With the theme “Youth Power: Dare to Dream, Dare to Change”, the forum aims to promote entrepreneurial culture of “Do Well Do Good” spirit and drive sustainable development of local entrepreneurial eco-system through inspirational sharing, exchange and networking activities. At the ceremony, Professor Timothy W. Tong, President of PolyU, encouraged young people to pursue the spirit of dare to dream, dare to change. He said, “I often encourage young people especially PolyU students to become ‘practical dreamers’. They dare to dream and act to make a change to bring positive changes for society.” Speaking at the ceremony, Professor Stephen Cheung Yan-leung, Chairperson of The Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Fund (SIE Fund) Task Force, commended PolyU for its contribution to the development of Hong Kong and said, “Over the years, PolyU has been dedicated to working on application-oriented research, turning innovative ideas into practical value for the social good.” Professor Cheung added that the SIE Fund would continue to promote cross-sector collaboration and to facilitate the development of social innovation ecosystem. Since its launch in 2015, Good Seed Programme has attracted around 500 young social entrepreneurs. After a stringent assessment process, 18 social innovation projects were awarded in 2016 and received HK$100,000 each from the SIE Fund to provide appropriate services to people in need including ethnic minorities, elderly people in need, students with special educational needs, visually impaired persons, Dyslexic patients, Autistic children for improving their quality of life and promoting social inclusion. PolyU invited a number of renowned social entrepreneurs to deliver keynote speeches on "Re-imagine our World with Social Innovation" at the Social Innovation Forum, including Mr. Kim Hyung-soo, CEO, Tree Planet from Korea, and Dr. Kevin Yang, CEO of 5% Design Action from Taiwan . Besides, nearly 20 local social entrepreneurs were invited as panel speakers to host the panel discussions on various topics like “Booming Young Social Innovators with “Do Well Do Good” Spirit”, “Reshaping our Future Environment: Building a Better and Sustainable World”, “Youth Empowerment: Making an Impact by Unleashing Creativity and Innovation in Education” and “Transforming Our World: Social inclusion for Sustainable Livelihoods”. Over 200 social entrepreneurs, practitioners from social enterprise and NGO sectors, academics and students attended the forum. Good Seed Programme 2017 is now open to students and graduates of all local tertiary institutions until 1 March 2017. Interested parties may visit the Good Seed Programme website at www.goodseed.hk for more details.
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