JCCSTEP Impact report 2021-22

Dear Innovator,

We are most grateful for the support of The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust to fund the Jockey Club CoCoon Student Training in Entrepreneurship Programme.

As entrepreneurs and investors, we know how important a limitless learning mindset is, it helps us navigate an unknown future with hope and optimism. We love our home city, it is an international platform for many successful businesses. We see startups as a part of Hong Kong’s transformation into an even more dynamic innovation and technology hub where capital and technology meet. When that happens, jobs grow. We care a lot about the future of work because jobs enable self-actualization and livelihood. This goal has become even more significant since COVID when so many jobs have changed, disappeared, and new jobs have been created. The CoCoon Foundation continues to be a platform where the future of work happens, what better way to prepare ourselves than to work in startups that are building the future? Landing students in internships inside startups is our favourite part of the program because we believe that working is the best way to learn.

CoCoon Foundation strives to unfold the future of education together with the future of work by delivering conscious education programs where we embrace the voices and strengths of the students and teachers in the community to find and develop their growth pathways. As learners and educators, our greatest hope for the future is that trying, failing, and persevering to create a world we want to live in becomes a part of our limitless learning journey. We support youth innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives with the hope to help nurture curious and innovative minds who can bring a positive impact to the future of Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area. From here, we hope that entrepreneurship as a life skill enables everyone to find their unique talents and discover purposeful endeavours they can realise for our global community.

& Erica Co-Founders of CoCoon

Theodore

業培訓計劃」接觸超過 15,000 個學生， 180 間初創公司和商界機 構，當中更創造多達195個實習機會。

CoCoon Foundation’s journey began in 2017 when our co-founders recognised the need for secondary students to have access to entrepreneurship education. Through education, we embarked on a mission to empower the next generation with entrepreneur sharings, application of design thinking, and collaboration with corporate innovators. We hope students can be inspired by stories, empowered to tackle opportunities and connected with future work experiences. We also pride ourselves on the internship programme, which hopes to inspire students to explore different possibilities in their own future career paths by providing workshops, interview clinics and an opportunity to intern in a startup environment. To date, the programme has reached over 15,000 students, 180 startups and corporate organisations and more than 190 internships.

Hello! My name is Abbie and I am currently a F.5 student at Tin Ka Ping Secondary School (this is Abbie’s second year being featured in our book!). I am very interested in learning big data. Something that I enjoy doing in my free time is visiting Disneyland; I go pretty oftenespecially after school when I have no extracurriculars that day!

What do you learn at JCCSTEP that you feel like is helpful and can be applied in school settings/other places?

This year, I participated in STEP Four - Corporate Challenge & STEP Five - Innovation Camp as a CCY (CoCoon Young Leader & Facilitator) , both times the experience left a deep impression in me. As my first time stepping into the role of a facilitator and being more of a student leader in group work, I found that the way I thought through different challenges, as well as my overall perspective was also different. By leading students through the STEPs, I learnt how to be more of a leader; I also reflected back to when I was participating in different STEPs just as a regular student and how I used to respond or behave - I think the experience has motivated me to be more enthusiastic so that I can motivate others to feel more engaged during their experience.

I also got the chance to participate in STEP Eight - Job Exposure Experience this year and I think my biggest takeaway was a change in my mindset and perspective. Whilst working on the research project that our startup host gave us, our group looked into different information and aspects of KOL’s (Key Opinion Leaders). Previously, I think I would always research from the perspective of a customer or consumer, however this time, we had to look through the lens of a company. What kind of KOL would be beneficial to work with from a company standpoint? The project helped me understand how to look at things from more than one perspective which I try to remind myself to do in daily life as well.

