Press Release

(Hong Kong, 4 July 2023) Gifted students from Hong Kong won a gold award at the "Infomatrix World Finals 2023" international computer project competition held at the end of June 2023. 

Historically Significant STEAM Competitions

This longstanding STEAM competition brings together the world's best IT students to promote global cross-cultural exchange. The competition is organised under multiple categories, including Programming, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Computer Art, and Science Project, in which student members of the Hong Kong Academy of Gifted Education (HKAGE) participated for the first time and won a gold award.

Due to the pandemic, the two participants representing the HKAGE did not travel in person to Mexico, where the competition was held, but participated online. They presented their research paper on 24 June, and the results were announced on 3 July. Out of 260 participating teams worldwide, only 15% of the teams received a platinum or gold award. For the Science Project category, there were only three platinum or gold award-winning teams, with the HKAGE team being one of them.

Using Science to Solve Social Problems 

The gold award recipients, Tiffany SUEN and Mary ZHANG from St. Paul's Co-educational College studied the collapse of trees under different wind speeds using a mechanical model of trees and computational fluid dynamics. They also evaluated the risk of tree collapse under typical typhoon wind speeds. Their research provides a deeper understanding of the relationship between urban planning and greenery to reduce the potential danger of tree collapse in the city.

Dr WONG Kam Yiu Jimmy, Executive Director of the HKAGE, commended the two students for their concern about the environment and their application of science in urban planning to mitigate the damage caused by fallen trees during the typhoon season in Hong Kong. He hoped that more students would transform their passion for STEAM into innovative ideas and contribute to society in the future.

Photos：

The Science Project conducted by Tiffany SUEN and Mary ZHANG is to explore the wind speed at which trees will collapse by studying tree mechanical models and computational fluid dynamics.
Tiffany SUEN (left) and Mary ZHANG (right) share their Science Project at the HKAGE before the competition.
Tiffany SUEN	Mary ZHANG
Tiffany SUEN and Mary ZHANG, gold award winners of the "Informatrix World Finals 2023", taking a photo with Dr Jimmy WONG, Executive Director of the Hong Kong Academy for Gifted Education.	The award certificate

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