HKU, LIGHTSPEED STUDIOS, and Tencent WeTech Academy Launch ‘AI Adventures: When AI Meets Games’ to Cultivate Local AI Talent

The HKU Academy for the Talented (HKU AcT), in partnership with LIGHTSPEED STUDIOS and Tencent WeTech Academy, successfully concluded the "AI Adventures: When AI Meets Games" programme. Designed to inspire Hong Kong's secondary 4 to 6 students (Year 11 to Year 13 / Grade 10 to Grade 12), the initiative combined academic expertise, industry-leading game technology, and corporate educational resources to foster a passion for AI and technological innovation, nurturing the next generation of local tech talent. The programme garnered an overwhelmingly positive response.

"AI Adventures: When AI Meets Games" is an innovative programme that merges AI and game design to inspire students' interest in AI technology through interactive gaming experiences. Featuring HKU Faculty of Arts professors, the initiative highlights the latest AI breakthroughs, explores its transformative role in game development, and broadens students' understanding of cutting-edge technology. Leveraging LIGHTSPEED STUDIOS' industry expertise, the programme integrates real-world game technologies and insights into the classroom, enabling students to witness AI's impact on the gaming industry firsthand and fostering greater AI education and adoption.

Professor Bennett Yim, Chairman of the HKU AcT, and Director of Undergraduate Admissions and International Student Exchange at HKU, stated, "HKU, in collaboration with LIGHTSPEED STUDIOS and Tencent WeTech Academy, is promoting educational initiatives through interactive approaches to foster STEM education among Hong Kong's youth. HKU will continue to support the Hong Kong SAR Government's initiatives to promote AI education, develop emerging educational programmes, and actively nurture talent for Hong Kong's innovation and technology sector."

One of the programme instructors, Dr Benjamin Horn, Lecturer of the Faculty of Arts, HKU, expressed, "The programme gives students an opportunity to understand how real game design happens. We focus on inspiring students and giving them the conceptual ideas and the academic foundations that they need in order to move into the professional realm. Despite being AI natives, the students learned a lot about its use as a specialized tool, and we strongly believe that the programme succeeded at reinforcing their natural abilities with the technical knowledge to forge a stronger path into game design in the future."

Lu Yao, General Manager of the Tech Department at LIGHTSPEED STUDIOS, stated, "As an industry leader, we are honored to collaborate on the 'AI Adventures: When AI Meets Games' course series. Through an immersive AIGC platform experience, we aim to promote technological literacy among secondary school students, sparking their interest and nurturing innovative thinking. LIGHTSPEED STUDIOS will continue to drive technological advancement, pioneer breakthroughs in specialized fields, contribute new technologies and creative works to the industry, and lead our community forward."

Dr James Li Tsz-shu, JP, Vice President of Public Affairs at Tencent, said, "We look forward to seeing young people expand their horizons in technology learning through the innovative medium of gaming. By applying 'gaming thinking' to understand the underlying logic of artificial intelligence, they gain not only technical capabilities but also the creativity to solve real-world problems with technology. Tencent WeTech Academy is committed to the belief in 'Youth Tech for Good'. We firmly believe that the new generation of tech talents can transform their acquired AI skills into innovative solutions that drive sustainable social development, allowing the warmth of technology to light the way forward in the real world."

"AI Adventures: When AI Meets Games" is designed to spark students' interest by covering AI applications in areas such as image generation, 3D modeling, animation creation, agent design, and data mining. Through interactive hands-on activities, students were able to acquire industry skills and expand their professional knowledge beyond the classroom, preparing them to meet future challenges.

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