From underwater robots to dental mastery: Hong Kong teaching award winners to spend HK$1.5m prizes on innovative projects

From teaching children with special needs to build underwater robots to setting up an e-platform for budding dentists to gain an insight into expert-thinking, three university professors who have won a combined HK$1.5 million in a teaching excellence award will use the money to introduce new projects for their students.

Dr Michael Botelho, an oral rehabilitation associate professor at the University of Hong Kong, Professor Woo Kam-tim, of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s department of electronic and computer engineering, and Professor Gail Forey, of the Polytechnic University’s department of English, are this year’s winners of the University Grants Committee’s teaching award.

Each of them will get a prize of HK$500,000 to further improve their teaching.

Woo, who earned his PhD in electronic engineering from HKUST and has been teaching there since, said he would use the money to expand his “inclusion project”, where students from different departments of the university will join hands to teach primary and secondary school pupils – including those with special education needs – how to build underwater robots.

“We really want to make the connection with the community because we believe that everyone should have an opportunity to learn about technology and engineering, and also get a taste of doing teamwork,” Woo said.

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The project was introduced this year and so far, 27 students from HKUST have been teaching about 120 pupils from 16 primary and secondary schools.