Eric Chung's Posts

The Beginning of A New Era

The Yeh Family Philanthropy (“YFP”) is delighted to announce that we will continue to be an Intermediary of the Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Fund (“SIE Fund”) for 2 more years until 2020! We’ve had a prolific partnership over the last 3.5 years, and couldn’t be more pleased at the results. We shall focus our efforts anew at building the social innovation ecosystem for the betterment of Hong Kong and the world.

This means our Nurturing Social Minds programme will continue to deliver its highly touted experiential-learning social entrepreneurship & social finance courses at HKUST and CUHK. Our new Fall 2018 courses already started last week! (check our Programme page for more details).

At the same time, Nurturing Social Minds (NSM) is thrilled to welcome our 3rd university partner into the family, The Hong Kong Baptist University (“HKBU”) Business School!

Under the new partnership, HKBU Business School will develop and deliver a new programme on social entrepreneurship for its students. The programme will use a two-pronged approach to teach HKBU students how to start a social venture and to provide marketing knowledge and support to social enterprises. On top of the lectures, students will be learning from pioneers and practitioners from the field of social innovation, both in Hong Kong and internationally

The programme will consist of 3 parts:

  1. An introductory course called Social Venture Planning, where students develop their own social business plan proposals
  2. Our familiar impact-grant NSM course, where students will work in teams as marketing consultants for curated social enterprises (Social Venture Partners) that have already proven their concept, to help scale up operations with evolving marketing strategies. The student teams will then be pitching on behalf of their Social Venture Partner for HK$250,000 in grant funding from The Yeh Family Philanthropy
  3. A marketing practicum, in which students will complete a 120-hour internship with their Social Venture Partner

The NSM course welcomes undergraduate students from HKBU Business School’s Bachelor of Commerce in Marketing, as well as postgraduate programs to join beginning in Spring 2019.

Stay tuned for more exciting news to come!

Facebooktwittergoogle_plus

NSM course featured in the SCMP

Our NSM course on Social Entrepreneurship & Venture Philanthropy at HKUST has been featured in the latest issue of the HKUST Business School Magazine – Biz@HKUST as well as in SCMP on 30th August.

Professor Marie Rosencrantz is featured along with our star students (now alumni) Rachel Than and Julian Wong, speaking on their experiences working with Longevity Design House (“LDH”), the social enterprise they won the HK$250,000 grant for in Spring 2017.

Hong Kong’s elderly are already benefiting from the HK$250,000 social impact grant from the Yeh Family Philanthropy and the NSM student team’s work through the delivery of free occupational therapy services for a number of poorer clients of LDH

Equally exciting is that Longevity Design House has also secured HK$3 million in additional sponsorship funding from the Li Ka Shing Foundation to improve the quality and safety standards of elderly peoples’ homes over a 12-month period.

The article also mentions the NSM Alumni program, which worked alongside KPMG to help Longevity sculpt their financial model for venture fundraising.

 

Facebooktwittergoogle_plus

PITCH FOR PRO BONO Finale

Today, we are extremely excited that the Pitch for Pro Bono (P4P) initiative has achieved a milestone with a fruitful finale event at the fabulous venue provided by KPMG.

NSM alumni, KPMG consultants, and stakeholders within the social innovation ecosystem joined us at the P4P Finale event, sharing their insights with our alumni and SVPs.

P4P is the first flagship program organized by the Nurturing Social Minds Alumni Association (NSMAA). The initiative is a three-month engagement among our three Social Venture Partners (SVPs) and course alumni, with alumni working in teams as pro bono consultants for MakerBay, Longevity Design House, and Eldpathy; these SVPs are previous NSM winners of the HKD250,000 grant from The Yeh Family Philanthropy.

Strategic suggestions and execution from NSM alumni under the guidance of KPMG consultants were provided to address the most pressing challenges of the SVPs. Advice on strategic development into the corporate markets for Elpathy; business development strategy for MakerBay, and financial modelling for Longevity Design House.

We are looking forward to future collaborations with KPMG Consulting to help tackle Hong Kong’s social issues.

Full pictures for the P4P Finale event HERE.

