Mr Chancellor, Council Chairman, President Chan, Ladies and Gentlemen:

On behalf of my fellow Honorary Graduands and myself, I thank the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology for the great honor of admitting us to the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, honoris causa.

For me personally, the honorary doctorate is an important milestone in my association with this great university. As you will have heard from the orator, I was a founding member of the Council from March 1989 to May 1991, when the university was still being built. I later had the immense privilege of serving as Chairman of the Council for six years up to March 2008, and am now serving as Chairman of the Court. I have watched this university grow and prosper over the 18 years since it opened its doors, and I would like to think that I have contributed, however modestly, to its remarkable success.

I wish to take this opportunity to pay a warm tribute to our immediate past President, Professor Paul Chu, and to thank him for his invaluable contributions to HKUST over the past eight years. I wish also to congratulate our new President, Professor Tony Chan, on his installation. I have no doubt that Professor Chan will lead the university to new and greater heights.

Eighteen years is perhaps no longer than the wink of an eye in the context of human history, but it has been long enough for HKUST to grow from nothing to the world’s 35th ranked university in overall terms, and the 26th in engineering and information technology. It has also been long enough for technology to have advanced in many areas in ways that have changed our daily lives beyond recognition. For an ordinary person like me, perhaps in no other area has the change been more pronounced and pervasive than in information and communications technology.

HKUST’s establishment coincided with the debut of the world’s first 2G mobile telephone, and was followed shortly by the advent of the public Internet. Since then, life has never been the same again. Suddenly my wife was able to track me down at any time and keep me out of mischief. She was ably assisted by the paparazzi who could monitor my every movement without my knowledge, and any indiscretion on my part risked being reported in print or put on youtube. That, incidentally, showed how incredibly clairvoyant the Confucian disciples were when they advised in Daxue (大學) and Zhongyong (中庸) that the virtuous man must mind his behavior even when he is alone (君子慎其獨也).

Joking aside, my working life also went through a metamorphosis. The walls came down as if by miracle and I was no longer tied to an office. My colleagues in the several different organizations that I served could get hold of me whenever they needed me, wherever I might be – even in the privacy of my bathroom. My work came to me through phone calls, voice mails, SMSs and e-mails around the clock. I had to learn to become more efficient, and more decisive, because answers were often expected very quickly, if not instantaneously. I also had to train my mind to be sufficiently agile to switch back and forth between totally unrelated subjects, from university governance to Jockey Club charity donations, and then to the impact of sharply rising oil prices on bus operations.

At the macro level, developments in information and communications technology have brought about a rapid breakdown of international barriers. Masses of information and funds flowed across countries within seconds with the strike of a keyboard button or a click of the mouse, and this greatly accelerated the globalization of the financial marketplace. No government could seal its country off from the outside world or protect its economy from the impact of events that occurred elsewhere. And the proverbial best laid plans of mice and men were liable to be upset not only by the Will of Divinity but also by the decisions and actions of governments and business enterprises the world over.

The internet has also placed masses of information and knowledge at the fingertips of millions of people. Distance learning and self-study have become much easier and much more widespread. Freedom of speech and expression has become truly available to all but the most deprived. This, to my mind, has been the greatest boon of the Internet to the human race.

But there are two sides to every coin. Even revolutionary technology has its downside, such as facilitating the spread of misinformation. On balance though, the power of technology to do good outweighs its power to do evil, however unintended. Even as a graduate in English literature, I must concede that this era belongs to science and technology, and certainly to a high-achieving and innovating institution such as the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. It may even find solutions to the unintended problems of technology, so that the baby need not be thrown out with the bath water.

What about the next 18 years? I think climate change would be at the top of most people’s agenda. We have all heard stern warnings of its dire consequences on the planet Earth and its inhabitants. The arguments are, of course, not one-sided, and some openly argue that global warming has been grossly overstated and that the warnings are politically motivated. But no one has seriously argued that the problem of global warming is purely imaginary, or that present-day human activities are not a contributing factor. For my own part, I have definitely been feeling the heat, both literally and figuratively, in recent years, and it has been getting worse each year.

So, it behoves us to face the problem of global warming seriously and do everything in our power to stop making it worse. If our scientists and technologists can come up with major breakthroughs that would solve the problem, they will have done mankind a truly great service. And I hope and pray that the scientists and researchers at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology will be among the first to save our planet and our economy. Thank you.