There was a clean sweep of the awards in the President's Cup 2012 for School of Engineering student teams, which received the overall winning honor, gold and silver awards. The President's Cup is an annual HKUST event for undergraduates to compete for awards based on outstanding achievements in research and innovation. The contest seeks to encourage students' creativity and to help participants to build their presentation and communication skills.

The top prize went to a Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering team for their project on the processing of high-performance porous membranes for fuel cell applications. The team comprised Fung Chu Li, Bowen Sun (Dual Degree Program), Hon Ting Wong, and Lang Xu, and was supervised by Prof Ping Gao.

A team of students from Computer Science and Engineering, Electronic and Computer Engineering, Computer Engineering Program, and the Dual Degree Program received the gold award for their work on enhancing internet transaction security with fingerprint recognition. Team members Kannan S Chandrasegaran, Shrikant Patnaik, Sagar Nilesh Shah and Saurabh Swarup were supervised by Prof Cunsheng Ding, Computer Science and Engineering and Prof Bing Zeng, Electronic and Computer Engineering.

Another Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering team gained the silver award for their project on in situ hydrogel for cosmetic injection. Students Pik Kei Lam, Kai Qi Yan, Feiran Yi, and Siu Man Yip participated, supervised by Prof Ying Chau.