Post Date: 10 February 2026

ENVR Students Won 1st and 2nd Prize at Global Sustainability Challenge 2025-26 Asia Pacific Regional Finals

Congratulations to our student team “Undrain the Rain“ -- Mathew CHAN, Ekko CHIU, Angel LI, Cyrus TONG, John TSUI and YU Ka Hang, students of BSc in Environmental Management and Technology (EVMT) for winning First prize, and to the team "Urban Roots" -- Hazel CHAN, Sincere PANG and Ashley WONG, students of MSc in Environmental Science and Management (EVSM) for winning Second prize in the Global Sustainability Challenge 2025-26 Asia Pacific Regional Finals.

Reflecting on the project, Ekko CHIU, EVMT Year 2 student, said, “Our project, ‘Undrain the Rain’, aims to decentralize rainwater harvesting and storage to boost water security. From ideation to our project presentation session, we have gained valuable insights on the importance of multidisciplinary approaches to sustainability issues.

More importantly, by interacting with other project groups during the amazing 2 days at Zhejiang University, I've also gained a more international perspective on different creative adaptations to environmental issues as well as the new cutting-edge technology to make energy more sustainable.

Finally, a big thanks to my teammates for all the great ideas and work, as well as Global Sustainability Challenge for providing us such an amazing platform to shine.”

Cyrus TONG, EVMT Year 2 student, highlighted the challenges behind, “To Undrain the Rain, the most challenging stage of our project was definitely the prototyping phase. We had to test both the effectiveness and technical feasibility of our design under a very tight schedule, all while juggling an already demanding academic workload. This even led many of us to sacrifice part of our winter vacation or travel time, returning to campus just to continue working on the prototype. On top of that, the lack of space and resources made building a full 1:1 installation nearly impossible. Despite these difficulties, we still managed to develop a scaled‑down model that successfully demonstrated our system’s rainwater collection capability, supported by quantified and correlated data for feasibility assessment.”

For the project “Urban Roots”, Hazel CHAN, EVSM Year 2 student said, “We came up with a community-based approach to climate resilience via public-private partnerships—designing the ‘Tree Pavilion’ app prototype to empower youth, families, corporates, and tourists to collect data for building an urban tree database that quantifies their cooling effects and ecosystem benefits, and reveal trees’ hidden financial value through green finance products.

It was my first time traveling to Zhejiang University for the presentation, exchanging innovative ideas with passionate peers!

Thanks to Zhejiang University for organizing it, HKUST for the all-along support, plus huge thanks to my team leader Sincere PANG and teammate Ashley WONG for making it all happen!”

We are proud of our students for their creativity, dedication, and achievement. Their success shines on the international stage and underscores the significant impact of student-led initiatives in advancing practical and scalable sustainability solutions.

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