Nathan XU of Individualized Interdisciplinary Program Won Second Place in IEEE SusTech 2022 Student Poster Contest
Nathan Nan XU, PhD Candidate from Individualized Interdisciplinary Program, won the Second Place together with his team at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Technologies for Sustainability (SusTech) Conference Student Poster Contest held on 21 April 2022. A total of eleven posters were presented online. The research topic they presented was “Smart Tracking Tray System for A Smart and Sustainable Wet Lab Community”, which is part of the HKUST Sustainable Smart Campus (SSC) As Living Lab project outcome.
Nathan and his team proposed an interdisciplinary and user-friendly chemical inventory management system to solve the issues of labor-intensive chemical inventory management approaches , such as chemical waste due to poor information sharing, inefficient search of chemicals, and unsatisfied lab safety requirements. Empowered by RFID, multiple sensor integration, and blockchain technologies, the digital trace of the chemical containers and sensitive/dangerous substances can be seamlessly managed in a closed loop at each stage. They tested their system at several HKUST labs and proved that it could bring great convenience for lab users while efficiently improving research, administration, management, and safety control. In the long run, they believe the system will play an essential role in promoting the efficient use of lab resources and achieving the goal of sustainable labs.
Nathan said that it was a fantastic journey to initiate the idea and to have the team from the Design Thinking Course to polish and expand the project with the support from Sustainable and Smart Campus (SSC) as Living Lab. He would like to sincerely thank his advisors: Prof. Jinglei YANG, Prof. Hongyu YU, Prof. Jishan HU, the Interdisciplinary Program Office (IPO), his Design Thinking teaching team, WeShare group members, SSC, and Entrepreneurship Center (EC) for their generous endorsements and resources, allowing his team to shine on the worldwide stage.
About The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) (www.ust.hk) is a world-class research university that focuses on science, technology and business as well as humanities and social science. HKUST offers an international campus, and a holistic and interdisciplinary pedagogy to nurture well-rounded graduates with global vision, a strong entrepreneurial spirit and innovative thinking. HKUST attained the highest proportion of internationally excellent research work in the Research Assessment Exercise 2014 of Hong Kong’s University Grants Committee, and is ranked as the world’s best young university in Times Higher Education’s Young University Rankings 2019. Its graduates were ranked 16th worldwide and top in Greater China in Global University Employability Survey 2018.