今年我以 CCY Facilitator 角色帶領了兩組同學分別參加 STEP Four - 企業挑 戰擂台和 STEP Five - 創新營，這都讓我留下了難以忘記的深刻回憶。參 與企業挑戰擂台的組員都非常積極主動，我並不需要花費太多時間鼓勵 他們投入活動，主要是聆聽他們的分享後總結討論結果，確保他們的思 考和討論並沒有偏離軌道。相反，我在參與創新營時所面對的挑戰較大 —— 組員們雖然是來自同一所學校，但是她們較文靜被動，我嘗試以不 同的方法鼓勵她們參與活動，例如鼓勵她們輪流分享，利用網上平台的 「舉手」功能，確保每個組員都能參與討論。我非常開心能透過這些活 動，實踐並培養自己的技能。我期待將來當我面對一些問題或挑戰時， 淡定地尋找解決方案，並運用我所掌握的技巧解決所有問題。

If you are currently a CCY Facilitator (CoCoon Young Leader & Facilitator), why did you decide to be a facilitator? What did you learn from the experience ?

At the beginning, I came to know of this role through a CoCoon Foundation team member. After getting to know more about what it would entail, I decided I should definitely try it out, step out of my comfort zone to meet new people and develop different soft-skills.

As a facilitator for both STEPs Four and Five this year, I found both experiences to be memorable in different ways. For STEP Four, my group was active and engaged, I did not need to spend too much time helping them to ice-break and get to know each other. Instead, I focused more on listening to their ideas and helping to summarise their thoughts, making sure that their discussion did not go off topic. In contrast, my STEP Five group gave me more of a challenge - although the students were all from the same school, they were more quiet and passive. I tried different methods to encourage them to share and participate whether it be verbal encouragement, or utilising the “raise hand” function on zoom during group discussions. Regardless, I am really happy to have been able to help out through these events, and at the same time develop my own soft-skills. I look forward to being able to approach problems calmly in the future and use what I have learnt to find solutions.

大家好，我是來自聖保羅男女中學的鄧杰恆，現時我最想學習更多 3D動畫的知識。關於我的一個有趣的事是我很喜歡學習 —— 我想 學習但還不知道的東西很少，因為我通常把立即嘗試學習新知識作 為目標！

Hello everyone! My name is Justin and I am currently studying at St. Paul’s Co-educational College and something I would really like to learn more about right now is 3D animation. One fun fact about me is that I love to learn - there are very few things that I want to learn but do not know about yet as I usually make it a goal to try it out immediately!

在 JCCSTEP 中，你學到了什麼有助或可以應用於校園生活或其他地 方的？ 我最印象深刻的是STEP Eight - 暑期實習，當時我在 DRESIO 實 習，這是一家科技初創公司，能夠直接與公司的創辦人互動。我們 被安排了不同類型的資料蒐集和試驗的工作。在實習中，我獲取了 寶貴的第一手資訊、關於這個特定行業所需技能以及對企業運營方 式的見解。其中所學到的加深了我在課堂裡學習過的知識，並好奇 如何將這些應用於工作環境內。這也影響了我在選擇大學課程時的 決定。

What do you learn at JCCSTEP that you feel like is helpful and can be applied in school settings/other places?

My most memorable experience during the programme was STEP Eight - Internships. I interned at DRESIO, which is a tech start-up, and was able to directly interact with the CEO of the company. We were given different kinds of research and experimental tasks where I learnt valuable first-hand information and opinions on the skill sets required in this specific workplace, as well as insights on how a business is run. This made me more aware and curious of the potential applications of knowledge that I am learning at school, which also impacts my decision when choosing university programmes.

If you are currently a CCY Facilitator, why did you decide to be a facilitator? What did you learn from the experience?

The biggest difference between my school experiences and STEP is that throughout Innovation Camp, I had to work with students I had never met before and complete a project together over a span of a few days. This was definitely something out of scope of what I would normally experience at school.

My biggest takeaway from the program was the huge improvement in my communication skills; I learnt how to stand in another person’s shoes to think from their perspectives, then expressing my own opinion.

