Schedule:

12:00 pm – Light lunch
12:30 pm - 1:30om – Presentation, sharing and discussion

Forum Overview:  

As university classrooms scale, maintaining individual student engagement and providing timely, personalized feedback becomes increasingly difficult. This talk shares the journey of HKUST's Computer Science and Engineering department in building a robust, co-intelligent ecosystem. We will explore ZINC, our proprietary automated grading system that has processed over 700k submissions since 2020, and discuss how we are evolving this foundation with two next-generation AI initiatives: ZINC-X, which transforms traditional grading into an active AI-tutoring experience, and LecAnchor, a real-time, in-class "Point-and-Ask" system. Attendees will gain practical insights into how we leverage co-intelligence to foster responsive, supportive, and scalable learning environments.

Bio:

Desmond Yau-Chat Tsoi is an Associate Professor of Engineering Education at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). He is a leader in designing and building scalable, high-impact educational technologies that enhance the student learning experience.
In recognition of his passion and dedication to education, Desmond has received numerous prestigious teaching honors. In 2022, HKUST awarded him its highest teaching award, the Michael G. Gale Medal for Distinguished Teaching. He is also a two-time recipient of the School of Engineering's Distinguished Teaching Award (2018–19 and 2021–22) and was voted by the student body as one of the Best Ten Lecturers in 2017.
Over the last few years, Desmond has led the creation of major student-facing platforms at HKUST. He is the driving force behind ZINC, a proprietary automated grading system that has successfully processed over 700,000 programming assignments since 2020. His work also includes co-creating NEST, a social media platform for first-year engineering students, and serving as a key member of the Online-Onsite Computer-based Examination Platform (OO-CoBE) grant project for secure online examinations.
His current work focuses on pioneering the next generation of AI-driven educational tools. He is the Principal Investigator for two major new initiatives: ZINC-X, which evolves the traditional autograder into a unified AI assessment and tutoring ecosystem, and LecAnchor, a novel "Point-and-Ask" system for real-time lecture comprehension. Desmond teaches subjects ranging from foundational Python to advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning, grounding his technological innovations in daily classroom experience.