Sir Edward Youde Memorial Fund 39th Awards Presentation Ceremony held today
The following is issued on behalf of the Working Family and Student Financial Assistance Agency:
The 39th Awards Presentation Ceremony of the Sir Edward Youde Memorial Fund (SEYMF) was held at Hong Kong City Hall today (March 22). Nine hundred and fifty-eight students, four apprentices and five working adults were presented with scholarships and awards.
Officiating at the ceremony were the Chairman of the SEYMF Council, Professor Christopher Chao, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Mr Brian Tsang, and other members of the Council and the Board of Trustees.
In the 2025/26 academic year, the Fund disbursed $3.06 million. The awards presented this year included one scholarship award for overseas studies ($280,000); one overseas fellowship for a disabled student ($300,000); three fellowships for local postgraduate students ($50,000 each); six scholarships for local undergraduate students ($40,000 each); one local scholarship for a disabled undergraduate student ($40,000); six medals for students who achieved outstanding results in the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) Examination ($5,000 each); 928 prizes for senior secondary school students and 12 prizes for students of the Vocational Training Council ($1,000 each); four awards for outstanding apprentices ($5,000 each); and five awards for working adults who underwent retraining and successfully applied what they learned in their new positions ($5,000 each).
Competition for overseas fellowships and scholarships for the 2026/27 academic year was extremely keen. Among 205 applicants, Miss Fung Hoi-ching of Po Leung Kuk Choi Kai Yau School was selected as the awardee of the overseas scholarship. She intends to pursue an Integrated Bachelor-Master's degree in Biochemistry (Molecular and Cellular) at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.
The recipient of the 2026/27 overseas fellowship for disabled students is Miss Patti Lam. She intends to pursue a Master of Laws degree at Harvard University in the United States.
The six students who were awarded the Sir Edward Youde Memorial Medals for outstanding results in the 2025 HKDSE Examination are:
(1) Mr Ryan Yung of King's College;
(2) Mr Puk Hoi-chun of Queen's College;
(3) Mr Wong Wang-chi of Po Leung Kuk Tang Yuk Tien College;
(4) Mr Tsang Ming-chung of St. Paul's Co-educational College;
(5) Miss Wang Yuen-ting of Hong Kong Taoist Association Tang Hin Memorial Secondary School; and
(6) Miss Yolanda Jiang of Diocesan Girls' School.
The four apprentices, nominated by the Director of Apprenticeship, who received the Outstanding Apprentice Awards are:
(1) Mr Chan Yuk-kit, who attained a Higher Diploma in Civil Engineering and is currently a technician;
(2) Mr Law Tsz-ho, who attained a Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) in Building Services Engineering and is currently an assistant engineer I (electrical and mechanical);
(3) Mr Ko Man-dick, who attained a Certificate of Vocational Education (Building Services Engineering) and is currently a technician; and
(4) Mr Kong Man-lung, who attained a Diploma of Vocational Education - Earn and Learn Scheme (Electrical Engineering) and is currently a technician II.
The five working adults, nominated by the Employees Retraining Board and the Construction Industry Council, who received the Awards for Self-Improvement for Working Adults are:
(1) Mr Cheng Wing-kit, who completed a Foundation Certificate in Electrical Wireman Training (Intermediate Trade Test) and is currently a skilled worker;
(2) Mr Lee Fu-wing, who completed a Foundation Certificate in Assistant Video Editor Training and is currently a video editor, compositor, and animator;
(3) Mr Tsang Chun-shing, who completed a Foundation Certificate in Electrical Wireman Training (Intermediate Trade Test) and is currently a skilled assistant;
(4) Mr Tse Ho-cheong, who completed an Intermediate Tradesman Collaborative Training Scheme - Repair, Maintenance, Alterations and Additions (Building Construction) and is currently a civil engineering technical apprentice; and
(5) Ms Claudia Yet, who completed a Foundation Certificate in Care Worker Training and is currently a care worker.
Since its inception, the SEYMF has supported around 32 450 Hong Kong students under its major schemes. Over 2 920 scholars and fellows have completed their studies and are now working in different sectors in Hong Kong, contributing to the prosperity and development of society.
In 2025/26, the Fund continued to provide an annual sponsorship of $600,000 towards the Young Friends of the Hong Kong Arts Festival to increase the exposure of secondary school and tertiary students to performing arts. During the year, around 4 300 students became members of the Young Friends, and around 13 000 students participated in various programmes and activities under this scheme.
Photo source: AI-created image
Speech by FS at CUHK EMBA Annual Conference
Following is the speech by the Financial Secretary, Mr Paul Chan, at the CUHK EMBA Annual Conference today (May 9):
Professor Dennis Lo (Vice-Chancellor and President, the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)), Professor Lin Zhou (Dean, CUHK Business School), Macy (Chairperson of Organizing Committee, Ms Macy Chan), Michael (Chairperson of Organizing Committee, Mr Michael Chan), CUHK EMBA alumni and students, business leaders, distinguished guests and friends,
Good evening.
Addressing a room full of Executive MBA students and graduates is both an honour and a privilege. There is a particular kind of ambition in this room — one that is not content with success alone, but driven to understand it more deeply, in the belief that better ideas lead to greater impact.
