UTAR Faculty of Information and Communication Technology (FICT) Dean Assoc Prof Ts Dr Liew Soung Yue and Lee Kong Chian Faculty of Engineering and Science (LKC FES) Deputy Dean for R&D and Postgraduate Programmes Assoc Prof Ts Dr Yap Wun She were invited as the speakers for the First China-ASEAN Computer Technology Development and Cooperation Forum (CACSF 2019) (中国—东盟计算机科技发展与合作论坛), held in Nanning, China on 13 October 2019.

The international academic forum was co-organised by China Computer Federation (CCF); CCF Nanning; Guangxi University School of Computer, Electronics and Information, and Guangxi University for Nationalities School of Information Science and Engineering. It was supported by the Guangxi Association for Science and Technology, and Guangxi Science and Technology Department. The forum aimed to provide a platform for China and ASEAN researchers to exchange knowledge and experience in the field of computing.

During the “Cutting-edge Computing and Digital City” academic report session, four speakers including Dr Liew and Dr Yap were invited to introduce the highlights and research outcomes of the frontier technology in the computing field. The session was chaired by CCF Distinguished Member-cum-Guangxi University School of Computer and Electronic Information Dean Prof Zhong Cheng.

Dr Liew presented his research titled “Towards Fast and Massive Parcel Delivery for Smart Cities”. The research described how Malaysian courier parcel collection, transport and sorting problems are solved. Dr Yap, on the other hand, presented on “Hierarchical Gated Recurrent Neural Network with Adversarial and Virtual Adversarial Training on Text Classification”. His research introduced participants to a network variant that uses adversarial and virtual adversarial perturbations to reduce the problem of over-fitting during hierarchical attention network (HAN) training.

A special forum, themed ‘Deepening ASEAN Cooperation and Developing Together’ (深化东盟合作 携手共同发展) was also held to discuss ways to strengthen the international scientific and technological exchanges and cooperation between China and the ASEAN countries.

In his closing remark, CCF Nanning Chairperson-cum-CCF Distinguished Member Prof Qing Tong-hong urged the participants to make use of the forum as a platform to create more collaborative opportunities through proactive communication among themselves and encouraged the participants to be a practitioner for the ASEAN science and technology exchanges and cooperation. Further on, he also encouraged CCF Nanning to hold the forum on a yearly basis and expect more participants from ASEAN countries to participate to promote China-ASEAN technology innovation community.

The China Computer Federation (CCF) was founded in 1962. It is a member of China Association of Science and Technology. The CCF aims to promote the progress of computer research, education, industry and applications in various areas in China.