APSIPA Award Winners Share Their Insights Into Initiatives Creating Social Prosperity
With the gradual increase of global risks, how can we develop innovative practices to ensure a future where sustainability will become mainstream? The Asia Pacific Social Innovation Partnership Award is established to explore dynamic social innovation models in the Asia Pacific and to motivate more change-makers to contribute to social innovation, discovering and celebrating social innovation partnerships that connect diverse stakeholders and make significant social impacts. Partnership cases are required to set the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (the SDGs) as their core value.
The award sets motivating social innovation partnerships as its purpose, integrating 17 SDGs sorted into three categories, Biosphere Sustainability, Inclusive Business and Social Prosperity. Three winners were chosen from each category and there was one Special Jury Prize chosen by the judging panel.
The Social Prosperity Award focuses on social innovation initiatives relevant to fundamental dignity in human society. The highly related corresponding SDGs are SDG1: No Poverty, SDG2: Zero Hunger, SDG3: Good Health and Well-Being, SDG4: Quality Education, SDG5: Gender Equality, SDG7: Affordable and Clean Energy, SDG11: Sustainable Cities and Communities and SDG16: Peace, justice and strong institutions.
Asia Pacific Social Innovation Partnership Award Social Prosperity Winners
Dr. Tat Lam
SZC Holdings and Impact Data Consortium chain (IDCC)
Dr. Tat Lam is currently the CEO of SZC Holdings, a social enterprise to research social finance and social development strategies, develop technological solutions for the bottom billion market, and launch mission-driven ventures to solve the problems on the ground. Dr. Lam is an expert in development, social anthropology, and impact finance. With Dr. Lam's leadership, SZC Holdings has been serving social capitals, foundations, and governments in China, Singapore, Myanmar, and Brazil. Recently, Dr. Lam and his team launched a new venture in Singapore to provide microfinance services targeting the unbanked population in Papua New Guinea, Laos, Myanmar and Hong Kong, supported by capacity building programs and blockchain technologies.
Before founding SZC Holdings, Dr. Lam was involved in large scale urban and rural development projects in China, consulting on strategies of public-private engagements and collaborations. Dr. Lam was graduated from Columbia University in New York and UCL in London. He has been teaching urban development, innovation, and entrepreneurship programs at the Chinese University of Hong Kong for the last 8 consecutive years.
Professor Ching-Chuan Jiang
The Fu Jen Catholic University Hospital Center For Innovation
Professor Ching-Chuan Jiang, an internationally renowned orthopaedic surgeon and a physician scientist, has enjoyed building a career not only in knee joint reconstruction, but also integrating his surgical expertise to pioneer novel techniques in joint cartilage regeneration. His research curiosities has led to the development of Biphasic Cartilage Regeneration Implant (BiCRI), an autologous chondrocyte implant solution that reduces the current need for two surgeries to one. BiCRI has successfully passed TFDA regulations and is an available treatment option in Taiwan.
Professor Jiang’s latest innovative work includes fiercely advocating the establishment of Center For Innovation (CFI) at Fu Jen University Hospital. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the urgent need for negative pressure isolation ward prompted CFI to quickly come up with a solution. Through Professor Jiang’s leadership, MAC Ward (Modular, Adaptable, Convertible) was born. By using specially-treated recycled materials, this environmentally-conscience concept may revolutionise how hospital ward is designed.
Hui-Ping Chen
Sunnyfounder
Hui-Ping Chen is a Co-Founder of Sunnyfounder. In 2015, she graduated from the National Taiwan University and received a Ph.D. Degree in Sociology. She and several partners developed the first green energy crowdfunding platform—Sunnyfounder in Taiwan. The platform has widened the popularity of green energy with an innovative and interesting method that allows all people to share the benefits brought by green energy and contribute to environmental sustainability.
Highlights from the Panel
(listen to the podcast for full details)
[Tom Allen] - Thank you so much for joining us. We're going to start off by talking a little bit about your projects.
Dr. Tat Lam, could please share a little bit about your project, the impact that you're creating and what led to your passion in social innovation?