That kind of commitment — to learning, to growth, to asking harder questions — is precisely what today's conversation is about.
The theme of this conference, which focuses on innovation and agile leadership, could not be more timely. Most of us here have lived through the Internet age and the smartphone revolution, which made communication faster and more seamless than anyone had imagined.
Today, the rise of AI places us at a more fundamental tipping point. Technology is not merely changing the answers — it is redefining the questions themselves.
Consider what is already within reach. An AI assistant can learn your preferences, curate a personalised shortlist, and simply ask for your confirmation. We should even ask whether the smartphone and the search engine will remain our primary gateways to the digital world, or whether something altogether new is already taking shape.
To draw an analogy, the power of technology does not lie in drawing the old map with greater precision. It lies in revealing how much of that map remains uncharted — and in showing us that entirely new maps, with new co-ordinates, are being drawn.
This redefinition is unfolding across three dimensions simultaneously.
First, the redefinition of products. Products are no longer discrete, standalone objects. A smart car is a vehicle, but also a mobile platform for data. An insurance policy can be a contract, but equally a dynamic reflection of health data. Innovation today is born from cross-sector convergence and continuous evolution.
Second, the redefinition of services. Services are no longer delivered solely by enterprises. They emerge from collaborative networks of people and AI. But the more profound shift is in what customers now expect. In the past, good service meant reaching the right person quickly. Today, customers expect a solution that anticipates their needs before articulating them. This requires a new architecture of service delivery: human and machine, with AI handling the scale, the speed, and the personalisation that no human team alone could sustain.
Third, and most importantly, the redefinition of business models. In the past, we sought optimal solutions within established frameworks — when demand rose, we expanded capacity; when service needs grew, we opened more branches. Technology invites us to break out of those frameworks entirely. Intelligent manufacturing means that "economies of scale" is no longer the only answer; flexible supply chains have made customised, on-demand production the new normal.
These three redefinitions are opening a commercial frontier unlike anything we have seen before. But if the benefits of technology accrue only to a small circle, its power remains fundamentally constrained. This brings me to the second message I want to leave with you today: inclusivity.
Inclusivity is not charity. Yet it is the smartest business strategy available. The unmet needs of the broader public represent the largest and most underserved market opportunity in existence. When you make quality healthcare, education and financial services accessible and affordable to ordinary residents, you are not serving a group in need of handouts — you are unlocking a vast market that traditional business models have consistently overlooked.
Hong Kong has a distinctive role to play here. We can be a co-architect of standards, a hub for capital, and a bridge between innovation and real-world deployment — from clinical validation of smart healthcare, to green technology financing, to regulatory sandboxes for fintech. Our contribution draws not only on institutional strengths and international networks, but on our genuine commitment to broad-based participation.
Yet inclusive products and services are only the first step. The deeper dimension is empowerment.
History reminds us that the dividends of technological revolution need to be actively guided to reach the many. In the age of steam, and again in the Internet era, early gains concentrated among capital owners and top-tier talent. But today we have the opportunity to write a different story. AI, as an amplifier of human capability, is already enabling what was previously unimaginable: a solo entrepreneur, with the right tools and the right vision, can build a unicorn.
In other words, the unit of competitive advantage is shifting — from the size of your team to the skill with which you orchestrate your tools.
Our mission should be to make that shift available to everyone. To turn individual readiness into collective prosperity, and to ensure that the productivity gains of AI flow broadly across the society.
This is precisely why, in this year's Budget, I placed such emphasis on the "AI Training for All" initiative.
We are not trying to turn everyone into an engineer. We are ensuring that workers, managers, SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) owners, and ordinary residents become capable collaborators with AI: people who can access it, use it effectively, and put it to work as their assistant.
That may sound ambitious, but consider this: if AI can one day be as intuitive as the smartphone, then mass adoption is not difficult to imagine at all. Just as computers once migrated from specialist facilities into offices and homes, AI will find its way into everyone's daily work and life.
For business leaders, it may be tempting to think of AI as "digital employee" that can replace existing workers. But think of a different framing: equipping your workforce with powerful digital assistants can achieve productivity gains, while also freeing your people to do what humans do best — create, imagine and innovate.
Companies that take those extra steps, and think those extra moves ahead, will find that an empowered workforce is also a more innovative one.
All in all, the power of technology must ultimately be measured by its contribution to inclusive growth. And inclusive growth, in the end, depends on, yes, commercial acumen — but also empathy, compassion, and the conviction that a rising tide should lift all boats. I can see that those qualities live in this room.
I will close with this thought. Someone once joked that economists know the price of everything and the value of nothing. With AI, let us never fall into the same trap — in our race to price every efficiency gain, let us not lose sight of the deeper value we are trying to create: a society where the fruits of innovation are broadly shared, and where technology lifts not just the fortunate few, but everyone willing to reach for it.
So here is my ask: let us grow the pie together. And make sure we cut it well.
Thank you very much.
Source: AI-found images
Speech by FS at CUHK EMBA Annual Conference Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases
Speech by FS at CUHK EMBA Annual Conference Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases
Source: AI-found images
