Reinstating “Social” in Entrepreneurship and Innovation Education

During the past decade, social innovation has been increasingly popular in Hong Kong. In the past, the focuses were mainly concentrated in social enterprises mushrooming across different sectors. But as the field became more matured and diversified, practitioners from cross-sectors further embraced innovative strategies for addressing various complex social problems.

An important step was Hong Kong Government’s launch of the Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SIE) Fund in 2015. PolyU has also introduced the Social Design Program and the Social Policy and Social Entrepreneurship Program in 2017 and 2019 respectively, which incorporate cross-disciplinary approaches and strategies.

In this programme, we try to focus on design thinking, place making and social lab as the major instruments of social innovation education.