[Dr. Tat Lam] - Thank you, Tom. The project I would like to talk about or introduce today is what we call IDCC, which stands for the Impact Data Consortium Chain. It's actually a solution that we created in Hong Kong to build the ecosystem capacity of impact finance, government funding or social entrepreneurship. We all understand that impact measurement is very important because that actually gives transparency about what is going on. But the problem is there is a real lack of a common standard. There are 500-5,000 different types and sizes of social entrepreneurship project’s or NGO's happening in Hong Kong, which are all working in different sectors.
Everybody would like to understand how these enterprises perform, and each organisation would like to benchmark or compare with each other.
There's a lacking common standard, and there are no solutions or organisations at this particular moment that basically say, "I'm the standard". Nobody really would like to comply, just because the specificities of everyone’s impact is needed and difficult to convey. We would like to adopt an internet mindset and basically say, "why don't we just start to use, for example, a public Wikipedia-esque concept instead of a private one, so we can create a network of impact measurement?" The idea for IDCC started from an impact measurement library, and some libraries of impact measurement are actually metric libraries that everybody can use, manage and share. But the people come in and say, "what is the privacy issue?" Whenever people are using this library and contributing data where we are starting to engage with the frontline of beneficiaries and so on, how can we actually protect people's privacy?
Dr. Tat Lam: CEO of SZC Holdings.
For everybody, how can I just broadcast my impact to the particular organisation or entity that I'm trusting instead of everybody, because we believe that impact measurement is very specific. This is the reason why we have started to apply a blockchain or a decentralised ledger technology. Basically, it's built on a decentralised identification system, where everybody's privacy can be protected, and all the impact measurement is accountable. This is what we call audit data, and another thing is when we started to share or broadcast our impact, a consortium of organisations in Hong Kong backing the trust system behind that began.
Fundamentally we want to solve the trust issues within the ecosystem of impact business or impact finance in Hong Kong.
That was how we actually started. We try to differentiate ourselves from the typical organisations which measure impact, because what we believe is the fundamental problem is trust. It's not about operation and efficiency. That's a nutshell about what we're doing.
It's some super interesting work there Dr. Lam, thank you so much for sharing more about your project.
Professor Jiang, we'd love to hear a little bit more about the Fu Jen Catholic University Hospital. Tell us more about your project, the impact that you're creating and what led to your passion in social innovation?
[Professor Ching-Chuan Jiang] - Thanks Tom. First, our hospital, Fu Jen Catholic University Hospital, is equipped with a unique Center for Innovation, dedicated to understanding patient needs and working with industrial partners to come up with solutions that are scalable. That's where the idea of the MAC Ward came from. When COVID was still an epidemic, The Center for Innovation sensed a global pandemic was near, so we were already brainstorming how might the hospital handle the potential influx of the patients. At that time, the Fu Jen Catholic University Hospital's Center for Innovation was working with the Taiwan Design and Research Institute on hospital workspace. Soon after TTI introduced over many weeks space design and material technology capabilities into the discussion, the impact of MAC Ward is that it is designed not only to save lives, but also save the environment.
Firstly, the saving lives parts. MAC stands for Modular, Adaptable and Convertible. The modular and adaptable features make it possible to quickly assemble mobile hospitals with a negative pressure space in any house or room throughout the world. The convertible feature gives the hospital an ability to convert conventional wards into a negative pressure space that can be used as a quarantine ward, intensive care unit or even operation room within a hospital. These features were the key when we had to react fast to combat the COVID pandemic. Secondly, [in regard to] the saving the environment part, since 90% of MAC Ward is made from upcycled materials, it is creating only 1/10th of the building waste compared to a conventional hospital ward.
While we are creating the MAC Ward to meet urgent pandemic needs, we made sure that the design is sustainable and environmentally friendly too. We trust the concept of MAC Ward will revolutionise the way we build hospital wards.
In terms of what this means to my passion for social innovation, to be honest with you, we did not create MAC Ward for the sake of a social innovation, we as medical frontier workers see saving lives as our job and passion.
Thank you very much Professor Jiang, it's some amazing work that you're doing there at the hospital and obviously you are making some really strong impact.
We're going to move on to Phoebe from Sunnyfounder. Phoebe, tell us a little bit about your project, the impact that you're creating, and what led to your strong passion that you're dedicating in the space?
[Hui-Ping Chen] - Thanks Tom. Sunnyfounder is the first green energy crowdfunding platform in Taiwan. Our mission is to allow everyone to participate in the action of green energy and share the benefits.
SunnyFounder Co-Founder Hui-Ping Chen.
