Sham Shui Po, in particular a section of Tai Nan Street, was nicknamed the “new Brooklyn” as a new influx of young creatives and entrepreneurs started to build their businesses in recent years. Since the area was dominated by textile and carwashing businesses, this influx of boutique coffee shops and creative businesses brought renewed interest in the neighbourhood. As the neighbourhood evolved rapidly, the question of possible gentrification also loomed: how can this youthful energy be channelled toward positive social change? Having conducted the SSP District CoLab and built a network of local businesses in the neighbourhood, the Social Ventures Hong Kong (SVhk) team seek to further engage small businesses while giving youth a stronger voice in expressing their vision and hope for the city by curating the Creative Beings @ Sham Shui Po programme.

The Airport Authority of Hong Kong (AAHK) formulated a community investment vision in June 2015 in order to contribute more strategically to the Hong Kong community, as a result of growing stakeholders’ expectation. It specifies that AAHK shall “contribute to the social and economic growth of Hong Kong, in particular Lantau and other neighbouring communities, by nurturing talent, realising the potential of individuals, and encouraging participation in aviation-related industries.” Social Ventures Hong Kong was engaged as a project advisor to conduct feasibility study to identify the needs of neighbouring communities (i.e., communities on the Lantau Island), and develop project ideas that align with the community investment vision.

RunOurCity has dedicated itself to changing lives through running since its beginning in 2013. At the same time, runners are encouraged to use running as a medium to connect themselves with the community at large. In collaboration with the Energizing Kowloon East Office, RunOurCity has been organizing the Hong Kong Streetathon and the Backstreet Run to enable citizens to experience backstreets of Kwun Tong’s fast-evolving Industrial/Commercial area while discovering its unique culture and community stories through the joy of graffiti and running.

Lai Chi Wo Village is one of the oldest Hakka villages in Hong Kong. However, much of the farmlands have been idle since the 1950s due to emigration. With the support from The Hongkong Bank Foundation, the CCSG team at HKU, aiming to revitalise the village, engaged The Conservancy Association, Hong Kong Countryside Foundation, and the Produce Green Foundation as project partners in 2013. The community expanded during the first phase of the project (2013-2017) as Indigenous villagers returned, new residents moved in, and frequent volunteers developed a sense of attachment to the village. Each founding partner also secured extra support from other parties, including the Hong Kong Jockey Club and the Hong Kong Government. HKU continued its partnership with The Hongkong Bank Foundation with an intent to scale up the project’s impact and enable it to be self-sustaining through socio-economic innovation.

Having been directly interacting with residents and families in Sham Shui Po via various community pilots for four years, the Social Ventures Hong Kong team observed a growing need to innovate and connect different stakeholders in Sham Shui Po in response to the neighbourhood’s rapid demographic changes and commercial redevelopments. As the neighbourhood becomes more ethnically diverse with more middle-class, younger residents moving in, the SVhk team launched SSP District CoLab as a short and intensive experimental sprint to pilot bottom-up effort to collectively reimagine the needs and possibilities for the neighbourhood.

At the old “Thirty Houses” neighbourhood, located along the century-old Shing Wong Street and Staunton Street, a few two to three-storey high tenement buildings can be found. In response to the public desire to preserve buildings within the area, as well as Chief Executive’s 2018 Policy Agenda that asked the URA to revitalize the area with consideration to its “special character and urban fabric”, the URA decided to carry out further study to promote place making and synergise it with nearby revitalisation project(s). This is the first time the URA had commissioned a study on community making to collect and generalize residents’ views and stakeholders’ expectations through a systematic, in-depth exchange and analysis.

Smithfield - an artery of Kennedy Town stretching from Victoria Harbour to Mount Davis - and its neighbouring area have transformed from city fringe to a muse filled with interesting planning stories, hopes and charm; through this project, planners are telling a good story of city transformation with town planning flavour, taking inspiration from and in collaboration with artists and IT start-ups, district councilors, and the locals.

The HarbourChill was first opened to the public as part of the Harbourfront Shared Space Initiative co-developed by the Harbour Office of the Development Bureau of the HKSAR Government and the Harbourfront Commission and was positioned as an experimental space to invite community input to breathe life into a site that became available because of the construction of the Central-Wan Chai Bypass. Social Ventures Hong Kong (SVhk) was engaged to test out initiatives to activate the space on a nonprofit basis and thereby creating: - An open platform for people of all backgrounds to participate in impactful and purpose-driven public open space - An opportunity to reimagine Wanchai’s neighbourhood identity and strengthen community bonds - Cross-sector partnerships to scale up impact

In a high-density city like Hong Kong, communal areas in housing estates are vital for relaxation and social activities, but age-segregated designs and age-specific play and fitness equipment often hinder intergenerational play and interactions. Since 2019, J.C.DISI has been pioneering “Intergenerational (IG) Play” as a socially innovative approach to address the challenges of “Double Ageing” – the ageing population and ageing housing stock. This initiative involves multi-disciplinary collaborations, prototyping, and community co-design. In 2022, with strong support from the Hong Kong Housing Society (HKHS) as a strategic partner and funding from the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, J.C.DISI began collaborating with HKHS and local partners to implement this concept at Jat Min Chuen (JMC). The goal is to develop a replicable “software-led hardware design” model for transforming public spaces in housing estates through the IG play space concept, thereby building social capital in the community and supporting older adults to age in place. JMC is among one of the first public housing estates in Shatin, with over 40% of the population being 65+ and 25% of the elderly population being 75+; despite its high concentration of seniors, the estate itself is still relatively young, making it an ideal location to test the IG play space concept.

Located in the heart of Sheung Wan, Yau Kee Hop is a century-old, privately-owned Grade 3 historical building; the owner decided to lend the building to One Bite Social for free to convert the space into a pop-up community space. For One Bite, this project is a continuation of its Project House initiative, in which vacant stores were activated as pop-up spaces for communal events; with the belief that the community has much evolved after COVID-19, One Bite hopes to leverage this opportunity as a community “pulse check” to (re)discover what the community desires and needs.

Hong Kong’s Drainage Services Department planned to expand an existing effluent polishing plant and improve its environmental performance in anticipation of a growing population in the Northern District; it engaged a public sector innovation consultant to facilitate the community engagement process, in the hopes of bringing additional value to the community by providing extra public space and amenities befitting to local aspirations.