To boost social entrepreneurship in Asia, we need a culture of social innovation. As the social issues in urban areas of Asia are quite similar, it is worthwhile to collaboratively think about innovative ideas that can tackle or address social issues and share our common experience with hopes to bring social entrepreneurship into a whole new level.
To generate a sustainable development of a culture of social innovation in the region, we must encourage the generally public to “think social”. The Asia Social Innovation Award is one of the pioneers that allows literally anyone to participate in this idea-generation process.
Your simple idea will be a first step to change the society and the world!
About the Award Calling for Applications »We believe that the urban social challenges in many Asian cities are quite alike, these pressing problems need to be solved immediately, and whenever the traditional model does not satisfy the needs of the society, innovations are demanded.
"Social Enterprise" has become a hot topic in recent years. However people tend to focus their discussion on the entity itself, instead of the more powerful concept behind that leads to ultimate social change - "Social Innovation", which is also relatively weak in Asia, creating a big barrier for social entrepreneurship to groom in the region.
However, from a worldwide perspective, social enterprises have undeniably brought great positive impact worldwide. For instance, social enterprise accounts for 1% of the GDP in UK. In fact, social enterprises contribute tremendously in creating a culture of social innovation among communities.
In order to promote the culture of social innovation and enrich people’s knowledge on social issues, and to build a platform to encourage the sharing of ideas and experience among Asian cities, the Asia Social Innovation Award has been born since 2008, hoping to pathway for a sustainable development of social innovation culture in the region.
The Award will be the first innovative social enterprise event in Asia to apply a simple and easy mechanism to engage the general public to participate in the discussion, and to deliver positive and concrete innovative solutions to tackle these problems.
We hope that this simple idea-generating competition calling for level-zero social innovation ideas will be able to attract the general public to take part.
So, it's now time for us to brainstorm some creative ideas, and you too can bring about a social revolution. Make use of your imagination, and change might be initiated by you in the society!
Please pick one of the following social agenda, and propose an innovative social enterprise concept using 200-500 words. You may also submit your idea in a video format.
The aging population in Asia continues to increase. In Hong Kong, the population aged 65 or above is expected to surge from about 900,000 at present to 2.1 million by 2030, which will account for a quarter of our population. The impact of an aging population in Asia is pervasive, profound and enduring. It is a global phenomenon affecting every aspect of our lives, such as economic, social and political arenas. The rapidly aging population brings tremendous challenges but also opportunities to supporting infrastructure in our society as a whole.
What innovative ideas can you think of to raise the public awareness and create sustainable solutions?
Urban poverty is getting more and more acute in our world. Statistics from the United Nations shows that more than 2.8 billion people are living with less than US$2/day or equivalent. In Hong Kong, there are more than 1.16 million low-income household and the median monthly income of a 3-person family is less than US$1,500. Most of the poor in many countries are single mothers with children. The major problem for the poor is that they cannot afford necessities like medicine or proper education. Cross-generation poverty further complicates the issue and may create social unrest in long run.
How can we make a difference for these underprivileged families and empower them to cope with the life challenges?
Parenting has become a hot topic in our society, creating social pressure to parents. Many parents are being called as either “Monster Parents” or “Unconcerned Parents”. “Monster parents”, in general, are aggressive and over-protective of their children. As a result, children are spoiled and these “Spoiled Children” create further social problems. They may have temper tantrums and are self-centered, whilst their parents do not know how set the right boundaries and to deal with such behavioral issues. On the other hand, there are also “Unconcerned Parents” whose children are being unattended and uncared for by their parents. Those parents are imperceptibly making their children isolate themselves from the world.
How could you help these parents and the society to build up and maintain a healthy relationship between children and their parents?
Criteria include originality, viability and sustainability of idea. Apart from imaginative and innovative ideas or concept, existing ideas are also welcomed.
