Congratulations to Gabby FUNG, PhD in Individualized Interdisciplinary Program (Human Computer Interaction), for receiving the following awards with her team’s AI Dyslexia Pre-screening System:

• HKUST-Sino One Million Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition 2022: HKUST Student Team Award
• 2022 Qianhai-Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau-Taiwan Youth Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition (HK Tertiary Division): Golden Award
• The 17th ‘Challenge Cup’ National College Students’ Extracurricular Academic Science and Technology Contest: Second Prize
• Hong Kong ICT Awards 2022: ICT Startup (Social Impact) Certificate of Merit
• ASSETS Diversity and Inclusion Scholarship: DEI award

Her paper titled "Designing A Game for Pre-Screening Students with Specific Leaning Disabilities in Chinese" presents a game running on tablets that can identify students with specific learning disabilities (SLDs) in Chinese, including reading, writing, and physical coordination difficulties. The system leverages AI technology to supervise the writing consistency and spatial orientation between characters of students’ handwriting. Interdisciplinary expertise in SLDs, integrated design, visual communication and human-computer interaction are utilized for the optimal instructional design, game activity design, application operation and game interface design for all students.

Followed by another paper titled “Designing a Data Visualization Dashboard for Pre-Screening Hong Kong Students with Specific Learning Disabilities”, the game results are further connected with a data visualization dashboard to speed up the pre-screening and diagnosis process by special education needs coordinators (SENCOs) and special education teachers, ensuring a timely intervention and treatment for students at risk of Dyslexia.

The AI Dyslexia Pre-screening System has already been pilot tested in around 10 schools with satisfactory results. It is now further promoted by Gabi Education Limited, Gabby’s start-up on special education, for a broader usage by students with different demographic backgrounds.

Gabby is also working hard on another idea of an AI Inclusive Language Learning System. It integrates the use of robot in teaching and learning, with speech to text AI to identify students’ pronunciation. This budding idea won the Second Prize in the 8th Hong Kong University Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition (Information Technology Category).