TechTalk

TechTalk – Data Intelligence of Large Language Models

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

June 18, 2026 (Thursday) 4:00pm-5:00pm
Database systems, which provide various operations for defining and querying data, enable large-scale AI systems and intelligent applications in various domains. Due to recent advances in large language models (LLMs), automating database operations through code generation has become increasingly attainable. This capability of having data intelligence in LLMs has given rise to a new paradigm—Data-Centric Code Generation (DCCG)—which aims to build systems that can automatically understand, manipulate, and reason over data.
To realize DCCG, I will discuss our team’s effort in building benchmarking systems, including BIRD-SQL, a large-scale Text-to-SQL benchmark on real databases, and SWE-SQL, which gauges the ability that an LLM resolves user SQL issues. These benchmarks, widely used in the industry, reveal hallucination and other issues faced by LLMs. To address these challenges, I will present our work in graph-aware reasoning, SQL correction, and multi-turn tabular data analysis. They aim to evolve LLMs from static code generators into autonomous, trustworthy agents, with data intelligence, that can understand and generate data-driven software systems.

TechTalk – Robotics for Soft Materials

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

June 11, 2026 (Thursday) 4:00pm-5:00pm
The manufacturing industry faces serious challenges from aging populations, labor shortages, and environmental crises. Robotics enhanced with emerging AI technologies is expected to overcome these challenges by enabling automation of processes that have been difficult to automate with conventional robot technologies. While today’s industrial robots excel at manipulating rigid objects, labor-intensive processes involving soft materials—like garment manufacturing—remain difficult to automate. Soft materials are challenging to manipulate because their shape is unstable and depends on the surface they are in contact with. They are also affected by environmental factors that are difficult to estimate. This presentation briefly overviews robotics for soft materials and explores how AI and machine learning can address garment manufacturing challenges. Preliminary results are introduced, including fabric part manipulation, fixture-free 2D/3D sewing, high-speed edge sensing, bimanual texture alignment, dynamic motion planning, and garment flattening.

TechTalk – Solar PV-X Technologies: New Frontiers Beyond Electricity

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

May 15, 2026 (Thursday) 11:30am-12:00nn
Photovoltaic (PV) panels are typically less than 20% efficient in delivering electricity from the Sun’s
energy. The efficiency losses are especially pronounced when PV panels are exposed to high
irradiance conditions on warm, sunny days, which lead to higher temperature operation. Of the
total amount of sunlight incident on PV panels, over 70% is lost to the environment as waste heat.
This loss has motivated the development of ‘hybrid’ PV-thermal (PV-T) collectors, which combine
PV cells with a contacting fluid. The fluid recovers waste heat from the cells, thus delivering a
potentially useful thermal output, while simultaneously cooling the cells and increasing their
electrical efficiency. Recently, a new concept that we refer to as multifunctional ‘PV-X’ collector
technology has emerged, in which secondary processes are integrated synergistically with the PV
cells, exploiting the available waste heat to perform additional functions directly within the collector.
In this talk, we will present conventional and advanced PV-T and PV-X collector concepts and
designs, along with their underlying operational principles. We will explore opportunities for further
developing these technologies and examine how new materials can drive improvements from the
component to the system level, while discussing the potential of integrating these technologies into
broader solar-energy systems capable of providing cooling, heating, power, fuels or clean water.

HKAE TechTalk – From Trustworthy Systems to Trustworthy AI

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

May 19, 2026 (Tuesday) 4:00-5:00pm
Trustworthiness is a critical issue in artificial intelligence (AI), especially for real-world applications. It is impossible to deploy AI in the real world without its being trustworthy. However, the connotation and extension of AI trustworthiness are not entirely clear. There has not been a single definition that is accepted by all researchers. This talk starts from a brief recall of trustworthy systems in the literature and tries to understand any potential differences between classical trustworthy systems and modern-day trustworthy AI. It argues that AI ethics is a crucial part of trustworthy AI, which was not featured in classical trustworthy systems. The talk then presents a short summary of AI ethics and governance. It presents potential synergies among responsible AI (RAI), ESG and SDGs. It points out the challenges of AI governance because of the high complexity and multi-dimensional nature of ethical principles, e.g., transparency. Potential technical solutions will be mentioned, although not in any details. The talk ends with some concluding remarks.

TechTalk – The West’s Fading Factory Floor

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

May 5, 2026 (Tuesday) 10:30am-11:30am
In this talk, I’ll walk you through my research on medical and industrial exoskeletons at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as the development work at the two companies I founded in the United States. I’ll then focus on two main points.
First, the darker side of the overwhelming push across U.S. universities to encourage entrepreneurial work.
Second—and despite the first point—my next venture: how it took shape in my mind, influenced by the geographic and political landscape of West–East economic rivalries.
My goal is to create genuine motivation for some of you to join me, either as a co-founder or collaborator, to help bring this new venture to maturity.