Peter Mo
Head of IT, Greater China at Credit Suisse
Diana Tsui
Head of Corporate Social Responsibility and Diversity, KPMG
Joe Ngai
Managing Partner, McKinsey & Co. Hong Kong
Vincent Tsui
MNC Marketing Director, Marketing Columnist
Manyee Chan
Founder, Parenting Forum
Asian Pacific Region:
On or before 6 th October, 2013 (Sunday) at 23:59pm (Hong Kong time)
Hong Kong Region:
On or before 13 th October, 2013 (Sunday) at 23:59pm (Hong Kong time)
1 List of qualified Asian countries/cities, subjected to the addition or removal of countries at the sole discretion of SVhk:
Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, China, East Timor, India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia,
Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam.
The winning ideas from other Asian countries will be posted in early-November, and the winners will be notified individually.
The Award Presentation Ceremony for "Hong Kong" and "Asian" winners will be held in November.
You can learn more about the past year’s winning ideas at the Asia Social Innovation Award 2010, 2011 & 2012 website.
With the support of corporate partners and other SE-related organizations, Social Ventures Hong Kong would like to further expand the event, by inviting ASIA2012’s finalists and winners to join the House of Social Innovators.
Formed under the collaboration of various SE-competitions, together with alumnus of these competitions, HoSI is a platform that will provide on-going support to passionate social entrepreneurs to transform social innovative ideas to sustainable social enterprise and to nurture investment-ready social enterprises and bring it to the marketplace.
For each application, you only need to suggest an idea that addresses one of the social issues. You can at most submit 3 separate applications, each of them tackling one of the given problems.
Applicants are only allowed to type out their idea or upload their video to YouTube and submit their application online. Please email us if you experience any difficulties submitting your idea online.
Whilst you can participate in the Award as a team, if you are residing outside of Hong Kong and in the event that your idea is chosen as a winning idea, SVhk will only provide return air tickets and accommodation for one member within your team. Of course other members can join the award presentation ceremony held in Hong Kong at their own cost.
The judging panel will only judge those ideas that are in English or Chinese. If you unable to fulfill this requirement, please consult the organization you belong to, and see if they will be able to translate the main theme of your idea into the appropriate language.
We have received a record-breaking number of 670+ submissions this year from all across Asia and after a tough deliberation by our judges, the results are finally out! We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the winners and all the participants for their truly innovative ideas. The judges were highly impressed with the quality of submissions received this year and it was a very difficult choice to select only one winner from each category. We hope you have enjoyed the process of thinking social and strongly encourage you to ask your family and friends to do the same.
To keep up-to-date with Social Ventures Hong Kong (SVhk)'s future competitions, events or announcement, please don't forget to like us on Facebook or to subscribe to our mailing list. Once again, thank you all for your efforts and we appreciate your creativity and innovation.
Below are the winners of the 2013 Award:
Aging PopulationEnglish Name: Lin Yi ChenCountry of Residence: Taiwan Idea: Farmer Club - Organic products are no doubt beneficial to our health in a long run and also lower the medical cost though it is considered a type of luxury goods. In the near future, there will be loads of elders who focus on quality of life and are at high level of knowledge. They will be able to develop a more refined and systematic business model thought their life experience and education level. The idea of Farmer Club is to mobilize the mass of elders from aging population and incorporate the exercise element into an organic agriculture production to allow the elders to create their very own business model. It portrays a relaxing work place though the exercise element and the elders’ emotion towards to village. Farmer Club aims to be a gym for elders to work out, a venue for them to socialize and a platform for organic product selling. |
