Abstract

This talk will review our work with Cambridge (HKU-Cambridge AI to Advance Well-being and Society Research Platform, or HKU -Cambridge AI-WiSe) over the past few years. It is divided into three parts. First, we will briefly introduce our mission on AI for Social Good. Second, we will summarize the progress that HKU -Cambridge AI-WiSe made, which covers: (1) Air pollution estimation and prediction, (2) AI-driven socio-economic study, and (3) AI-driven biomarker identification and drug repurposing for the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease. Third, two case studies will be presented, covering Covid-19 infection studies in China, and AI-driven drug repurposing for the treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease. Our work on Covid Infection (published on Nature Scientific Reports in 2022) is the result of a joint research collaboration between Victor Li, Jacqueline Lam and Jon Crowcroft. This talk will be jointly presented by Jacqueline Lam and Victor Li online.

Bio: Jacqueline C.K. Lam is an Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, the University of Hong Kong, also the Co-Director of HKU -AI WiSe, which embeds the HKU -Cambridge Clean Energy and Environment Research Platform, and the HKU -Cambridge AI to Advance Well-being and Society Research Platform. She is currently visiting the Department hosted by Prof. Jon Crowcroft. She was the Hughes Hall Visiting Fellow; and has been the Visiting Senior Research Fellow of the Energy Policy Research Group, Judge Business School at Cambridge since 2013. Jacqueline was a Visiting Scholar based in MIT CEEPR in 2019, also at MIT EECS in Dec 2021. Her current research focusses on the interface between AI, air pollution and public health, also between AI and the Alzheimer’s Disease. Recently, she has won a prestigious US National Academy of Medicine – Healthy Longevity Catalyst Award 2021 on AI-driven drug repurposing, in collaboration with PI Prof. Victor OK Li, together with other members from HKU , HK, and Tel Aviv University, Israel.

Victor O.K. Li is Chair of Information Engineering and Cheng Yu-Tung Professor in Sustainable Development at the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) of the University of Hong Kong, and Director of HKU -AI WiSe. He was the Head of EEE , and Assoc. Dean (Research) of Engineering at HKU . His research interests include big data, AI, optimization techniques, and interdisciplinary environment and health studies. He received SB, SM, EE and ScD degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977, 1979, 1980, and 1981, respectively. Previously, he was Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, California, USA , and Director of the USC Communication Sciences Institute. He is a Fellow of the HKAES , IEEE, IAE , and HKIE , and a UK Royal Academy of Engineering Senior Visiting Fellow.