If we look specifically at my experience with being a student leader for STEP Four - Corporate Challenge this year, I learnt a lot from the company sharing during the kickoff session (city’super) and came to understand some of the many factors that they have to consider. Things like what goes on behind the scenes operationally, how customer feedback helps to inform changes, how different business concepts work in real life as well as how valuable our generation’s ideas and opinions are to these big companies. I also learnt that, in order to be a good student leader for my team, I had to be more familiar with the challenge and the elements and information that are provided to us so that I can help guide my team. I was able to practice skills like: active listening, summarising, facilitating the team to find a consensus, give constructive feedback and to ask relevant questions to help them think a step further.

在 JCCSTEP 中，你學到了什麼有助或可以應用於校園生活或其他地 方的？ 透過 STEP Eight - 職場探索，我掌握了如何以專業的方式展示自己 並在眾多同學中脫穎而出，例如：我在自我介紹時，我了解到我 應該說一些貼近該公司價值觀或他們期望的事情。同時，我在參加 其他JCCSTEP的活動時，學會了如何使用精實畫布並進行實踐和練 習，這不僅對我現在在學校學習的會計或經濟學科有幫助，我相信

What do you learn at JCCSTEP that you feel like is helpful and can be applied in school settings/other places?

This year, I not only participated in a few STEPs, but I also joined as a CCY Facilitatormeaning that my role during activities has changed a bit from just attending STEPs, to being more of a student leader. Throughout these STEPs (such as STEP Eight - Job Exposure Experience) I learnt how to present myself professionally so that I can stand out from other candidates, e.g.when introducing myself, I now know that I should prepare something to say that aligns with what the company values or are looking for.

I also learnt more about and practised using a Lean Canvas during other STEPs, which is helpful not only for my academics (i.e. studying Accounting or Economics at school) but also my future. By learning how to effectively use a Lean Canvas, I can more effectively cater to my target audience’s pain points, whilst being able to consider how I can financially sustain my idea in the long run.

If you are currently a CCY Facilitator, why did you decide to be a facilitator? What did you learn from the experience?

A big factor of why I joined as a facilitator this year is because I am currently a F5 student so next year, a lot of my time will be spent on preparing for the DSE’s. Knowing that, I wanted to make the most of this year and try out more things before I need to focus on my academics. I went into it without a lot of expectations as I know it is a new position in CCY this year and did not know much about it. I think I expected to pass on what I learnt last year as a participant of STEP to newer students this year, and maybe even share some advice.

I think my experiences this year have really helped to broaden my horizons. When we had facilitator gatherings in the past, a lot of other facilitators talked about being interested in entrepreneurship in the future and their conversations have definitely inspired or moved me. If my peers also feel like they can tackle something like entrepreneurship, I believe that I have the potential to do so as well; in the future, if I have a chance, I would also love to take a shot at being an entrepreneur.

In the coming years, I really want to try doing more internships so I can interact with different kinds of people - which relates back to what I mentioned earlier about learning how to facilitate different kinds of people. There are also some hard skills that I want to develop, but I need to think more about what kinds of hard skills before I go into it.

What is the one skill that students are really lacking currently that the current education system cannot help to develop? Why is it so important?

Entrepreneurship education or design thinking are honestly great tools to help students learn how to solve problems. I believe every student will come across obstacles in their lives, or even have problems they wish to tackle already. If students are able to learn how to tackle problems by themselves, I think it will give them a great sense of satisfaction. I hope that by helping them learn how to tackle problems, students will be able to find interest and motivation in learning.

We need to be able to be risk-takers and explore different approaches during these times where the world is ever changing. In my eyes, an entrepreneur is an adventurer, they are willing to take on risks and use Design Thinking to help them overcome obstacles. In order to face an uncertain future, students must learn how to be risk takers and overcome obstacles.

What is the one skill that students are really lacking currently that the current education system cannot help to develop? Why is it so important?

I have been teaching for about 7-8 years now, and throughout this time I have gradually come to realise that school curriculums are not keeping up with the changes we are seeing in society. At the same time, I have seen students who are clear of their future path but are unable to pursue or choose electives that would be suitable or relevant to their future paths, simply because of how limited and restrictive the current education system is. Around the world, I am seeing that other countries are placing more and more emphasis and significance on Entrepreneurship Education; meanwhile, I have also seen how it has had a positive effect on young students through my own research and observations. As an educator, if you hope that you can help students prepare for their future, Entrepreneurship Education/equipping them with an entrepreneurial mindset is a solution to our current education system’s blind spots.

