Dou­ble Ten Day, al­so known as Na­tion­al Cel­e­bra­tion Day, com­mem­o­rates the start of the Wuchang Up­ris­ing on Oc­to­ber 10, 1911.This up­ris­ing abrupt­ly end­ed the rule of the Qing Dy­nasty and es­tab­lished the Re­pub­lic of Chi­na. The rev­o­lu­tion al­so brought to T&T many Chi­nese im­mi­grants com­prised most­ly of mer­chants and traders. To­day, the Chi­nese com­mu­ni­ty in T&T is heav­i­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with cui­sine, al­though many na­tion­als of Chi­nese de­scent have al­so made ma­jor con­tri­bu­tions to the fields of sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and cul­ture. In recog­ni­tion of Dou­ble Ten Day, some of these na­tion­als are high­light­ed be­low.

Dr Bert Achong 1928–1996

A clin­i­cal pathol­o­gist and grad­u­ate of St Mary's Col­lege, Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Dublin, Achong is one of the co-dis­cov­er­ies of the Ep­stein-Barr virus, which caus­es a rare form of nasal can­cer. Achong al­so dis­cov­ered the first case hu­man in­fec­tion by a "foamy" virus re­lat­ed to HIV usu­al­ly found in chim­panzees. He spent many years as a lec­tur­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bris­tol, Eng­land and was al­so a Foun­da­tion Fel­low of Pathol­o­gy at the Roy­al Col­lege of Physi­cians in Ire­land.

Dr Maxwell Awon 1920–1998

Awon was a dis­tin­guished ob­ste­tri­cian and gy­nae­col­o­gist who al­so served as a mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Min­is­ter of Health and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment. He head­ed the Stick Fight­ing As­so­ci­a­tion for a num­ber of years in ad­di­tion to lead­ing a Car­ni­val band, Max Awon D'Mi­das and As­so­ciates that won Band of the Year in 1984 and 1987. Awon al­so re­ceived nu­mer­ous aca­d­e­m­ic ac­co­lades be­com­ing a fel­low of both the Roy­al Col­lege of Physi­cians in Ire­land and the Amer­i­can Col­lege of Ob­ste­tri­cians and Gy­nae­col­o­gists.

Ce­cil Chin 1943

Ex­pert civ­il en­gi­neer Ce­cil Chin is one of the ear­li­est grad­u­ates of the UWI en­gi­neer­ing pro­gramme. Fol­low­ing UWI, Chin went on to Queen's Uni­ver­si­ty in Cana­da for post grad­u­ate stud­ies. He has worked with some of the ma­jor con­struc­tion com­pa­nies and is a for­mer pres­i­dent of the As­so­ci­a­tion of Pro­fes­sion­al En­gi­neers of T&T. Chin is cred­it­ed with in­creas­ing the land area of T&T by 100 acres. His ma­jor projects in­clude the dredg­ing and recla­ma­tion of parts of Clax­ton Bay and area in Point Fortin now oc­cu­pied by At­lantic LNG.

Mau­reen Man­chouck 1947

Mau­reen Man­chouck, pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al In­sti­tute of High­er Ed­u­ca­tion, has played a ma­jor role in the for­mu­la­tion of draft sci­ence poli­cies for T&T and the Caribbean re­gion. She is a for­mer chair of the Com­mon­wealth Sci­ence Coun­cil and for­mer sec­re­tary of the Caribbean Coun­cil of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy. She is al­so a found­ing mem­ber of the Glob­al Wa­ter Part­ner­ship, Caribbean Chap­ter and helped to es­tab­lish the Col­lege of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ap­plied Arts of T&T. Man­chouck is al­so re­spon­si­ble for the cre­ation of the NI­HERST/NGC Na­tion­al Sci­ence Cen­tre, the on­ly of its kind in the re­gion.

Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards 1931

Richards is a dis­tin­guished chem­i­cal en­gi­neer and grad­u­ate of both the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter In­sti­tutes of sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge. He is a for­mer head of the UWI De­part­ment of Chem­i­cal En­gi­neer­ing and dean of the Fac­ul­ty of En­gi­neer­ing. Richards al­so served as UWI deputy prin­ci­pal, act­ing prin­ci­pal, pro-vice chan­cel­lor and prin­ci­pal in 1985. Richards is cred­it­ed with es­tab­lish­ing links the In­sti­tutes of Chem­i­cal En­gi­neer­ing and en­sur­ing the de­part­ment's pro­gramme fo­cused on process in­dus­tries to the ben­e­fit of the re­gion. Richards was elect­ed pres­i­dent in 2003 and re-elect­ed in 2008. (In­for­ma­tion from the NI­HERST pub­li­ca­tion The Con­tri­bu­tion of Lo­cal Chi­nese to Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and In­no­va­tion)