Seen from a broader perspective, the design work done in the Jockey Club Innovation Tower has a simple goal – to improve lives. As Chairman Yang commented, "innovation is about making creative use of knowledge for the betterment of society". With JCDISI settled in the Tower, its capacity to draw a range of disciplines together to work for the good of society is greatly enhanced. Indeed, developing future leaders who are aware of their social responsibilities is one of PolyU's core missions.
As Prof. Tong observed, the community – broadly defined – has high expectations of the University in general, and of the Tower in particular. He mentioned that the "Tower is not only for our School of Design, it is for all our Faculties and Schools to work on their multi-disciplinary initiatives; it is not only for PolyU, it is for our whole community – the government, business and industry, NGOs, academia – for bringing our minds together, engaging in dialogues, jamming ideas and thus, innovating."
The objective of setting up JCDISI is to formalize links between academia and various sectors of society in developing multidisciplinary design innovations with positive social impacts. Yet the School of Design, under which JCDISI operates, has a 50-year heritage of contributing in broader ways to society through design.
Since its establishment as a department of the then Hong Kong Technical College in the 1960s, the School has grown from offering only part-time general certificate courses to being the sole provider offering a full spectrum of design programmes at undergraduate, master's and doctoral levels in Hong Kong. At the international level, PolyU design research won fitting recognition at the 2009 BusinessWeek/Industrial Designers Society of America IDEA Awards, taking out the Best of Show Award and Gold Award. In 2012, the School took a further step into the international spotlight, being recognized by Business Insider as the only one in Asia among the top 25 design schools in the world.