你正如何為學生在他們的中學階段作裝備？ 今年我很重視的事情是為學生尋找高質的校外活動或體驗。無論活 動進行得是否順利，對所有人而言，仍然是一個學習機會，包括 我自己在內。 除了這些活動和經歷，另一件我想要一直做的事，是成為學生的 「鼓勵者」。我鼓勵學生嘗試新事物並走出舒適圈。同時，當他 們走出自己的舒適圈時，我也會努力確保學生背後有一個「安全 網」，就是確保他們想做的事情富有挑戰性的同時，又不會太 難。我認為亦要花更多時間，確保家境有困難的學生有更多機會 去嘗試不同的活動。

What are you preparing students for during secondary school?

Something that I have really been focusing on this year has been to find activities or experiences for students outside of school which are of good quality. When we have the time, no matter if the event or activity goes well or not - it can still be a learning opportunity for everyone involved, including myself.

Aside from these other activities and experiences, the other thing that I am trying to maintain is to be the “encourager” that I mentioned previously. I encourage my students to try new things and to step out of their comfort zone. At the same time, when they are stepping out of their comfort zone - I also try to make sure that there’s a “safety net”, which means that what they’re trying to do isn’t too difficult. I think it is also important to make time to check-in more on students who we know have difficult situations at home and to give them more opportunities to try these various activities.

NETWORK SCHOOLS

Caritas Tuen Mun Marden Foundation Secondary School

Carmel Alison Lam Foundation Secondary School

CCC Ming Yin College

CCC Mong Man Wai College

Chiu Lut Sau Memorial Secondary School

Christ College

Christian Alliance S C Chan Memorial College

Christian and Missionary Alliance Sun Kei Secondary School

CMA Choi Cheung Kok Secondary School

Concordia Lutheran School

Confucius Hall Secondary School

Elegantia College

Heung To Middle School (Tin Shui Wai)

HKMLC Queen Maud Secondary School

HKSKH Bishop Hall Secondary School

Holy Trinity College

Hotung Secondary School

Ju Ching Chu Secondary School (Tuen Mun)

Kit Sam Lam Bing Yim Secondary School

Lam Tai Fai College

Li Po Chun United World College of Hong Kong

Lock Tao Secondary School

Man Kwan QualiEd College

Munsang College (Hong Kong Island)

Ning Po College

PLK Lee Shing Pik College

PLK Ma Kam Ming College

Pui Ying Secondary School

Queen's College

Rosaryhill School

Sacred Heart Canossian College

SKH Bishop Mok Sau Tseng Secondary School

St. Antonius Girls' College

St. Clare's Girls School

St. Mark's School

St. Paul's Co-educational College

Stewards Pooi Kei College

Tai Kwong Hilary College

Tin Ka Ping Secondary School

TWGHs Chen Zao Men College

TWGHs Lee Ching Dea Memorial College

TWGHs Lui Yun Choy Memorial College

TWGHs Mrs Wu York Yu Memorial College

TWGHs S. C. Gaw Memorial College

Wong Shiu Chi Secondary School

Yu Chun Keung Memorial College

WHAT DO STUDENTS LEARN FROM

JCCSTEP?

At CoCoon Foundation, we believe entrepreneurship is a life skill that students and teachers need in the 21st century to fulfill their potential and contribute to society. What does it actually mean to be entrepreneurial? How does one know when they have succeeded? We have adopted the European Commission’s Entrecomp framework which highlights 15 core competencies that together make up the building blocks of entrepreneurship. Skills such as being creative, mobilizing resources, ethical and sustainable thinking, and being visionary. From that, we have structured our curriculum so that both students and teachers can have a clear understanding of what they are growing into.

