January 2025

TechTalk – AI-Assisted Community Legal Information Access

February 20, 2025 (Thursday) 4:30-5:30pm
In the contemporary era, legal information, encompassing court judgments and legislation, is generally accessible online in numerous countries. However, the online availability of this information does not necessarily equate to effective public access to legal knowledge. It presents significant challenges for individuals without legal expertise to acquire legal knowledge due to two primary reasons. Firstly, the online content predominantly consists of primary legal sources, such as cases and statutes, which are typically written in formal legal terminology that can be challenging for the general public to comprehend. Secondly, the public may lack knowledge of the applicable legal principles in their specific legal situations. Given the vast number of documents, it becomes arduous for users to identify the relevant legal sources when seeking solutions to their legal challenges. In this presentation, we will demonstrate several AI tools that we have integrated into our online legal information platforms, specifically HKLII and CLIC. We will elucidate how these tools facilitate enhanced public access to legal information.

TechTalk – A Healthy Building is A Prerequisite and Mandatory for Achieving Sustainable Growth

January 7, 2025 (Tuesday) 2:30-3:30pm
The Healthy Buildings term was defined more than 40 years ago. It is relevant to ask whether it is still valid today in the present form and whether it needs any revisions and supplements, considering many changes and new challenges. This presentation will discuss the original definition and outline these new challenges, for example, resilience, monitoring, economic implications, and consequences of climate change and the pandemic risk. Some solutions will be presented with support from new research studies; the potential risks of the undertakings will also be discussed. One crucial issue discussed will be the inclusion of the need for healthy buildings in the decarbonization processes as an essential element of achieving sustainable development.