Teaching

George Chen is a Senior Fellow for the Centre for Civil Society and Governance at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) where he co-leads (with Prof. Danny Lam Wai-Fung) the “Tech for Good Initiative”. At the HKU, George is also appointed an adjunct faculty member of the Department of Politics and Public Administration (PPA). Currently, George hosts and teaches “Digital Society and Governance” (POLI8034 / SLGP7018, six credits) for students from three Master degree programs including Master or Public Administration (MPA), Master of International and Public Affairs (MIPA) and Master of Social Sciences in the field of Sustainability Leadership and Governance (MSLG). The size of George’s class is about 70 students per semester, making it one of the most popular in the PPA faculty.

George also sits on the advisory committees of several universities, including The Chinese University of Hong Kong (School of Journalism and Communication), City University of Hong Kong (Department of Media and Communication), and Hong Kong Baptist University (Department of Government & International Studies), where he has also been a guest lecturer on various topics.

Additionally in Taipei, George is a Visiting Scholar at National Chengchi University where he advises the Dean of College of Communication on international partnership and academic programs. In 2014, George was appointed a Yale World Fellow at Yale University. In April 2023, George returned to Yale for three months for his visiting fellowship at the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University. George remains an active member of Yale Club of Hong Kong and Yale Centre Beijing (YCB). Read his recent interview with YCB here (中文).

Course description of “Digital Society and Governance”

We’re all living in a fast-changing world, largely driven by technology and innovation on daily basis, from the way how you do shopping nowadays -- through e-commerce -- to the future of financial services, which already pose a lot of questions to the authoritative power of global central banks. The biggest challenge to technology and innovation is probably not the development of new technology itself but rather how to get the users and policymakers to understand the pros and cons of new technologies and then how to apply them to our new digital society in a responsible way as people expect higher efficiency in delivery of public services as well as better control of data privacy. Those are the questions and issues we will explore in this course.

In this course, we also invite experienced guest speakers to share their “real-world views” on each topics including 1) A stakeholder analysis of the digital society ecosystem; 2) Data privacy protection; 3) Cloud technology and economic opportunities; 4) FinTech and the future of finance; 5) War on misinformation; 6) AI and ethics; 7) Web3, Generative AI, Metaverse, and other new technologies; and 8) Geopolitics in internet governance.

The desirable outcome of the course is to help students to have a general sense of the interplay between technology and public policy as well as to map and understand different stakeholders in building a reliable digital society. Students will write case memo and participate in group projects to turn relevant theories and learnings into practices.

Recent Lectures included:

• How emerging technologies impact communications and distribution of information

• Metaverse: The next chapter of the Internet and a new era for communications

• Key stakeholders, issues, and trend in digital society

• What’s in the Cloud: Smart City and digital governance

• The impact of new technologies on global banking system and central bank governance

• The trilemma in digital governance: The government, civil society, and private sector

• War on misinformation: Social media, distribution of information, and free speech

• Introduction of Responsible AI principles and AI ethics

• Understanding geopolitics in technology, digital trade, and supply chain

• Emerging technologies: The metaverse, AI and the future of work

Contact George here for guest lecture opportunities or ask for his full syllabus.