EdUHK Wins Five Awards at the International Innovation and Invention Competition | The Education University of Hong Kong Foundation

The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) received five awards at the International Innovation and Invention Competition held in November. The winning innovations, covering early childhood development, drug rehabilitation, language and music education, and cognitive training, were awarded four gold medals and one silver.

Apart from the winning projects developed by EdUHK researchers, an innovative product designed by a student-led start-up was also recognised for its outstanding performance. Founded by alumna Christine Chan Ka-kei and her team, Lighten Dementia is one of the winning start-ups supported by the University’s Education and Social Entrepreneurs Fund Scheme. By designing and offering a series of localised game-based cognitive training products, the social venture wishes to remove social barriers for people with dementia and foster inter-generational harmony.

Awarded innovations included:

Gold Medals

1. The Chinese Inventory of Children’s Socioemotional Competence (CICSEC)

Principal investigators: Professor Kevin Chung Kien-hoa and Dr Ian Lam Chun-bun, Associate Professor, Department of Early Childhood Education
It is an evidence-based, culturally responsive assessment system to evaluate Chinese children’s level of socioemotional competence. The system offers analysis from four perspectives, including cognitive control, emotion expressivity, empathy and prosocial behaviours and emotion regulation. Whereby, raise teachers’ and parents’ awareness in children’s condition and provide comprehensive interventional supports to children with socioemotional problems.

2. Drug-Related Attentional Bias in Drug Abusers and Rehabilitated Drug Abusers

Principal investigator: Professor Leung Chi-hung, Professor (Practice), Department of Special Education and Counselling
A system which integrates eye-tracking technology and assessments to measure implicit attentional bias in rehabilitated/rehabilitating drug abusers. Different from the traditional paper-based evaluation, this is the ﬁrst project in Hong Kong using computerised implicit psychological tasks to assess drug abuse and abuse rehabilitation progress.

3. CKC Strokes – An Online Practice Tool for Chinese Strokes Writing

Principal investigator: Dr Tse Ka-ho, Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Chinese Language Studies
A toolkit to facilitate Chinese learners to practise and memorise Chinese characters. It is the first tool in the Chinese learning community containing the observation and recording functions. Learners can record their writing process, either in simplified or traditional Chinese, for self-review, identification and practice.

4. Lighten Dementia Game Set (Donut, Tea Bag, Fly)

Principal investigator: Alumna Christine Chan of the Postgraduate Diploma in Education (Primary) programme
It is a game-based training set specially designed for elderly with dementia in Asian communities. The training set fosters social engagement among elders through Cognitive Stimulation Therapy, which helps slow down the progression of Dementia and maintain cognitive functions.

Silver Medals

5. A Mouthpiece with a Supporting Windway

Principal investigator: Dr Koji Matsunobu, Assistant Professor, Department of Cultural and Creative Arts
This innovative mouthpiece is designed for musical instruments with a tubular structure, such as flutes. It helps direct the air stream towards the blow edge of the flute’s top opening to exercise easy sound production; as well as enable players to position their chin and cover, or partially cover, the top opening to vary the ‘pitch bending effect’. This makes pitch bending possible in musical instruments, like recorders and flutes.