HKFYG March 2021∣Youth Hong Kong
Focusing on social impact
The HKFYG Inno Impact Project
I
n challenging times like this, we need to be agile, innovative and embrace change warmly. That’s why the HKFYG Inno Impact Project stimulates young people in their 20s and 30s to respond to society’s needs. The HKFYG Innovation for Social Impact Project (HKFYG Inno Impact) was launched on the occasion of the 60th Anniversary of The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups. It allocates resources that recognize and celebrate young people who use creativity and innovativeness to solve issues that confront Hong Kong. Award winners create social value by applying their ideas while working towards the common good of improving society.
Objective To identify and pilot promising, solutionbased plans and actions that approach problems and issues of concern within the community in a new, creative way. The aim is also to encourage young people to use their potential for giving back to the community through their actions, building civic responsibility, and thereby helping to create a caring community with social value and a return on investment.
Target Young people aged 18 to 35 who found startups and medium, small or micro-enterprises including social entrepreneurs, professionals, the self-employed and students.
HKFYG Inno Impact Awards Each award is valued up to HK$200,000 and includes professional mentorship, guidance, introduction to networks and service promotion.
Meet the finalists Flowclass finding tutors for special needs Ivan Wong, in his final year of a degree in Global Business Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, has devised a proposal with four team mates to help special needs (SEN) students who need private tutoring. “The proportion of SEN students in Hong Kong tripled from 2.5% to 8.8% in the past ten years. Their parents have to knock on the doors of thousands of tutorial centres and NGOs to find suitable tutoring services. We want to create a SEN tutoring ecosystem in Hong Kong that will change all that. With Flowclass, they can look for tutors with the tag ‘SEN Education.’ It saves weeks of aimless searching. We also want to develop AI that asks a series of interactive guiding questions that will help them choose the most suitable service provider. I believe every student deserves personalized lessons and after my DSE exams, many schoolmates told me that they were under immense pressure and had very limited support at school. Now, as a social entrepreneur, I want to support them and taking part in this competition has allowed me and my team to think more deeply about putting our ideas into practice and then implementing them outside schools.” 32
