science. Students learnt to code, explored computational thinking skills, and had fun with mathematics!

Dr Frank Tong, CEO of ASTRI, witnessed the enthusiastic performance from the talented students, and attended the award presentation ceremony. 180 students from 66 secondary schools competed for the 20 prizes and the championship in the contest. In its second year, the CSC contest was a fun challenge for the young learners – with two-member teams representing various schools, it was a very vibrant and competitive event. The teams took on three types of challenges: algebra game challenge, ‘save the animal’ programming challenge, and ‘Robot A-maze-in’ challenge.

We live in a digital world – with computers impacting all aspects of our lives from banking, medicine, entertainment to retail. While our students surely know how to use computers, they rarely learn how it works. To lead Hong Kong in the 21st century, students must understand the principles and practices of computer science, in order to innovate, succeed and thrive. The CSC challenge sought to promote the students’ interest in computer science as well as in the overall field of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).

Teams discussing how to tackle challenges

Dr Frank Tong, CEO of ASTRI (middle) presented the prize to one of the awarding teams

Dr Tan Chee Wei, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science (1^st from the right) introduced the challenge mechanics to Dr Frank Tong (1^st from the left), Hon Charles Mok, JP (2^nd from the right) and another guest.