 

  

Eldpathy – empathy for the elderly; aiming to bring wider impact by expanding the corporate clients market

MakerBay – using innovation for social & environmental impact; launching marketing campaigns for the new space in Tsuen Wan

Longevity – one-stop shop for home renovations and technology solutions for the elderly aging at home; implementing financial models to evaluate future strategic moves

Grateful for support from consultants of KPMG

KPMG consultants, NSM alumni, and stakeholders within the social innovation ecosystem exchanging insights and building networks

 

Facebooktwittergoogle_plus

NSM at AVPN Conference 2018

We are proud to have instructors from both of our partner universities, Marie and Elsie, sharing at the AVPN Conference 2018 in Singapore during the panel “Universities: Shaping the Next Generation.” Marie was the moderator of the panel and Elsie was one of the panel members.

Together with representatives from INSEAD, Singapore Management University and the Indian School of Development Management, they explored how universities can help shape the next generation of change makers.

One of our course alumni from the HKUST Fall 2017 cohort, Stephanie Sun, was also present at the event and shared with us some awesome snapshots.

Needless to say, NSM was very well represented!

To know more about the event, please click here.

 

Inspiring the next generation to shape our future world inclusively and sustainably!

 

 

Facebooktwittergoogle_plus

Pitch Coaching from Credit Suisse

Our HKUST Spring 2018 students and Social Venture Partners were blessed with the invaluable opportunity to visit the Credit Suisse HK Office to work out the final kinks in their presentations with 11 Credit Suisse volunteers.

The teams went through mock pitches, and received feedback with video replay from volunteers from Credit Suisse’s senior management team while overlooking a magnificent view of Hong Kong’s stunning harbor. From “less is more,” to “posture for passion”, the CS volunteers dissected every last detail of the NSM students’ pitching prowess. And not a moment too soon! We’re now entering crunch time for the teams to fine-tune their presentations before tomorrow’s Funding Committee Meeting.

The session received extraordinary feedback from all parties and we look forward to further collaboration with Credit Suisse down the road!

 

Time is never too tight for a silly selfie!

 

Facebooktwittergoogle_plus

PITCH FOR PRO BONO Kickoff

“I want to continue helping my Social Venture Partner,” is a common sentiment by our students after they finish the course. Many of them continue to do so, volunteering their time and skills for months after their projects have been completed.

Today, Nurturing Social Minds Alumni Association (NSMAA) took one step further towards capturing this passion and momentum, ensuring that our alumni can continue contributing to the growth of social enterprises in Hong Kong.

The Pitch for Pro Bono (P4P) initiative is a three-month engagement among our Social Venture Partners and alumni. During the first half of the engagement, alumni will act as pro bono consultants for the Social Venture Partners on their most pressing roadblocks and come up with action plans, which they will be presenting to an audience on 3 May 2018. During the second half of the engagement, the alumni will then execute their proposal, and present the results of their efforts at the end of the project, on 28 June 2018.

We are very grateful that KPMG Consulting has agreed to be our partner on the initiative by providing a group of social angels to work with our alumni. These professional consultants, at both the partner and manager level, are passionate about social issues and will be providing regular guidance to the pro bono consultant teams. Three KPMG partners will be evaluating the progress of the engagements at the two checkpoints mentioned above.

The three social enterprises are previous NSM winners of the HKD250,000 grant from The Yeh Family Philanthropy – MakerBay, Longevity Design House, and Eldpathy. Each of them are at an inflection point in their growth trajectories, and will be receiving strategic suggestions and execution from NSM alumni under the guidance of KPMG consultants.

All of the participants, both NSM alumni and KPMG consultants, will be able to turn their pro bono hours into opportunities to meet with with local influential individuals through our amazing partner Time Auction.

Needless to say, we are extremely excited to see how these new collaborations will turn out in tackling Hong Kong’s social issues.

Do join us on May 3rd and June 28th to see for yourself!

Full pictures for the kickoff event HERE.

 

Invaluable support from consultants of KPMG

Opportunities meeting influential individuals through Time Auction

Maker Bay – using innovation for social & environmental impact; looking for individuals with marketing experience

Longevity – one stop solution for home renovations for those with accessibility issues; looking forward to working with talents with financial background

 Eldpathy – empathy for the elderly; pitching for talents with service design skillsets

NSM alumni looking forward to kick start the engagement

Facebooktwittergoogle_plus

New Promo Video!

The freshest new promo video is out on the homepage! This captures the atmosphere of the program amazingly well.

If you’re looking for an awesome video production team, look no further than Arctic Productions.

Facebooktwittergoogle_plus