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PovertyEnglish Name: Tseng Yen ChingCountry of Residence: Taiwan Idea: Mama's Kitchen - Mama’s kitchen is a neighborhood restaurant that is run by a group of low-income housewives. Taking into consideration that most mamas need to take care of the kids, a designated area in the restaurant would be set for the kids to gather and play. Mamas would then take turns to take care of the kids. Exclusive recipe cooking class would be held for teenagers who are willing to learn; unemployment teenagers or travellers to make additional profit. Nowadays, urban people are getting sick and tired of lavished meals everyday. In fact, they cherish the home-cooked meals. Besides, the underprivileged housewives can’t work since they are occupied by looking after their kids. Therefore, Mama's kitchen could be a way to resolve the problems being faced by both parties; a win-win situation. |
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ParentingEnglish Name: Chen Guan YuCountry of Residence: Taiwan Idea: "Recalling a travel" is a combination of travelling and the Monopoly game, its mission contents include gourmets, heritage, traditional industries and other local issues. Through real-life implementations, children are allowed to step out of their classrooms, experiencing an external culture, while parents can understand more about what is lack in the communication between their children and themselves. |
Aging PopulationEnglish Name: Dickson Poon & Amy WongChinese Name: 潘廸信、黃韻婷 Idea: Senior Mystery Shoppers – "SMS" With the aging population approaching, many parties/companies, which are targeting senior consumer, need to accelerate their understandings on senior consumers' needs and behaviors in order to provide well-fit products/services and achieve customer satisfaction efficiently. The Senior Mystery Shoppers "SMS" scheme will employ seniors trained shoppers to help these companies to assess the quality of customer service, operations, employee integrity, merchandising, and product quality anonymously. Data obtained from "SMS" Scheme also gives management insights in developing strategy to increase sales, profits, improve customer satisfaction and enhance employee performance. |
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PovertyEnglish Name: Siu Pui LamChinese Name: 蕭珮霖 Idea: "Little Talents" It is very improbable, if not impossible, for underprivileged families to support children’s extra-curricular activities financially. This makes it hard to uncover these children’s potentials, and in turn lowers their self-confidence. “Little Talents” aims at encouraging parents to donate 1-5% of the course fees when they purchase any extra-curricular activities classes for their own children. The donations will then be used to subsidize in creating a free quota for the underprivileged children. Having a chance to choose an interested course or activity, these children are believed to grab an opportunity to develop their own hobbies and talents. |
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ParentingEnglish Name: Lo Yin Fun, JoannaChinese Name: 盧燕芬 Idea: Family-friendly Jobs Working parents are very common in the territory. Due to long working hours, they can’t spend time with their children even they wish. Such lack of interactions can result in alienation between children and parents. The models in “family-friendly jobs” are: First, it makes use of concepts in Human Resources to match talents with employers. Enterprises and companies are encouraged to open up some part-time job places (e.g. accounting, IT, marketing, HR, etc.). Second, it will also help individuals seek jobs by matching them with relevant companies. The main targets of “family-friendly jobs” are those with a minimum of 5 year clerical experiences, wishing to work as part-time in the next 3-5 years in order to take care of children; or those ceased their work for several years but would like to re-enter the job market as a part-time worker. |
Team Name: Creative Ta1iban 創意塔利班 Members' Name: Wong Yee Wa, Eva, Chung Man Lok, Chase, & Ho Man Yi Chinese Name: 黃綺華、鍾旻洛、何敏怡 Idea: Tee-back "Tee-back" will innovate the traditional act of flyers distribution. Instead of handing out flyers, low-income staffs who join the programme will wear an advertisement tee-shirt to act as a mobile advertisement for more effective marketing. Not only does "Tee-back" reduce the time and effort to achieve same level of awareness, it can also reduce paper waste and create employment. |
The winners will be presented with their awards at the Social Enterprise Summit held in Hong Kong in late-November, 2013.
Want to read even more brilliant ideas? You can read about the past year’s winning ideas at the Asia Social Innovation Award 2010, 2011 & 2012 website.
Being one of the social entrepreneurship intermediates in Hong Kong, Social Ventures Hong Kong (SVhk), has dedicated itself in promoting this concept through practicing venture philanthropy in supporting social innovation projects. At the same time, SVHK will promote social entrepreneurship by providing training, consultancy and organize promotion events in various sectors.
Contact info
The Good Lab, L1, The Sparkle
500 Tung Chau Street
West Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR
T. + (852) 3996 1946
F. + (852) 3013 8637
E. enquiry @ socialinnovationaward.asia