Funded by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, JCCSTEP is a year-long entrepreneurship programme that enables, connects, and equips students for a sustainable future with the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals in mind. How do we do this? By taking students on an immersive learning journey composed of eight different progressive elements.

Our unique ‘T-shape’ programme enables learners to possess a breadth of knowledge in innovation and entrepreneurship and depth of knowledge in at least one discipline. This allows them to work effectively with professionals in other disciplines to bring their ideas to life.

of us still think of “entrepreneurship” as starting a business. We believe that entrepreneurship’s definition has evolved and become a crucial life skill that each of us would need to thrive in the 21st Century.

this interactive seminar, we connect students with entrepreneurs to get to know their entrepreneurship journey, address the myths of entrepreneurship, and understand why all of this matters to them.

believe that creativity isn’t an inborn talent or just left for the artists and

We believe that it is a muscle that can be trained.

Three Bringing an idea into reality can be a very daunting thing to do. What happens after coming up with an idea that you’re excited about? How will you know if it will work? How do you turn it into a business plan? Innovation Compass is a year round STEP that walks through each part of the journey with students. Students will be able to meet with industry experts that will mentor them through each stage so that in the end, each student will be confident to pitch their idea.

Throughout each STEP, we often tell students that “Entrepreneurship is a Life Skill”. We believe that just like riding a bicycle, cooking, and reading is a life skill, so is being entrepreneurial. This life skill can be used whichever job students choose to go to- even into a corporate job. In Corporate Challenge, students will be able to meet Corporate representatives. They will be sharing a challenge they are facing and studnets will be able to practice using Design Thinking and pitch their proposals to them.

In this compact four-day event, students create innovative solutions under the theme “The Innovative Solutions Under the Pandemic” based on the framework of Design Thinking. Each student group undergoes a mentorship session with a field professional or an entrepreneur, and during the Peer Pitching Session, students learn from each other. On the last day of the camp, students pitch their work to judges and fellow students to compete for several prizes.

Future Work Expo

Six

Students are made more and more aware of how fast the world is changing and that they need to be ready for it. But how exactly did the world change and how does it affect their next step as they step into society? In Future Work Expo, we invite a panelist of industry experts to share about what students need to look out or in Future of Work and equip students with skills to know how to brand themselves in the society.

next

year of 2022-23.

To help students have a grasp on what the future of work looks like, we believe it is not enough just for them to hear it from different industry experts. In this STEP, we take students on an insider’s tour of future oriented companies so that they would be able to ask the questions they want to know as well as take a closer look on what working would be like.

Due to the sudden changes in school calendars this March-April (2022), we adapted Internship to Job Exposure Experience. This job shadow like experience gave students the opportunity to meet and get to know startups.

During the week students worked on research projects, attended an interviw workshop, had the chance to do a mock interview with startup representatives and presented their research findings.

Building the Ecosystem: Educators for the Future

In the “ Educators for the Future” programme, we offer teachers a series of professional development workshops on design thinking in order to help teachers to approach problems they face within their own classrooms. These workshops can be for teachers from a network of different schools or tailored exclusively for the teachers of your school. This year, we also tried a new initiative in which we collaborated with one of our network schools to co-create an Entrepreneurship Education curriculum for teachers to teach entrepreneurship in classrooms.

To learn more about Teacher Training, skip to pages 101-103!

CoCoon Youngtrepreneur Community -

A student led

community

We believe that the student journey in entrepreneurship education does not end after a year of JCCSTEP. This student community is run by JCCSTEP alumni that hope to continue cultivating and spreading an entrepreneurial mindset through different entrepreneurial-related activities, like sharings by industry experts, visits to companies and universities, and regular social gatherings, etc.

This year, we have also introduced a new component: Facilitators. These students are given the opportunity to attend leadership and facilitation workshops and then practicing these skills in real time by leading student teams during STEPs Four & Five.

