Alumni enjoy dinner in Vancouver, Canada

Imperial alumni in Vancouver met up for an enjoyable dinner on 24 January 2008

"Alumni in Vancouver got together for a local dinner in January 2008, and we had an enjoyable evening. We had been planning a dinner reunion for many months, and were glad to finally get a date set!

The mix of alumni is interesting; our age, discipline, and the fact that most now have a career that is not connected with the course taken at Imperial, or indeed the first careers that applied our Imperial knowledge back then. 
 
Each of us at the dinner table had a story to tell. Professor Sing King (PhD Electrical and Electronic Engineering 1947), who is over 80 and fit as a horse!, gave each of us a book about his story. His  work  included  being the Head of Department, Electronics and Electrical Engineering, at the Hong Kong University and  Vice Chancellor, plus a high number of Government assignments and volunteering leadership roles, among them the founding of many secondary schools in Hong Kong. 

For me, I am from the Department of Computing (and Control), class of  1978. This class was the third batch of  graduates, and it was a full three years before the word 'PC'(Personal Computer) came into being, with the 1981 Charlie Chaplin advertisement. I took a nice little prize of honour as a receipent of the Imperial Scholarship after the first year of study, and graduated third in the class (and first amongst overseas students), where the class produced nine first calss Honours out of a class of 54 graduates (my memory is good when it comes to Imperial matters!). I am in contact with my fellow classmates that are in Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand...this will be 30 years come summer of 2008.
 
I worked in IT for Burroughs, and then mostly with IBM in Hong Kong, where I did a lot of interesting projects for IT in the banking and IBM sector. I was a founding Director of the Hong Kong Section of the British Computer Society. Our  1992  emmigration to Canada changed  things (from better to best). I moved on to what is now Lenovo in Vancouver and opened up their Vancouver office. In 1992, I was the first person to move from IBM to Lenovo (known as Legend Group back then), and of course a few years ago, around 2005, many thousands of IBM folks moved to Lenovo when the PC unit was sold by IBM. In 1993, almost ten Imperial alumni were Managers of various global offices of Legend Group. In 1994, my career changed to Investment & Insurance for Primerica, a Citi Company. That brings a lot of money and a lot of holidays. Our sons are in Electronics and Software, so they can do the hard work!
 
We enjoyed sharing our memories, and will plan for many more such alumni gatherings and more great food in Vancouver - and will also hopefully discover a few more Imperial alumni here! We are proud of being Imperial alumni, and also acknowledge the next generations of Imperial people, including those from families of our own friends, and would be great to be in touch with the Imperial crowd!"

Stephen P. Cheung (Computing 1978)
cheung@stargate.ca

 
The Imperial dinner in Vancouver on 24 January 2008, was attended by:
 
Professor Sing Yui KING (PhD Electrical and Electronic Engineering 1947)  
Wayne LO (MSc Mechanical Engineering 1978)
Stephen Ping Hi Cheung (Computing and Control 1978)
Tony Chong (BSc Royal School of Mines 1981)
Nick Poon (BSc Electrical and Electronic Engineering 1982)
Alan To (MSc Tanaka Business School 1984)
 
We missed the presence of two more Imperial alumni, Ivan Mo (Mechanical Engineering 1990) and Eddie Yung (Production Engineering 197x).