Best Universities for Blockchain 2022: University of Hong Kong

Officially opened on March 11, 1912, the University of Hong Kong is the oldest university in the Chinese territory and is one of the top public research universities in Asia. In its 110-year history – with a pause for World War II – the university has seen its courses expand far beyond its original three of arts, engineering and medicine.

This piece is part of CoinDesk's Education Week.

Read the Full List: Best Universities for Blockchain 2022

Hong Kong is synonymous with being one of the world’s premier financial hubs, and HKU’s MBA program is the city’s go-to incubator for the next generation of financial talent. The Economist for many years ranked it as Asia’s top program.

Now, the HKU Business School offers four for-credit courses in fintech and blockchain, as well as one not-for-credit course open to the public, Blockchain and FinTech: Basics, Applications, and Limitations, via the HKUx open learning platform.

The university says that to date it has issued approximately 1,750 blockchain-related credits to students.

The school also operates the HKU FinTech and Blockchain Laboratory, which is led by Professor Siu-Ming Yiu from the Department of Computer Science. This lab covers broad areas such as fintech, blockchain and cryptocurrencies, with expertise in applied cryptography.

HKU also runs a FinTech academy in collaboration with Standard Chartered’s community foundation. It was initially opened in April 2020 with a HKD 60 million grant ($7.6 million) from the foundation, and has incubated 33 fintech projects that were developed at the university.

A spokesperson for HKU told CoinDesk that more than 500 bachelor's and master’s students have enrolled in one of the school’s blockchain courses since they were made available in 2019.