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Against all the odds, Professor Woo Chia-Wei and his colleagues established a remarkable university in Hong Kong. Here, Professor Woo talks about the founding of HKUST.
It takes vision, a strong conviction and an iron will to build an institution that can stand the test of time and achieve global fame on its own terms. But that’s what HKUST has achieved. The University had to face and overcome many obstacles which stood in the way of its success. It is a story of what can happen when great minds come together to do great things.
At a time when Hong Kong faced political uncertainty and an exodus of talent due to concerns about the city's political transition in 1997, a group of academics were willing to go against the tide and build something remarkable for Hong Kong. Professor WOO Chia-Wei, the founding President of HKUST, and his colleagues wanted to establish a research-oriented institution that was home to top scholars and world-class facilities in science and technology and the humanities and social sciences, as well as the first research-oriented business school in Hong Kong, Greater China, and indeed all of Asia.
This was no small feat. But if anyone was going to make it happen, it was Professor Woo. He was known for getting things done, and he was often described as possessing the ability to move mountains to build Hong Kong’s own “miracle university”.
“When we heard that Hong Kong was going to start a new university, some of my friends in the academic community became very interested. We were established professors at top international universities, but we wanted to do more; we wanted to contribute to the mother country and to international cooperation”, Professor Woo remembers.