This year, Tsz Hin Chan from Pui Ching Middle School received the Gold Award for his research report titled ‘On Non-Torsion Solutions of Homogeneous Linear Systems over Rings’. The Scientific Committee remarked that Tsz Hin’s research report was conducted at postgraduate level and demonstrated outstanding logical thinking and analytical ability.

On Ki Luo from Pui Ching Middle School and Wai Lok Lai from St. Paul’s Co-educational College won the Silver Award and the Bronze Award, respectively. Together with the five Honorable Mentions of equal ranking, HK$1 million in prize money will be shared among winning students, and their teachers and schools, in recognition of their mathematics research projects that meet the highest academic standards in terms of methodology, research, and scholarship.

Recognizing promising young research talents

The Announcement and Awards Presentation of the 2021 HLMA, co-organized by Hang Lung Properties Limited and The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), was held at the Conrad Hong Kong on Wednesday night. The Hon. Mrs. Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and a long-time supporter of HLMA, attended as the Guest of Honor.

Mr. Ronnie C. Chan, Chair of Hang Lung Properties, is delighted and encouraged to see a strong turnout of high-quality research reports submitted this year after a long disruption in classroom learning. “I hope the participation of our young talented students in this competition would ignite their lifelong passion for mathematics, science, and technology,” says Chan.

Professor Wei Shyy, President of the HKUST, shares the same vision. “HKUST attaches great importance to innovation, knowledge and research. We will continue to contribute to mathematics and popular science education development in Hong Kong and nurture more outstanding academic elites for society.”

Professor Richard Schoen, 2017 Wolf Prize Laureate in Mathematics and Chair of the 2021 Hang Lung Mathematics Awards Scientific Committee, is impressed with the research quality this year. “I am very pleased to see that Hong Kong secondary school students not only possess outstanding abilities in mathematics and science, but also have a passion for research. I hope they could further use these abilities to advance the century-long development of mathematics for the good of society and mankind.”

A signature community investment initiative

HLMA, established since 2004, is a highly esteemed biennial mathematics research competition for Hong Kong secondary school students. This year, over 60 teams from nearly 40 secondary schools in Hong Kong participated in the competition. Under the supervision of a teacher, each team designed and conducted research on a mathematical topic and submitted a research report. Following a competitive and stringent review process by the HLMA Scientific Committee, only the teams with reports of exceptional quality proceeded to the next stage of the competition, where they engaged in an Oral Defense and presented their projects in front of the HLMA Scientific Committee.

Hang Lung Properties donates HK$2.5 million to each competition, of which HK$1 million is set aside as prize money, with the remainder used for academic consultancy, assessment process, the administration of the competition, as well as education promotion activities. HKUST also provides scholarships for teachers nominated by the winning schools to enroll in the Master of Science Program in Mathematics for Educators.