Ir HON Chi-keung Chief Executive and Secretary

With 2022 drawing to a close, we are gathering momentum in embarking on a series of initiatives in pursuit of the Presidential theme “Proud to be Engineers”.

The flagship event will be the Hong Kong Engineers Week 2023 which will take place from 3 to 11 March next year. With a key message of “Our Future. We Engineer 未來 . 一同 創造”, the event will encompass an impressive combination of activities, including carnival, public lecture series, an international conference, the HKIE Grand Award presentation, and a Fundraising Cycling and Run. While these activities mix to work towards one goal, which is to promote and uplift the image and visibility of the engineers to the public and more particularly the young sector of the community, the recurring motif that unifies them is the pride that engineers take in having contributed so much to the society. As a member of the HKIE family, you may wish to add to the efforts of enhancing the prestige of engineers by supporting the Week. You are welcome to check out the sponsorship package here or make enquiries for the details via hkew2023@hkstrategies.com.

Readers who follow us closely on social media should have got acquainted with the Institution’s new KOL, a new family member of the HKIE. Named “Hally”, it is a beaver lookalike who works as an AI assistant to engineers.

Hally has endeared itself to the engineering professionals with its innate instinct as nature’s ecosystem engineer (for beavers construct and recreate their habitat much as engineers do the same for the society) and its ability to process big data. An enthusiastic ambassador for the engineering profession, Hally will be found leaving its traces in many of HKIE’s publicity activities, busily and adorably nourishing a sense of pride among our youngsters for becoming engineers.

Besides having Hally as our KOL, we are also developing a new theme song for the HKIE and its production is reaching the final stage. In its finished form, the song will come with a Music Video, in which the Protégés and some of our Council Members will, in their own voices, celebrate their pride as engineers against engineering related backdrops. It is certainly not for them alone, however, that this song has been written. We hope that all members and engineers will share in the singers' expressed pride phrased so well in the lyrics. Stay tuned for the release of this new theme song.

In using the multimedia for disseminating our messages, we are working hard on new video campaigns. The first series of these, called “Meet an Engineer’s Engineer”, features interviews with mid-career accomplished engineers sharing their journey since graduation. Another series will show the grandeur of some major projects, as well as the anecdotes about them. Through these campaigns, the Institution will tell good engineering stories and demonstrate that the engineer’s honour is built on a pedestal with real accomplishments.

Our messages will also go abroad. A Presidential visit to the UK has been scheduled for early December during which the President will pay visits to several engineering-related institutions there. He will take the opportunity offered by a seminar jointly organised by the HKIE and Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office London to acquaint students and graduates there with the upcoming career opportunities in Hong Kong. The good stories told by the President will let them appreciate the prospect of being an engineer in a city with abundance of infrastructure projects in the pipeline and the satisfaction of being a part of the engineering team. The Institution is doing its part to assist in the trawl for talents.

Lastly, our website revamp is at its initiation stage. Thanks to members who have completed the online survey about the project and the feedback analysis would be ready by early December. Review of the content structure will then follow and then tendering exercise and vendor appointment, all of which will be kickstarted in the next couple of months. When these are completed, detailed design will commence and in about a year’s time we are hopeful for launching a brand new website which the Institution well deserves to showcase its professional image.

With the festive season just around the corner, may I wish you and your family Merry Christmas and a happy, prosperous new year.