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

Mr. Francis Ngai is the Founder of Social Ventures Hong Kong. As an Impact Designer for cities of the future, he has founded and incubated hundreds of social innovation projects since 2007, with an innovation portfolio that spans Hong Kong’s first venture philanthropy fund, notable social start-ups (Green Monday, Light Be social housing, Hatch co-working factory, COMM,ON community clubhouse, Playtao Education), and next generation impact talent programmes (Creative Beings youth apprenticeship, House of Social Innovators impact holidays and the Social Leaders Programme).

In order to empower the ecosystem of NewUrban movements like “Purpose Business & Start-up”, “Exponential Philanthropy”, “Impact Storytelling” and more, Francis founded SONOVA and COSMOS together with co-partners within SVhk. They provide professional services on impact and communications advisory, capacity building and collaboration support to corporates, foundations, SPOs and the public sector.

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~!

Ms Ho is appointed the Secretary for Housing on 1 July 2022. Ms Ho joined the Government as Architect in 1992 and was promoted to Chief Architect in 2009, and to Government Architect in 2012. She was appointed the Director of Architectural Services in 2020. Apart from serving in the Architectural Services Department, Ms Ho had been posted to work as the Deputy Head of Energizing Kowloon East Office under the Development Bureau. During the out-break of COVID-19 in 2020 to 2022, she has actively participated in the construction of quarantine facilities, temporary hospitals and community isolation facilities at Penny’s Bay, Kai Tak and many other locations by adoption of Modular Integrated Construction method.

Ms Ho graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of The University of Hong Kong. She also attended the Advanced Management Program of INSEAD in France. She is a member of the Hong Kong Institute of Architects and a Registered Architect.