PolyU Open Day for SDU Children
On 11 November 2023, 250 children and their parents were invited back to PolyU for a special Open Day including visits to School of Nursing, School of Design, School of Optometry, Department of Biomedical Engineering and Industrial Centre of PolyU. The event featured cross-disciplinary and interactive experiential learning activities such as spine-health assessment, health talks, colour vision tests, virtual reality games and guided tour of a clinical nursing laboratory. It is hoped that the event has broadened children’s horizons and encouraged them to develop their interests and set their academic goals, as well as inspired them with future career and life planning.
Media Gathering & Sharing Session
A small media gathering was hosted on 11 November, 2023 to mark the official completion of our furniture distribution campaign and to further celebrate our project impacts. In the first half of the gathering, key project partners were invited to present project data and findings, and to share their insights and key takeaways regarding this inter-disciplinary, cross-sector collaboration. In the second half, we invited two beneficiary families to engage in a fireside chat to share their feedbacks and discussed changes they have experienced towards their home setting, health and wellbeing upon receiving and using the furniture set.
Award Ceremony for Most Improved Students
To encourage the use of the furniture and recognise academic improvement of the beneficiary children, the team established the "Best Academic Improvement Award" and invited parents of beneficiaries to provide academic reports as proofs to apply for the award. 25 students with the greatest improvement in academic performance were selected and an award ceremony was held at PolyU on 6 July 2024.
The award recipients were presented with their prizes by Prof. Ling Kar-kan, Director of J.C.DISI, Ms Karen Lee, Project Manager (Spatial) of J.C.DISI, Ms Natalie Wu, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility of Hongkong Land HOMEFUND, and a group of project collaborators including Dr Kai Yip Choi, Research Assistant Professor of PolyU School of Optometry, Mr Babak Hassan Beygi, Project Fellow of PolyU Department of Biomedical Engineering, Ms Angela Chung, Founder of Flow Furniture Limited, and Mr Ken Sin, Representative of King Max Steel Engineering Limited. Together, they celebrated the achievements and hard work of the award-winning students.
NGO-Funder Social Innovation Jam
The pilot NGO-Funder Social Innovation Jam, an intimate co-creation session on 6 May 2024 at PolyU to facilitate collaborations between and across the Non-profit and Philanthropic sectors, with the aim to increase the implementability and fundability of proposals as well as create shared value in the process.
Incorporating design thinking methodologies and Social Return On Investment (SROI) principles into its framework design, the 3-hour workshop successfully brought together nearly 40 community workers, social entrepreneurs and representatives from renowned funding bodies to co-develop service innovation solutions to enhance well-being and boost upward social mobility for disadvantaged children and youth. Through identifying social mobility barriers and service gaps within the existing social sectors, as well as formulating user-centric hardware and software solutions, the know-how transfer process enabled service providers to shape actionable proposals while allowing funding bodies to identify areas where additional support was needed to maximise social value and impacts.
