About PolyU Jockey Club "Operation SoInno"
To tackle social issues through inter-disciplinary community collaboration
Organised by the Jockey Club Design Institute for Social Innovation at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) and funded by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, the 6-year social innovation project was launched on 1 August 2018 to innovate solutions, in collaboration with a wide spectrum of stakeholders, to respond to social challenges with a view to improving life in Hong Kong. JCDISI puts its strategic focus on tackling the combined impact of “Double Ageing” (ageing of people and building) in Hong Kong, the programme would engage the trans-disciplinary forces of academia, non-governmental organisations, professional bodies, members of the public, corporations and the Government to generate innovative ideas and practical actions.
Four Pillars of the project
“One from Hundred Thousand” — to organise a series of participatory symposia and workshops open to the public to collect views on social issues, facilitate discussion and co-create solutions. JCDISI names the platform based on the belief that if one person from every 100,000 people (i.e. 70+ persons from the 7 million+ population of Hong Kong) can sit together and contribute their time, passion, knowledge and creativity, they can innovate solutions for a specific problem.
“SoInno Action Projects” — to collaborate with non-government organisations, professional bodies and academia for developing innovative ideas generated at “One from Hundred Thousand” into designs or prototypes.
“SoInno Design Education” — to introduce social innovation and design thinking into the curriculum of secondary school education to nurture students as social innovators. Social innovation workshops will be organised for students and teachers and multi-media interactive teaching kits will be developed in this regard.
“SoInno Knowledge Platform” — to document and disseminate for public use the social innovation experience and knowledge generated from the programme through various formats, including academic papers, videos, design and practice guidelines, case study reports, workshops, regional and international conferences and exhibitions.
Meaning of “SOINNO” (For the Chinese title「騷 ‧ In ‧ 廬」)
• Refers to “social innovation”
• “騷” means “unhappiness” and “worry”, but also implies “expression” or “good show” in modern Cantonese
sayings;
• “In” denotes “trendy thoughts and acts” in Hong Kong slang;
• “廬” refers to place where people live.
Altogether, the Chinese title conveys the spirit of social innovation: “Hong Kong as our home may encounter unhappiness and worries which should be tackled by collective efforts with out-of-the-box thinking and action.”
