Social enterprise summit explores way forward

More than 600 representatives from the business sector, academia and non-governmental organisations participated in a summit on social enterprise in Hong Kong on 20 December 2007.

The Young Foundation's Associate Director Simon Tucker  presented a keynote address focusing on social enterprises' missions and visions, successful entrepreneurs' key qualities, and how the business community can contribute in promoting social enterprise development.

"The Government's policies of promoting social enterprise is enduring, and today's summit is only the first step," Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang said in his opening remarks.

"We do not expect that all problems relating to social enterprise can be resolved today, but I hope that starting from today, through a tripartite collaboration among the Government, business sector and the community, we can solidly launch more successful social enterprises to draw a wider attention from the community as well as more involvement from the business sector."

Self-reliance, re-investing key
Following the discussions, summit participants agreed that the Government and the community recognise the vision of social enterprises as helping people to be self-reliant as well as taking from the community and reinvesting into the community.

They also felt that social enterprises can create job opportunities for the socially disadvantaged to help them to be self-reliant - and provide a new channel for organisations to meet the needs of different community groups with innovative approaches, to foster a new caring culture and enhance social harmony.