IMPACT BY NUMBERS

里程碑 Milestones

STEP One’s numbers

STEP Two’s numbers

STEP Three’s numbers

STEP Four’s numbers

STEP Five’s numbers

STEP Six’s numbers

STEP Seven’s numbers

STEP Eight’s numbers

Teacher Training’s numbers

FEBRUARY-MARCH 2022

A total of 41 entrepreneurs shared their entrepreneurial journey to students this year.

88% of the students felt they connected with more entrepreneurs.

學生可以更積極地認識同輩 和創業家。 93% of the students can take more initiative to approach peers and entrepreneurs.

The biggest change I have would definitely be my knowledge on pitching and making pitch decks. STEP Three - Innovation Compass is where I was first fully exposed to the concept of an elevator pitch and I was able to learn about the different components making up a good pitch. I was also able to hone my communication and pitching skills, which is useful in most circumstances where I have to collaborate with others or present my ideas and thoughts in a clear, concise manner.

100% of students felt they gained more practical knowledge and resources to implement their entrepreneurial ideas. 100% 學生認為與導師的交談過程

97% of the students felt that they improved their pitching skills.

100 % of students felt inspired by their mentors to think about their entrepreneurial ideas from various perspectives.

of the students feel more confident in communicating and expressing their ideas to corporate representatives.

of students felt that they learnt more about some of the challenges faced by corporations in the real world.

of students feel they now are able to think of innovative ways to help corporations to solve the problems they are facing.

of students now feel more confident in coming up with an innovative idea and pitching to others in a short period of time through cooperating with a team

87% 學生更了解樣本（Prototype）的重要性和製作方法。

87% of students are now more familiar with the importance of prototypes and the methods of making prototypes.

87% of students have said they will try to use more innovative ways to solve problems in daily life.

83% of students are more familiar with the field of the company they have visited and have a clearer direction of the type(s) of career that they want.

學生認為他們認識到每一個

88% of students discovered that every corporation has their own vision, mission and values.

of students realised that entrepreneurial spirit is very important even in corporations.

100%

100% of students feel more confident in facing interviews for work or school applications after attending our Interview workshop.

94% of the students now feel more familiar with the working mode and content of the field that they were matched to in the job exposure.

94% of the students know more about how to evaluate their interests, skills and knowledge to plan their career path.

Educators for the Future Teacher

of the teachers take more initiative to share ideas with peers after the workshop.

100% of the teachers feel satisfied about our program.

After this workshop, 100% of teachers gained a better understanding of the importance of entrepreneurs in our society.

The pandemic continued in the academic year of 20212022. Yet, CoCoon Foundation has strived to stay positive and agile towards the rapid changing situation to ensure that students have the best experiences and learnings no matter in a physical or online setting.

1. Due to the pandemic, Hong Kong’s secondary schools arranged for a new “summer holiday” in March-April, meaning that many of our original summer STEPs had to see some reorganisation. Within a tight time frame, we changed the format of STEP EightInternship to STEP Eight - Job Exposure Experience, to make sure students still have the chance to experience a similar job shadowing opportunity. Many students said that these two activities had enriched their holiday break despite the pandemic.

2. This year, we have put more focus on our student community - CoCoon Youngtrepreneur. The newly established role of this year, CCY Facilitator, allows students to have an opportunity to play a leading role in JCCSTEP activities. We have found that Facilitators cherished the opportunity to lead student groups and were very conscientious. We saw a huge growth in their leadership abilities after attending different leadership and facilitation workshops and their presence and efforts during JCCSTEP activities contributed to a better learning experience for other students.

3. In the past few years, our teacher training began with introductory workshops, where we focused on introducing Design Thinking to teachers, and helping them to approach problems they faced within their own classrooms. From there, we realised it was necessary to go deeper in order to help teachers truly implement these key elements of entrepreneurship into their curriculums to scale up and bring greater impact . Therefore this year, we are excited and honoured to work closely with Po Leung Kuk Lee Shing Pik College to co-create an Entrepreneurship Education curriculum through curriculum design, co - creation meeting and lesson observation etc, to bring systematic change. We are looking forward to evaluating this year’s curriculum and sharing our experiences in the education field, to encourage more schools to be part of us.