The 2024 winner of the IFIP IP3 David O’Leary Award, Dr Man Fung Lo, recently attended the 2025 7th Asia Pacific Information Technology Conference (APIT), which was held from 10–12 January at The Education University of Hong Kong. First held in 2019, APIT aims to bring together academic scholars and industrial professionals to share knowledge and research results in the field of information technology annually. In this report, he shares his experiences as a Publicity Chair and a Session Chair. 

The topic of my session was “Service Oriented Consumption Model and Intelligent Learning”. Seven innovative and transformative research projects were presented by scholars from China, Thailand and the Philippines. 

There is no doubt that aging is an important global issue. The United Nations’ World Population Prospects 2022 reported that the population above the age of 65 years is growing more rapidly than the population below that age. Three research projects investigated the impacts of the adoption of learning technologies, Generative AI and gamification pedagogy on the learning experiences of the elderly. These empirical studies showed that technology plays an important role in influencing lifelong learning for the elderly. Benefits include enhancing participation among the elderly, improving their learning outcomes, and ultimately, minimizing the consequences of aging and allowing them to have a better quality of life. 

Another study discussed how LLM was adopted to develop expert-level questions for children’s stories, aiming to enhance reading comprehension. Massive amounts of data are generated in the era of big data. Data analytics allows organizations to uncover patterns from large data sets, helping them make informed decisions and identify new opportunities. Two research teams conducted in-depth analyses of user comments and offered important insights into recommendation strategies and consumer trust. Lastly, the best presentation award goes to a study which proposes a hybrid approach to solving the 0/1 knapsack problem.

All presentations were of high quality, and I would like to thank everyone for their efforts in conducting impactful research in their areas. I look forward to their further contributions and wish them luck in their careers. This session was incredibly rewarding and insightful, filled with engaging discussions and inspiring exchanges. 

Additionally, I would like to thank the organizers for their invitation. All the conference proceedings of the previous APIT Conferences are archived in the ACM Digital Library, and for those who are interested in knowing more, please visit this link. I look forward to the upcoming APIT Conference and wish everyone a fruitful 2025!

Dr Man Fung Lo

Session 1 Chair and Presenters at APIT Conference 2025 Photo supplied.

 

Group Photo of the 2025 7th Asia Pacific Information Technology Conference Photo supplied.