HK teen's award-winning AI app ignites debate over academic integrity, social inequality

Straits Times

4 days ago

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The app is a medication management system designed to prevent prescription errors through AI-driven verification of patient information.
– A controversy surrounding a local teenager's award-winning AI-powered medical app has become one of Hong Kong's biggest education scandals in recent years.
The saga has ignited debate over academic integrity in Hong Kong's competitive Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education environment as well as deep-seated socio-economic inequalities in the city.
The 15-year-old student from one of Hong Kong's top schools was accused of academic fraud after she won eight awards in international competitions for the medication prescription software, MediSafe, which was submitted as her personal invention.
The app is a medication management system designed to prevent prescription errors through AI-driven verification of patient information.
The accusations came after university student Hailey Cheng posted on social networking platform Threads in June, casting doubt on how a secondary school student could have created such a complex AI system and questioning the privacy of patients' medical data used in the app.
Although Ms Cheng, 20, a maths major at the City University of Hong Kong, did not initially name the teen, internet users quickly identified the latter as the allegations spread online.
Public attention soon turned to the teen's privileged background – her father is a renowned liver disease specialist and her mother is a professor at a local university's medical school.
' The audacity to present that work (as one's own) and not be in fear of getting caught shows how the elite think they are above all others,' one internet user wrote in a Reddit post on the issue.
Another recent post referred to the teen as 'a typical pretty privileged liar from the upper class'.
On Aug 6, Mr Ahmed Jemaa, co-founder of US firm AI Health Studio, released a statement revealing that his team was paid by the teen's mother in March 2024 to build the software and that they were not told it would be submitted to academic competitions.
'Our team built the MVP (minimum viable product) entirely from scratch,' Mr Jemaa wrote on LinkedIn. 'No code, no UX, and no technical architecture were shared with us before starting the work on the project… The core product was developed solely by our team.'
Mr Jemaa alleged that the mother subsequently asked his firm to 'reframe the project as a commercial roll-out rather than a from-scratch build' and 'also offered to pay us for continued involvement in shaping the public and institutional messaging', but that the firm declined to do so.
His disclosure of the collaboration and its timeline aimed to 'set the record straight' as MediSafe's wins at international contests were 'unfair to the other participants', he added.
The app's accolades include a silver medal at the 2025 Geneva International Exhibition of Inventions, second runner-up at the 2024 Asia-Pacific Information and Communications Technology Alliance Awards in Brunei, and several wins at the 2024 Hong Kong ICT Awards.
Hong Kong's Digital Policy Office, which organised the Hong Kong ICT Awards, had stipulated in the rules that all competition entries' 'design concept and content must be original and created in Hong Kong'.
The Hong Kong Academy for Gifted Education (HKAGE), which oversaw the city's selection of representatives for the prestigious Geneva competition, launched an investigation into the matter following the allegations.
On Aug 18, it released its latest findings, acknowledging the app as the student's original concept and stating that her work complied with competition rules.
'The student submitted her work (to other competitions) in January 2024 and February 2024, (which) included a 22-page PowerPoint presentation covering problem analysis, principles, arguments, case studies, required application functions and proposed solutions,' it said.
'The HKAGE also obtained e-mail confirmation that the student presented the concept of her work to the teacher in October 2023. Therefore, the HKAGE acknowledges MediSafe as the student's original concept,' it added.
The academy said that 'as subsequent negotiations regarding commercial activities between (the student's family and Mr Jemaa) fall outside the scope of the HKAGE's investigation, no comment will be provided on this matter'.
Ms Cheng told The Straits Times that her key concerns about the academic integrity and ethical issues surrounding MediSafe's creation and use of patient data remained.
'The real question is whether the student's proposed solutions provided enough detail to build MediSafe as it exists, or if the system came into being only after (Mr Jemaa's team) started work on it in March 2024,' said Ms Cheng, who has previously participated in Google AI research and software development programmes.
'I find it difficult to accept the claim that MediSafe was purely an original concept by the student, since the core technological foundation and execution were clearly outsourced… That undermines the principle of fair competition.'
Ms Cheng added: 'The more than 1,000 patient records (purportedly collected after the app was developed) also raised immediate red flags about consent and compliance with privacy laws.'
Although the teen's father has told local media that the app used only simulated patient data, Ms Cheng said, 'in practice, developing an app with the clinical realism and AI sophistication claimed would normally require substantial domain knowledge, significant development resources or external expertise'.
The incident highlights problems in Hong Kong's competitive STEM education culture and also calls into question the credibility of its official organisations in verifying authorship in innovation, she said.
'It's more than just about one project,' Ms Cheng said. 'Many members of the public were angered by the dismissive and defensive responses from these institutions, which risk damaging trust in our youth innovation programmes.'
She added that she had encountered significant backlash and harassment, both online and offline, following her post, and that she had met with lawmakers to discuss the matter.
Riding on the incident, internet users have raised concerns that wealthy Hong Kong parents may be increasingly outsourcing their children's work to paid experts, giving their offspring unfair advantages over less well-to-do students in similar competitions.
One netizen shared an anecdote about his university team taking part in a hackathon giving up commercialising their project as they could not afford to do so, while a rival team won the competition as its leader had rich parents who paid to commercialise its work.
Another netizen played devil's advocate: 'Why should we care if her daddy paid someone to do her homework? In a start-up, some people bring hard work, some bring ideas, some bring talent. But the MVP (most valuable player) is the person who brings bags and bags of cash.'
Mr Raymond Chan, assistant director of entrepreneurship at Hong Kong Baptist University, told ST that while paying third parties to help with the technical side of a product is the norm in the business world, it could be seen as 'fraud' if entered for contests as one's original creation.
'If the student claimed him/herself as the inventor but had not much to do with the product's specification or did not participate much in the operation of the 'business' itself, it can probably be considered fraud,' said Mr Chan, who is also the co-founder of two tech start-ups in the United States and Asia.
He added: 'The gap of resources granted by the elite schools and parents (to their students and children) compared with those from other schools or backgrounds has been widening in developed countries. It is a danger faced not just by Hong Kong alone.'
The student and her parents did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr Jemaa said he was preparing to share more information soon in response to HKAGE's investigation findings.