Innovative technologies have often been the cause of turbulence on financial markets, and in this issue, we look at speculative bubbles, past and present, and how they have been a precursor for a more regulated future. Trust in the financial markets has traditionally been established around centralized institutions. Now blockchain promises not only a more decentralized future, but also transparent transactions which may affect the modus operandi of several of our current professions.
In Turbulence and trust, City Business Magazine editor Eric Collins takes a look at how historically financial trust has been created often against a backdrop of market turmoil through the development of national institutions such as central banks. Then, In blockchain we trust: technological issues and business impacts, Professor Leon Zhao and Dr Ji Wu assess the contemporary distributed ledger phenomenon, whilst in Bitcoin – future or fraud? Dr Zhang Zhong looks at the operation and prospects for the earliest blockchain application. Further questions about the technology are answered in The trust machine, an interview with Dr Lawrence Ma and Gabriel Chan of the Hong Kong Blockchain Society.
We have featured China’s Belt and Road Initiative in recent issues, and it proves to be an enduring theme. In Turkey – dynamic partner on the modern-day Silk Road, an interview with Korhan Kemik, the Consul General of Turkey in Hong Kong, we learn about Turkey’s relationship with China, the business opportunities available, and the country’s many tourist attractions.
Professor Jeff Hong has been offering voluntary study groups to students at all levels in the Management Sciences for the past couple of years, and in Deep learning we hear about his approach to PhD study, and
from some of his students on the benefits of a broad-based approach to doctoral study. Congratulations to Jeff, who has recently been appointed Area Editor for Simulation at the journal Operations Research.
Professor Frank Chen gave a President’s Lecture entitled “Integrated Elderly Care, Challenges and Opportunities" in March 2018, and in Towards an Elderly Ecosystem we learn of the crisis in Hong Kong’s
public healthcare system, and how he sees such an ecosystem developing in the near future.
We are also fortunate to carry two interviews with our alumni. Professor Li Haiyang, PhD alumnus, Professor of Strategic Management and Innovation at the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business, Rice University gives his take on The rise of innovation in China, whilst Anthony Lam, EMBA alumnus and Vice Chairman, Golden Resources Development International Ltd. describes how Filling the Hong Kong rice bowl has been achieved in this densely populated city which no longer possesses its own rice paddy fields.
A Big Thank You to all who responded to our Reader's Survey. Please check the results on page 51. Your feedback is invaluable to our effort and will help guide us as we move forward with our forthcoming issues.
Houmin Yan
