News

The Fund’s intermediary programmes keep advancing. Under the capacity-building programme of Nurturing Social Minds launched by one of the Fund’s intermediaries the Yeh Family Philanthropy Limited (YFP), the second class on Social Entrepreneurship and Venture Philanthropy commenced on 16 September. Mrs Patricia Lau from the Fund’s Secretariat was invited to give a welcome speech and introduce the Fund to MBA and other postgraduate and undergraduate students in the class. The course is run by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Business School in collaboration with YFP. It aims to provide students with the opportunity to examine and help develop innovative approaches for social businesses to deliver social value and achieve sustainability. Details of the programme can be found here.

The Social Innovation Jam is starting a new round of tour in campuses of tertiary education institutions, showcasing brilliant social innovation examples from around the world. The opening ceremony, held at the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKiEd), was officiated by Prof. Stephen Cheung Yan-leung, Chairperson of the SIE Fund Task Force, and the Men Soccer Team of HKiEd were invited to give a mini soccer performance. The two-month campus tour will run around seven tertiary education institutions.

The SIE Fund has newly launched an initiative of promoting the concept of “Shared Value” among Hong Kong’s businesses. A Forum with the theme of “Shared Value: Creating Competitive Advantage” was held on 9 September as the first of a series of activities. The Shared Value concept suggests a new win-win business approach by which a company can gain a unique competitive advantage and enjoy a commercial return by applying its assets and expertise to delivering products and services that address unmet social needs. The Forum brought together more than 160 business leaders from major corporations who sought insight from speakers including Mr Mark Kramer, the initiator of the Global “Creating Shared Value” movement. In her welcome message, the Chief Secretary for Administration Mrs Carrie Lam called upon the active partnership of Hong Kong’s businesses in addressing societal threats through utilising their creativity and innovation in developing new business practices that can flourish through respect for people and for the planet as well as attention to profit. Learn more about Shared Value and the Forum from the Forum website at www.sie.gov.hk/sharedvalue/2015forum.

Since the establishment of the SIE Fund, the Task Force has been putting forward a number of initiatives.  To better understand the impact of them, the Task Force has decided to conduct an Evaluation Study to assess the effectiveness of these initiatives in achieving the Fund’s objectives.

The invitation exercise was closed at 12:00 noon, 3 November 2015. Stay tuned for further news.