New appointments
Professor Alain Bensoussan has been appointed as Chair Professor of Risk and Decision Analysis in the Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management, assuming duty on 2 January. Professor Bensoussan is an international expert in risk evaluation and management, stochastic control, probability and stochastic processes. He received his PhD degree from the University of Paris. He has served as Chair Professor of Risk and Decision Analysis at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He concurrently holds the titles of World Class University Distinguished Professor at the Ajou University and Emeritus Professor at the University of Paris Dauphine.

Professor Jan Servaes has been appointed as Chair Professor of Communication and concurrently as Head of the Department of Media and Communication, assuming duty on 2 January. Professor Servaes received his PhD from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, and has served as Professor and UNESCO Chair in Communication for Sustainable Social Change at the University of Massachusetts. His research interests include international and development communication; ICT and media policies; intercultural communication and language; participation and social change; and human rights and conflict management.

Professor Ma Yue has been appointed as Chair Professor of Finance in the Department of Economics and Finance, assuming duty on 2 January. Professor Ma is an international expert in banking and exchange rate policy. He received his PhD from the University of Manchester and has served as Professor and Head of the Economics Department at Lingnan University. Prior to that, he was a tenured Reader at Stirling University in Scotland.

President's Lecture Series
Professor Jianliang Leon Zhao, Head of the Department of Information Systems and Chair Professor of Information Systems, will deliver a lecture in the President's Lecture Series: Excellence in Academia on 25 January. His talk – titled "The 2008 Financial Tsunami and Future Prospects: Information Technology as Cause and Remedy of Financial Risks" – will include a systematic exposition of research on the topic.

Naming ceremony
In recognition of the generous contribution to CityU by Mr David T F Chow, Founder cum Director of Easy Power Limited, Lecture Theatre 4 will be named the "Mr & Mrs David T F Chow Lecture Theatre". Mr and Mrs Chow, Professor Way Kuo, University President, and Professor Roderick Wong Sue-cheun, Vice-President (Development & External Relations), will officiate at a naming ceremony to be held on 19 January.

Social Enterprise New Year Festival
The first Social Enterprise New Year Festival at CityU will be held on 28 and 29 January in the James Liu Multi-Purpose Room to celebrate the Lunar New Year with students, staff, faculty and the neighbouring community. More than 20 social enterprises will promote and sell their products or services at the festival.

City Literary Awards
The competition for the 8th City Literary Awards is now open for entries. The theme is "Environmental Humanity". The competition, organised by CityU, is aimed at encouraging youngsters to write. It is part of the City Literary Festival, which seeks to promote the literary culture of Hong Kong and Macau. For details of the City Literary Festival 2013 and the City Literary Awards, please visit http://www.cityu.edu.hk/ctspc/literature.

Kudos
Professor Paul Lam Kwan-sing, Vice-President (Student Affairs), Chair Professor of Biology, and Director of the State Key Laboratory in Marine Pollution (SKLMP); Dr Michael Lam Hon-wah, Associate Professor of the Department of Biology and Chemistry; and Dr James Lam Chung-wah, Scientific Officer of SKLMP, together with the scientists from Nanjing University, have won the 2012 Second Class Award from the Ministry of Education in the Natural Science category at the Higher Education Outstanding Scientific Research Output Awards (Science and Technology).The award was for a joint research project on new pollutants.

Mr Mok Ho-leung, a 2012 graduate of BSc (Hons) Computer Science, has received a Merit Award for his project titled "Mobile Live Broadcasting Application" in the Asia Pacific Information and Communications Technology Awards 2012 (APICTA 2012) held in Brunei in December. Of the 27 entries from 24 Hong Kong organisations that competed in APICTA 2012, seven won Merit Awards. The Hong Kong Computer Society invited Mr Mok to enter his project in the competition after it received the Gold Award in the 2012 Amway Pan-Pearl River Delta Region Universities IT Project Competition and the Merit Prize in the Hong Kong Electronic Industries Association's Innovation & Technology Project Competition 2012.