Hong Kong’s dazzling, densely-populated cityscape is a perfect manifestation of the city’s complicated land problems. In this seemingly claustrophobic setting, some lament its constraints while others see opportunities beyond the blocks. In this Cubic Zine issue, Thomas Chung, Associate Professor of the School of Architecture, CUHK shares with us the infinity of possibilities with space, as well as the transfer of knowledge into abandoned rural villages. Hear his story of enlivening the once derelict village of Mui Tsz Lam through co-creating an architectural experiment with over a hundred CUHKers, villagers and volunteers.

Under the pressure of the epidemic, the trend of "e-learning" has revealed its advantages. The emergence of virtual reality teaching has further promoted the education sector to enter the era of digital learning. We can also ride the "STEM wave" and find the key to coping with changes and challenges. Professor Morris Jong, the cover story of this issue of Cubic Zine, fell in love with computers from playing computer games, and then researched the combination of games and learning, which not only satisfied the many wishes of local non-Chinese students, but also extended the teaching effect to overseas universities.

The fifth wave of Covid-19 in Hong Kong has put most of us in stay-home mode for months. Instead of wishing for full resumption of working in office in person, the need for creating immersive virtual workspace for staff is in demand. The cover story of this issue of Cubic Zine, Prof Tan Lee, an expert in AI and speech technology, propounds that solutions brought by technologies needs to be balanced against its social benefits, and a key question – will there be any users?

Happy new year! May all your dreams and goals manifest in 2022! This issue of Cubic Zine features the ebullient Dr Chui Pui Yi Apple, Research Assistant Professor of the School of Life Sciences and founder of Coral Academy. Her watchword for us? “Act Now.” It’s pertinent to both conservation and entrepreneurship — give it a try no matter how. In this issue: #FoodTechAccelerator #Breer #SocialEconomy #EuropeanCommission #CoralAcademy #Conservation

This September sees the return of vigour and verve on CUHK campus. This issue of Cubic Zine brings you vivacious stories from architecture and health of the elderly, to trending technologies. At the same time, ORTKS has for you a series of exciting events and programmes, including the very first Innovation Day, and application openings of various startup funds!

Here comes Issue 17 of Cubic Zine! We are excited to see the growth of innovation and entrepreneurship here at CUHK while InnoPort will soon celebrate its first anniversary. The teams inside InnoPort are busy promoting social entrepreneurship as well as tech transfer and the collaboration between the industry, academia and research sectors. Cubic Zine will bring you more diverse topics with stories in a nutshell for you to grasp innovation trends in a single email.

One of missions of ORTKS is to assist scholars to apply for research funding. As resources are limited, disappointment is unavoidable. Prof Anthony Fung shares his failure stories including the very first one soon after he was on board with CUHK. “I wish to launch that project so much that I set off without any funding.” The true story of many entrepreneurs.

Happy Year of the Ox – 2020 has finally drawn to a close! To better equip yourself for 2021, have you got any plans yet? No clue? Well, have some uplifting stories from Cubic Zine! May these cases on innovation and entrepreneurship inspire you, including our protagonist of this issue – Prof Winton Au, and his encounter with performing arts.

Breaking news! A few staff teams under Office of Research and Knowledge Transfer Services (including us editors) have already moved bases to the recently opened InnoPort. We simply can't wait for more interdisciplinary and interdepartmental events to take place here. While Cubic Zine is alive and well, we’ll “go lean” and bring you more diversified content on innovation and entrepreneurship!

Happy anniversary to Cubic Zine! Echoing our first issue, we are focusing again on the hot topic mental health. Prof Fiona Ho and team set up social enterprise Wellness Travellers to advocate evidence-based lifestyle medicine, nurturing the “heart” via our “body” and raising the public’s resilience via proactive prevention. Their tips are certainly useful as we all struggle to cope with the new normal.