On June 20, John E. Hopcroft, the Turing Award winner in 1986, founded The Hopcroft Institute for Advanced Information Science at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen.

China’s Stanford

Professor Hopcroft told the audience at the inauguration ceremony that his institute would engage in research on super distributed system, security and privacy protection for distributed data, data intensive computing, content and scenario perceptional computing, and deep learning-based intelligent computing, which are all highly complex disciplines and will produce a huge impact on social development. Thinking of Stanford University, Professor Hopcroft expressed a desire to develop CUHK (SZ) into China’s Stanford.

Intellectual Revolution Approaching

Professor Hopcroft believes that one of the purposes of establishing the institute is to provide an excellent research environment where scholars and scientists may conduct research on artificial intelligence and computer science. This is a response to the coming intellectual revolution, where only 25 percent of the population is needed to produce all the goods and services that are needed,  and in which individuals individuals may retire at age 45. In that case, All the remaining 75 percent can be engaged in the arts, music, travel, or sports. Thus, it is important that a highly technical education also include a humanities component. Education will be not only for a job but also skills to enjoy life.

Who is John E. Hopcroft

John E. Hopcroft received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1964. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has received numerous awards, including the A. M. Turing Award for his research contributions in 1986, the IEEE Harry Goode Memorial Award in 2005, the Computing Research Association’s Distinguished Service Award in 2007, the ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award in 2009, the IEEE Von Neumann Medal in 2010, and the Friendship Gold Metal, China in 2016.