Different social issues were brought up on our first Collaboratory event held on 6 Sept 2014, where participants took part in brainstorming and discussion on the topic “Towards the sustainable Hong Kong”. As part of the conclusion, the need to promote cultural inclusion and review sustainability at a global level for Hong Kong society were agreed on, with 2 different prototype ideas developed:
1) To apply the power of rich and famous people as a promotion tool
Inspired by the Ice Bucket Challenge event, the activity involving dumping a bucket of ice water on someone's head to promote awareness of the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and encourage donations to research, application of the power of rich and famous people in charitable projects may lead to better promotion outcome and less compound effects. In only a few weeks, the project went viral on social media and raised such great amount of attention from the public. The reason behind may be the shared cultural identity. What is for sure is, it is recommended to set up a task team with people of different expertise but common interests to start some social campaigns for the goodness of Hong Kong society.
2) To implement more incentive-based government policies to the society
It was an economic miracle that Hong Kong developed into the world’s leading economy in as early as 20th century, but what should also be admitted is that there are still much space for its improvement on environmental issues. To encourage Hong Kong citizens to reduce the waste of water and electricity, and to reduce the amount of rubbish, incentive-based policies may be a better choice – suggested by Collaboratory participants. Such rewarding system can also be applied to encourage Hong Kong citizens to voice out their opinions and thus foster a better communication between people and the government. It can also be applied to increase corporates’ awareness of their social responsibility and provision of retirement benefits for their employees in additional to MPF, for example, to introduce a tax concession scheme. People should work together to make Hong Kong not only the most developed economy, but also the most sustainable society in the world.
