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A kick-off ceremony for the Social Innovation Video Competition for Secondary Students (SIVC) was held today (June 27) at Hong Kong Polytechnic University's Jockey Club Innovation Tower under the theme "Tackling Poverty Problems by Social Innovation". The competition has been jointly organised by the Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Fund (SIE Fund) of the Commission on Poverty and the Government's Youth Portal (Youth.gov.hk) with the aim of raising awareness of poverty relief and social innovation among secondary school students.
Officiating and speaking at the ceremony, the Vice-chairperson of the SIE Fund Task Force, Dr Joseph Lee, said that secondary school students have many innovative ideas and are able to think outside the box, both of which are essential elements of social innovation. He encouraged secondary school students to take part in the SIVC to contribute their innovative ideas on poverty relief.
Dr Lee also said he hoped that the SIE Fund, which was set up last year, could stimulate cross-sector collaboration as well as encourage the sharing of experience and knowledge, so as to incubate new ideas that can help tackle poverty and social exclusion in the community.
Also at the kick-off ceremony, Social Enterprise Advisor, Mr Kee Chi-hing, and the Executive Producer of "Tuesday Report", Ms Yuan Siu-ching, had a dialogue with the students on articulating innovative ways for poverty relief. Mr Kee shared some new ideas for the betterment of daily life from Hong Kong and overseas, while Ms Yuan shared her thoughts on how to use the media to unveil social phenomena and gave some impressive examples.
In addition, three social innovation and video workshops with guided tours will be held in July. Prominent figures in social innovation, media and video production will share their expertise in the workshops. In the guided tours, students will be able to witness how a community kitchen can save over 2,500 kilograms of surplus food and serve over 3,500 free hot meals each day. Or they might rethink the value of life through the simulation of a life journey. Students will also find out how young people at risk can instead be helped to become professional hair stylists. Participants will also have an opportunity to experience a completely dark environment to better understand the difficulties of visually impaired people. In addition they will have a chance to learn more about the lifestyles and cultures of ethnic minorities by sampling special snacks and trying henna art. For details, please refer to the Annex and the competition website:¡@www.youth.gov.hk/en/special/sivc/index.htm.¡@
Enrolment for the SIVC is now open to all secondary school students in Hong Kong in teams of up to four members representing a school or an organisation. Participants are welcome to set out their ideas on ways to build social bridges in a three-minute video. The competition features great prizes, with the champion team to be awarded a four-day Social Innovation Exploration Trip to Seoul. The deadline for video submissions is October 21.
The competition has received great support from society. Apart from the support of sponsors, venue partners and media partners, the adjudicators are from a wide range of fields including social innovation, academia, business and media.
Ends/Friday, June 27, 2014
Issued at HKT 20:02
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