TechTalk – Exploring Diamond Membranes: From Fundamental Research to Industrial Innovation

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

May 21, 2026 (Thursday) 4:00pm-5:00pm
Diamond is celebrated not only as a precious gemstone but also for its exceptional physical and quantum properties—particularly when it contains atomic defects known as color centers. These defects enable diamond to exhibit unique quantum behaviors under ambient conditions, making it a promising material for cutting-edge technologies. However, large-scale production of ultrathin diamond membranes has historically been a significant challenge. In this talk, we will introduce a simple, scalable, and reliable edge–exfoliation method that utilizes common office sticky tape to produce flexible, transferable polycrystalline diamond membranes. This innovative technique facilitates the mass fabrication of large-area, sub-micrometer-thick, ultra-flat, and highly flexible diamond membranes compatible with standard manufacturing processes. The inherent flexibility of these membranes unlocks new possibilities in strain engineering, quantum sensing, and other applications that were previously difficult to realize. We will also explore their potential in semiconductors, quantum technologies, and beyond. This work paves the way for integrating diamond-based materials into next-generation devices, demonstrating the transformative potential of flexible diamond membranes.

TechTalk – Cell Mechanics: from Disease Progression to Tissue Morphogenesis and Mechanotransduction

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

May 15, 2026 (Friday) 4:00pm-5:00pm
In this talk, Professor Yuan Lin will introduce their recent efforts in elucidating the role of mechanics/physics in different cellular and tissue-level processes. First, he will demonstrate that mechano-transduction via intercellular integrin complexes between the invading spheroid leader cell and mesothelial cells triggers and augments mesothelium apical constriction, which then leads to the shrinkage of mesothelial cell-cell junctions and eventually induces their rupture. At the same time, the growth of intercellular integrin adhesion causes wetting at the spheroid-mesothelium interface and induces deformation of spheroid cells, further facilitating its invasion into the mesothelium. After that, he will talk about how collective active contraction of cells and their interactions with outside dictate the pattern formation of tissues. Finally, he will show how tubulin family proteins (i.e., isotypes) regulate the microtubule accessibility for luminal proteins via the force-induced reversible protofilament separation, and ultimately mechanosensitive response of the cell.

TechTalk – Future Directions of Robotic Surgery: Interventional, Ingestible, Injectable, Implanted Robotic Devices

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

April 20, 2026 (Monday) 10:30am-11:30am
Robotic technologies are becoming pervasive in healthcare, with a lot of advanced platforms preclinically or clinically employed and providing a great benefit for both patients and the entire healthcare system. Robots for minimally invasive surgery, robots for radiation therapy delivery, robots for steering catheters and miniature devices in the human body are already a reality and pose interesting challenges to clinicians and engineers in terms of controllability, safety and navigation.
In addition to robotic instrumentation used in acute setting for interventional applications and minimally invasive surgery, robots can be also used for chronic monitoring and therapy inside the human body. Implantable and ingestible in vivo robots are emerging as leading alternatives for continuous therapy, and are featured by additional challenges, in terms of biocompatibility, safety, communication and powering.
Starting from the speaker research experience, this talk illustrates the challenges for development and clinical translations of robots operating in acute and chronic setting.

HKAE TechTalk – Fiber-based Tactile Emulation Mechanisms and Intelligent Wearables

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

April 21, 2026 (Tuesday) 4:00-5:00pm
True human-like tactile emulation technology aims to replicate human sensory experience. The study includes human-like fabric tactile simulators that can perceive and adjust interface forces and temperatures by changing hardness, size, surface morphology and thermal properties at mm- and cm-scales. Various operating mechanisms of tactile sensory simulation are explored, from which fiber-based multi-mode tactile sensory emulation wearable devices are developed together with their applications. This leads to a new research direction that further enhances the level of scientific and technological innovation for healthcare, Internet of Things, smart cities, art technology, robotics, education, sports, personal protection, fashion, textiles and entertainment.

TechTalk – Embodied Photography and Cinematography

Innovation Wing Two, TechTalk / By

April 23, 2026 (Thursday) 10:30pm-11:30pm
Embodied photography and cinematography require a robot to integrate aesthetic judgment, camera control, and scene understanding in real time. This talk presents a unified view of the problem, spanning how robots can learn photographic style from human demonstrations, how they can robustly control focus and exposure in challenging lighting conditions, and how these capabilities can enable new applications such as intelligent birdwatching. We first discuss imitation learning methods that capture photographer intent and composition. We then cover event-based autofocus and auto-exposure systems that maintain image quality under low light and extreme illumination. Finally, we explore open-world tracking and language-guided observation for targeted wildlife capture. Together, these directions suggest a future in which robots act as active visual partners, not just passive imaging devices.