The year 2023 marks the 80th anniversary of the death of Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), the distinguished Serbian-American scientist and prolific inventor who has been awarded about 300 patents worldwide in his lifetime. Tesla began his autobiography, My Inventions, with the following remarks about the paramount importance of invention: “The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention. It is the most important product of his creative brain.”
Espousing this fervent belief, the International Exhibition of Inventions (IEIG) has continued its tireless efforts to welcome and honour the remarkable achievements of innovative inventors from all over the world. With the same deep passion, researchers from the City University of Hong Kong (CityU) have come up with an abundance of ingenious inventions and showcased them at the 48th IEIG held from 26 to 30 April in Geneva with spectacular success. We received 36 awards, including one Special Prize, three Gold Medals with Congratulations of the Jury, 17 Gold Medals, 9 Silver Medals and 6 Bronze Medals. This is the third year running that CityU has received the highest number of awards among local institutions.
The three entries that won a Gold Medal with Congratulations of the Jury are: 1. Eco-Tiles for Enhancing Marine Biodiversity, 2. Syngular Mixed Reality Platform and 3. AIstain: Virtual Immunostaining for Veterinary Pathology. The first one, Eco-Tiles for Enhancing Marine Biodiversity, also won a Special Prize.
Eco-Tiles for Enhancing Marine Biodiversity
In response to coastal development and reclamation, artificial concrete seawalls have been built around the world to protect the shoreline from wave action, erosion and flooding. Artificial seawalls, however, have smooth concrete surfaces that are uninhabitable by marine organisms and can attain extremely high temperatures at low tide. As a result, many intertidal marine species, including oysters that improve water quality, cannot thrive in them. A coastal ecosystem that lacks biodiversity suffers as a result.
The CityU’s State Key Laboratory of Marine Pollution (SKLMP) Director, Professor Kenneth Leung, came up with a clever solution. Ashes and sediment waste from the Tuen Mun T-Park incinerator are used to make eco-tiles that mimic a natural habitat for the existing concrete seawall. The strategy solves the problem of municipal solid waste in Hong Kong while enhancing biodiversity at the same time. The seawall becomes an ecological corridor, enabling marine plants and animals to be able to grow healthily, providing food for marine life, and can also become a nursery to increase fishery resources.
Syngular Mixed Reality Platform
How can we bring gaming performance to surgical intervention? That is the question the Syngular Mixed Reality Platform, one of CityU’s HK Tech 300 startup programme awardees, answers. We often distinguish between play and work, as if they were completely different. Thinking otherwise, the Syngular Mixed Reality Platform integrates video game elements into the medical field, especially operations. Syngular is building the future of mixed reality applications by using mixed reality, AI-assisted image processing and gamification techniques to build immersive application software that improves medical intervention and surgery, as well as related work instructions, remote collaboration and simulation training.
The focus of Syngular Technology is on developing AR-based surgical assistance software solutions. They translate cutting-edge 3D visualisation, automated image modelling and gaming performance into medical AR software. In its first patent-pending technology, the company automates the modelling of 3D medical data and optimises holographic AR applications. AI-assisted medical model auto-generation is the next development. This tool auto-generates a 3D preview of a user’s desired area of interest based on their CT or MRI scans. The result can then be fine-tuned using a slide bar and exported to their preferred AR, PC or mobile device.
Their early prototype has been developed and tested in different settings. Initial users will be those who wish to explore 3D visualisation before, during and after surgery.
AIstain: Virtual Immunostaining for Veterinary Pathology
AIstain is also one of our HK Tech 300 startup programme awardees. The name stands for artificial intelligence staining, which can be understood only if we first understand immunohistochemistry (IHC). Diagnostic pathology often uses IHC to specify cancers. A specific diagnosis rather than a general one helps doctors treat diseases more effectively. Presently, IHC is done with antibody stains. While they produce good results, they are expensive, slow and difficult to use.
With AIstain, a computer can perform IHC virtually and is fast, low-cost and easy to use. Compared with traditional IHC, this virtual version looks similar, but results are available in minutes instead of hours. The AIstain software runs on the cloud, which means that pathologists everywhere can access it with just a digital microscope and an internet connection. Besides used in humans, AIstain has also wide applications in veterinary pathology.
Thoroughly understood & duly rewarded
In My Inventions, Tesla explained that the ultimate purpose of invention is “the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of the forces of nature to human needs.” But he also warned that this is a difficult task, and the inventor “is often misunderstood and unrewarded.”
Thankfully, things have changed over time. With prestigious international events like IEIG, inventors are now being thoroughly understood and duly rewarded - and awarded.
For details on CityU’s award-winning projects, please refer to the attachment.