CUHK
News Centre

Department of Decision Sciences and Managerial Economics at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Business School joins hands with Education Bureau of HKSAR Government to organize “When Adam Smith Meets Steve Jobs” secondary school students Economic theories video production contest, in order to encourage students to interpret the seemingly boring Economics theories in a creative way using vivid daily life scenarios with their own language and perspectives. Applications from 66 teams in various local secondary schools were received, in which 23 teams were shortlisted. With surprising plots such as localized version of the popular Taiwanese movie, “You Are the Apple of My Eye”, the recent hot theme, time-travel drama, and Economics of gangsters, the participating teams showed off their unbounded creativity and illustrated Economics theories with rich imagination in a fascinating way. The award presentation ceremony was held today (19 May) at CUHK campus.

A number of awards, including “Economics Creativity Academy Awards”, “Economics Creativity Outstanding Awards”, “Economics Analysis Awards” and “Video Production Awards”, were given out based on the criteria of accuracy of illustration of economic concept (40%); creativity, originality and relevancy of daily life examples (40%) and video production quality (20%). To facilitate experience sharing among the participating teams, all shortlisted videos have been uploaded to Facebook and Youtube, and the video receiving the highest number of ‘like’ votings on the Facebook page will be awarded the “The Most Liked Video Award”. The response has been overwhelming and some of the popular videos even received nearly 1,000 “like” votes before the voting deadline.

Winners of the “Economics Creativity Academy Awards” have got the highest overall scores in all areas, they are the “Star 5” team of Evangel College who explained Monopoly by unbalanced proportion of male and female students with a localized version of the popular Taiwanese movie, “You Are the Apple of My Eye”; the “Economic Power” team of the Heep Yunn School who illustrated various Economics theories with a time-travel drama; the “5-Man Economy” team of Cheung Chuk Shan College who reflected current issues of inflation and local GDP; and the “Supernomics” team of Diocesan Girls’ School who illustrated a daily life example of examination preparation which is most relevant to secondary school life.

“For many students, one of the difficulties in learning Economics is the seemingly irrelevancy of the text-book theories with the real world life”, said Professor Michael Ka Yiu Fung, instructor of the contest. “Therefore we encourage students to personally select a number of Economic theories and write a script according to their own understanding based on daily life scenarios, then produce a video according to the script. During the process, students could not only thoroughly understand how these Economic theories work, but also understand the relevancy of the theories with their personal life and economic environment in the modern society. It is an effective way for students to truly absorb knowledge and convert to their own use.”

Professor Michael Ka Yiu Fung continued to point out that, the creative video production teaching approach to facilitate the learning of seemingly boring Economic theories has been pioneered by teaching staff of the Department of Decision Sciences and Managerial Economics (including Professor Michael Ka Yiu Fung, Dr. David Lap Kei Chow, Dr. Fred Kei Tat Ku and Mr. Franko Tik Lun Wong), and is being implemented by the CUHK Business School in teaching Economics. Overwhelming responses have been received from students whose interests of learning have been improved effectively. CUHK also plans to promote this teaching method to local secondary schools through this contest.

Most of the participants of this contest are Form 5 students who were busy preparing for school works, yet they displayed high enthusiasm and worked all the way by themselves from video shooting to post-production, and most of the teams have received full support from their respective schools and teachers. Dr. Fred Kei Tat Ku, coordinator of this contest, thanked the schools for providing support to the teams including both software and hardware. He praised the excellent quality of the submitted video as well as the creativity and entertainment value of the scripts, and he believed the students have fully mastered the Economics theories during the production process, and benefited from sharing experience with participating teams from other schools.

Three essential video production skills workshops were hosted for the participating teams by the Department of Decision Sciences and Managerial Economics in March, and the related videos and sample videos produced by the students of CUHK Business School have been uploaded to the Facebook page of this contest (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Economics-x-Creativity/258310960903187#!/pages/Economics-x-Creativity/258310960903187). Interested members of the public are welcomed to visit the page.

The winning teams are as follows:

For more information about the contest, please visit: http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/proj/creative.econ/.

About CUHK Business School
CUHK Business School comprises two schools – Accountancy and Hotel & Tourism Management – and four departments – Finance, Decision Sciences & Managerial Economics, Management, Marketing. It was Hong Kong’s first business school offering MBA and EMBA courses. Today, the school offers 10 undergraduate programs and 31 graduate programs (10 MBA/EMBA; 15 Master, MSc and MPhil; 6 PhD).

In the Financial Times’ 2012 global MBA rankings, CUHK’s MBA program is ranked no. 28. In the Financial Times’ 2011 global EMBA rankings, CUHK’s EMBA program is at no.14 and the number 1 independent EMBA program in Asia Pacific. CUHK has the largest number of business alumni (21,000+) in Hong Kong – many of whom are key business leaders. The faculty currently has more than 4,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Professor TJ Wong is the Dean of CUHK Business School.