11 May 2004
Social Entrepreneurship: ¡@¡@Five teams of twenty-one MBA students from The Chinese University of Hong Kong competed on May 8 with the best business ideas for former drug addicts of St. Stephen's Society who have entrepreneurial ambitions. The Champion was "Tornado Inc", a business venture which offers affordable cleaning and home improvement services to median income working families using state-of-the-art appliances. The Team, comprising Vincent Wang, Brenda Leung, Freda Ho and Dubey Vaibhav, also won the Outstanding Written Plan Award. ¡@¡@Called the "Booz Allen Hamilton Social Entrepreneurship Challenge Busines Plan Competition", it is the first initiative of an innovative partnership between the Chinese University's business school and renowned international management consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH). The "Tornado Inc." team will get cash prizes as well as internships with BAH's Greater China operations, to work alongside its consultants on real consulting projects. ¡@¡@The Second Prize went to the team which proposed the "Artists Incubator" venture. It proposes to bring artists and members of St. Stephen's Society together to develop their talents and skills in creating original works of art for sale. Team members are Venny Chan, Simon Sun, Joshua Granson, Rebecca Lam and Natalia Palacios. ¡@¡@The "Tornado Inc." and "Artists Incubator" Teams won because they best fulfilled the judging criteria. Their plans are deemed to be easily implementable; they support St. Stephen's Society's mission and provide unique and novel ideas that give them a competitive advantage in their respective markets. They also have a solid understanding of the financial requirements of the business, have good estimate of the potential growth and return. ¡@¡@Another business venture called "Mini" was presented with the Outstanding Presentation Award. "Mini" proposes the establishment of a high-quality fast-food restaurant serving bite-size snacks which appeal to those customers with a taste for trendy, healthy and inexpensive food. Members of the "Mini" team are: Marlene Chan, Simon Chu, Ryan Tam and Janet Shen. ¡@¡@Other business ventures included recycled paper products for corporate gifts and a composting service to turn vegetable and fruit waste collected from hotels and restaurants into garden fertilizer. ¡@¡@The winners were announced at the Awards Presentation Dinner held on May 8, 2004, at the American Club. Apart from senior representatives from BAH, CUHK and St. Stephen's Society, other attending dignitaries included Professor T.S. Lee, Dean of the CUHK's Faculty of Business Administration and Mr. Frank Martin, President of the American Chamber of Commerce. ¡@¡@Since this competition requires the business plans to be economically viable and practicable for members of St. Stephen's Society, the competing teams have spent many months getting to understand their clients' capability and aspirations. They worked primarily with Goodworks Limited, a charity organization that take rehabilitated members from St. Stephen's Society, give them job skill training and help them find employment or start business. The teams have done in-depth market research to ensure that their business plans are economically viable. ¡@¡@"It's been tough working on this project on top of our MBA Programme. But it's well worth it," said one of the competitors. "It's a unique opportunity of doing good work for the community and being rewarded internships with a renowned consulting company like BAH." ¡@¡@Professor Bee-Leng Chua, who currently teaches "Ethical Behavior, Social Responsibility and Business" in the Chinese University's MBA Programmes and is the coordinator of this project, is excited about the business competition. "The BAH Social Entrepreneurship Challenge is an innovative collaboration of business, educator and community organization, and the first of its kind in Hong Kong," she said. "This is a significant step forward in realizing our vision of developing future business leaders who are also socially responsible." ¡@¡@"Ethics and social responsibility have always been an integral part of our programmes," said Professor Lee Tien-sheng, Dean of CUHK's Faculty of Business Administration. "This Challenge is a great initiative as it will give our students early training in applying their knowledge to designing real business plans for real people who probably need more help than the average job-seekers." ¡@¡@Mr. Ian Buchanan, Chairman (Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia) of Booz Allen Hamilton, who conceptualized the BAH Social Entrepreneurship Challenge, was delighted with the outcome of the competition. "BAH has a strong corporate social responsibility focus," he said. "We have a long-standing employee volunteer programme under which our executives take part in worthy community work around the world," he added. "However, this is the first time we have a tri-party partnership to take social projects to yet another level, and we are really pleased to have Asia's top business school as our partner." ¡@¡@Booz Allen Hamilton is a leading international management consulting company headquartered in the U.S. With a history of 90 years, 14,000 employees on six continents and an average annual revenue over US$2.5 billion, BAH provides services in strategy, organization, operations, systems and technology to the world's leading corporations, government, emerging growth companies and NGOs. It has a long history of operating in the Greater China area from its offices in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Its clients include leading government, local and multinational institutions in industries ranging from financial services, telecommunications, consumer goods to transportation. ¡@¡@St. Stephen's Society is a charity organization funded by private donors and devoted to helping drug addicts kick their addiction habit, get rehabilitated and return to society equipped with job skills. It was founded by Dr. Jackie Pullinger, who started drug rehabilitation and youth care in the Kowloon Walled City in 1966. Since its inception as a charity in 1981, the Society has helped numerous welfare projects in Hong Kong and is part of ACAN (Action Committee Against Narcotics) and is the consultant to Narcotics Division Three-year Plan Policy Plan Committee as well as a member of Hong Kong Council of Social Service, and has succeeded in getting thousands of drug addicts get off and stay off drugs. |