Speech at Foundation Stone Laying Ceremony of Multi-media Building of the City University of Hong Kong

26 March 2008 (Wednesday)

Foundation Stone Laying Ceremony of the Multi-media Building of the City University of Hong Kong

Speech by Mr. Michael M Y Suen, GBS, JP
Secretary for Education

Mr Chung (Shui-ming), Professor (Richard) Ho, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

It gives me great pleasure to be here today to officiate at the Foundation Stone Laying Ceremony of the City University of Hong Kong’s Multi-media Building .

CityU is a dynamic university committed to offering whole person education.  Through its innovative and all-round education, CityU has equipped its students not only with the knowledge and skills in their chosen fields, but the ability to think critically, make sound judgment and appreciate our heritage and culture.  The broad-minded and dedicated graduates whom CityU has produced over the years have helped Hong Kong to maintain its competitiveness in the international arena.

The achievement of CityU in the field of creative media has been particularly remarkable.  With a history of less than 10 years, its School of Creative Media is committed to nurturing a new generation of multi-media professionals and researchers to provide world class creative products with contents drawing on our cultural root and local heritage.  The high standard of the students and staff of the School is well recognized by the creative industries in Hong Kong worldwide.  It is indeed encouraging to learn that they have already won more than 30 awards from international film and video festivals, competitions and professional institutes so far.

The new Multi-media Building will capitalize on CityU’s niche in the creative media field.  With state-of-the-art infrastructure, the Multi-media Building will house sophisticated audio and visual equipment to support specialized teaching and research activities.  It will also serve as a first-class laboratory for conducting research on how people interact with new media technologies, and for generating knowledge for advancing the technology and design for future systems.  I am sure the Multi-media Building will further strengthen CityU’s role in the creative media field, thereby enhancing Hong Kong ’s regional competitiveness in this respect.

Last but not the least, I congratulate CityU and all those who have contributed to bringing this project into fruition, on their vision and commitment to promoting creative media education and research in Hong Kong .  I look forward to seeing the great landmark here in a few years’ time.

Thank you.