Good morning!

On behalf of all faculty members and the staff team of SSE, please allow me to extend the warmest welcome to our 2020 cohort! I would like to congratulate all the freshmen not only for your achievement in successful admission to The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, but also for your perseverance in the preparation for the College Entrance Exam, known as Gaokao, under the shadow of COVID-19. The year 2020 is destined to be historical, and you are not only the witness but also the conqueror—over the mountain of unpredictability and the hardship. You all deserve a big applause! We are proud of you!

The year 2020 is also a milestone for Shenzhen. Last week on August 26th, Shenzhen has just celebrated its 40th anniversary as the Special Economic Zone. Within the past four decades, this city has grown from a small village on the southern border to an international metropolis with a current population of over 10 million. The transformation to the frontier of innovation and technology has attracted talents from all over the world, who are enchanted by the pioneering spirit of Shenzhen, and cherish the opportunity to contribute to this city. Along this development, SSE has recruited a team of top-notch world-class faculty members, including a team of international award winners, Academicians, and senior scholars.

Over the past 5 years, SSE has established 8 undergraduate and 6 postgraduate programmes. I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to SSE faculty and staff, who have devoted to the establishment and development of these programmes. Also, I am happy to see some of these programs have spurred the creation of two new schools for the university: School of Life and Health Science (LHS) in 2019 and School of Data Science (SDS) in this year. The following programs still remain in SSE: Electronic Information Engineering, EIE major, including the Computer Engineering Stream and Electrical Engineering Stream; New Energy Science and Engineering, NSE major; and Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, MAT, which is one of the most popular undergraduate majors across the university.

Meanwhile, SSE never stops the pace of moving forward. We are determined to improve the disciplines in all directions. To expand the scope, SSE will introduce the Chemistry Undergraduate Program in the coming year. We will also kick off other new postgraduate programs including MPhil/PhD in Mathematics, MSc in Communications Engineering, both in 2021, which will greatly enrich our existing programs. More will come in the pipeline, including the Physics Program and Robotics Program.

Apart from teaching, SSE is the school leading the highest number of research projects in the University, including the National Key R&D project, the Guandong Province Key R&D project, and three Guangdong Zhujiang Team Projects, more than any other schools. In the first half year of 2020, even with the pandemic, SSE faculty have secured 23 new research projects from different government agencies. Along with research funding, we have established diversified research groups, ranging from medical imaging, computer vision applications, cloud gaming, robotics, to 5G/6G mobile networks and IC design, to smart grid and network economics, to advanced materials and devices, to differential equations and finance mathematics, just to name a few. All these groups recruit undergraduate research assistants, where Undergraduate Research Award is established to encourage you to be engaged in research under the supervision of our SSE faculty members. With such a long list of research projects on-going, SSE is a perfect place for you to earn the valuable research experience, which will be beneficial and sometimes critical to your after-college career and graduate school applications.

SSE owns an outstanding group of talents in the domain of science and engineering, thus will benefit greatly from the unique geographical location in Shenzhen and the Greater Bay area, which is the innovation center for science and engineering. From the strategical perspective, the Greater Bay Area is established aiming to be the “Chinese San Francisco Bay Area”, since Shenzhen is usually considered as the “Silicon Valley in China”. Therefore, like what Stanford University has done to the Silicon Valley and to The San Francisco Bay Area, The CUHK Shenzhen, especially our SSE, is determined to be the engine of innovation and entrepreneurship within Shenzhen and the Greater Bay Area.

To fulfil this vision, SSE held The First Stanford-CUHKSZ Technology Innovation Forum two years ago, with the theme of Innovative Maker Culture. One of the products of this Forum is the foundation of the Maker Lab. Run by SSE, the Maker Lab is expected to promote innovative engineering mindsets, as well as the interaction among our University, Stanford University, and the Shenzhen City. Very recently, sponsored by the Maker Lab, our SSE students just won the prestigious national level prize in IC design competition.

Dear freshmen, here, you are about to start a journey, a journey that will influence your whole life. Being in the university of creativity and the city of innovation, it is imperative for you to seize the opportunities and try new things; to embrace the changes and adapt yourself to this new environment; to make wise choices and be responsible to yourself. Last but not the least, it is vital for you to fully explore Shenzhen and the Greater Bay Area, to create a better yourself!

To end this speech, I would like to quote a saying from the SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk: “I could either watch it happen or be a part of it”. So, don’t just stand by and watch the growth of SSE and Shenzhen, let’s be part of it!

Thank you!