People & Purpose Theatre

Fireside Chat: What’s Next to Reset Places for Prosperity

Day 2 : 16:40 – 17:10

Full Programme
People and Purpose Theatre

How might we use housing as a medium for empowerment and what role does design play in enhancing community wellbeing? This fireside chat will take inspiration from the government’s partnership with civic organizations to explore how communities can be transformed through collaborative partnerships.

Learnings

  • How housing can be a medium to activate vibrant communities 
  • Potential application of design features in public housing to develop a sense of prosperity and happiness
  • Integration of “software-hardware” approach to strengthen community wellbeing through creative partnerships

Post-event Actions

  • What makes me feel a sense of prosperity in the neighbourhood that I live in?
  • How can hardware and software design features be integrated into development projects to enhance the sense of prosperity in the neighbourhood?

Speakers

Francis Ngai

Social Ventures Hong Kong

Founder and CEO

Francis Ngai is the Founder and CEO of Social Ventures Hong Kong. Since 2007, he’s been dedicated to impact design for the future urban city. His social innovation portfolio includes Hong Kong’s first venture philanthropy fund, Community Resilience Fund, Green Monday, Bottless, RunOurCity, LightBe affordable housing, Playtao Education, HATCH women empowerment initiative, COMM-ON co-caring space, Institute of Community Making, and COMSMOS impact consultancy, among others. Through impact strategy consulting and building collective platforms for corporates, family foundations, and government departments—including Airport Authority HK, Urban Renewal Authority HK, Swire Trust, Rosewood Hotel, Cathay Pacific, Standard Chartered, HK Management Association and Energizing Kowloon East Office—SVhk is committed to creating integrated impact solutions across all sectors in the city.

Speaking at 2026 sessions:

Day 2

Impact Safari: Brand New Approach to Impact Ecology
The Great Debate: This House Believes Corporate Action and Individual Civic Duty, Not Policy Shifts, Are the Fastest Way to Achieve a Climate-Resilient Hong Kong

Eric Ho

Co-founder and Director

Architect, entrepreneur, and urban thinker passionate about architecture and urban environments that have a lasting impact on society, Eric Ho is the Co-founder and Director of Architecture Commons, a design agency for urban innovation.

Eric studied architecture at University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he was the recipient of the Faculty Design Award. In addition to his passion in architecture, Eric started a civic start-up MILES: a real estate platform for neighbourhood and community good through activating underused storefront spaces, and Good Goods: a next generation shared economy platform for retail in New York.

Eric is currently a faculty member at Parsons School of Design and teaches design thinking and design strategy. He is also a lecturer at Chinese University of Hong Kong School of Architecture. In 2019, he started “Neighbourhood Innovation Lab” to tackle how we might design human-centred cities, one neighbourhood at a time.

My Sustainability Goals for 2023:

To create and cultivate projects that can promote and cultivate sustainability visions for users and stakeholders of urban spaces. Let’s chat~!

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