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

Francis Ngai is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Social Ventures Hong Kong. Since 2007, he has dedicated himself to social innovation for urban futures, and has been involved in various social innovation ventures including Hong Kong’s first venture philanthropy fund, Green Monday, Bottless, RunOurCity, Light Be (Empowerment Housing), Playtao Education, HATCH, COMM, ON co-caring space, Institute of Community Making etc.

Francis serves an advisory role to different organizations such as AVPN, Project Melo, Social Enterprise Summit, Advisory Committee on Built Heritage Conservation, and Social Welfare Advisory Committee. He received Honorary Fellowships from the City University of Hong Kong and the Education University of Hong Kong, and was elected a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum in 2012 as well as one of Hong Kong’s Ten Outstanding Young Persons in 2011. As an ultra-running veteran, Francis completed The North Pole Marathon and the 250-km Gobi March of the 4 Deserts race series.

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.