With an innovative crowdfunding business model, Sunnyfounder invites different stakeholders, including the general public, disadvantaged groups and enterprises, as well as local governments and non-profit organisations, to find active roles on our platform.
Until now, Sunnyfounder has become the largest platform of citizen power plant in Taiwan. More than 20 thousand people have participated in the construction of more than 200 solar power systems, and as a result, more than 10 Mega Watts have been built.
Beyond that, there have been total of 9 enterprises & more than 7 thousand people participating in 12 solar charity projects, we have helped more than 1,000 children, the elderly and the physically and mentally disabled.
I believe it's important to leave no one behind on the road of energy transition and it echoes Sustainable Development Goal Number 7, ensuring access to sustainable energy for all.
We're saying our innovation business model combines social, economic and environmental concepts. I believe anyone could be the power of change for a more sustainable future.
Thank you very much Phoebe, there is some amazing work there.
Winning the APSIPA Award highlights all of your dedication, hard work and skills to innovate. There are three amazing people on this call today, and Phoebe, I might start with you again. You're based out of Taiwan, so what are some of your observations of the social innovation movement in your country or perhaps even further afield, and where do you see some key opportunities and next steps?
We found as a social enterprise that's dedicated to promoting the possibility of green energy in Taiwan, we have very clear policies on energy transition and resources for encouragement of social innovation. Under a favourable environment of market and institution, our green energy crowdfunding business model is able to expand successfully. Since 2017, in response to the amendment of the Electricity Industry Law and the liberalisation of the electrical industry.
We have begun to move on to the next phase of our business model, which is the demolition green energy trading industry and green power trading platforms.
In the future, the platform will be able to purchase different combinations of renewable energy powers, and everyone will be able to strive for the future of energy he or she wishes.
Thank you very much Phoebe. It's great to hear your reflections there.
Dr. Tat Lam, you're based in Hong Kong but have worked quite broadly in a number of countries. What are some of your observations of the social innovation movement right now, and where do you see some key opportunities?
I think especially after COVID-19 created so many different types of social crises and emergencies, suddenly sustainable developments have become a very big issue right now. Things like ESG investments and all other terms which we have been talking internally between our communities for the last decade have become a really big deal. It just seems to me that sustainable development is becoming relevant right now. 20 years ago, we were basically saying, “I'm developing my business and I'm going to use the internet”, and everybody would say, "okay, that's great. I'm going to bring IP over because we are an internet business." But right now, every single business has an internet concept.
I think we're actually hitting such a moment for sustainable development, that if you are not building a sustainable development goal into your business, that means you're irrelevant to the marketplace.
I think there's a huge urgency right now in the entire market or ecosystem because they are really lacking capacity. We have all been talking about social innovation, impact measurement of development finance, but really while all these mainstream banks, investors and bankers know about going and creating ESG investment funds, nobody knows how to create a benchmark for one. Even in the consultancy space, we are still really lacking agencies that are really dedicated to doing that.
I think it's really a responsibility for us to keep building the ecosystem of sustainable developments or impact businesses by providing more talent, capacity building programs and incentivisation for all these mainstream consultancy, auditing or big companies to actually get into this marketplace.
On the other hand, we need to try and incentivise more grassroots entrepreneurs to get in, because in the very close future, a lot of capital will flow into this market, and I think we need to be very particular about that.
Absolutely. There are some really great reflections there when we talk about becoming irrelevant as a business and the urgency of this work. Thank you very much for sharing that.
Professor Jiang, you too are based in Taiwan at the Fu Jen Catholic University Hospital there, so what are your observations of this social innovation movement right now and where are there some great opportunities?
Again, as a frontier medical worker, our job and passion is to save lives. Whether it is through social innovation or medical innovation…
focusing on the user and understanding the user's needs should be the centrepiece of any innovation.
Hospitals are where a patient needs are centralised, and the Fu Jen Catholic University Hospital established a Center for Innovation when the hospital was opened to the public nearly three years ago. It hired a creative mastermind with both medical and design backgrounds that bridged medical practice with design thinking to come up with a better collaborative method that works in these hospital settings and is dedicated to integrating a patient's needs with industrial technology to generate solutions that can scale.
Since its inauguration, the Fu Jen Catholic University Hospital's CFI has identified more than 40 unmet clinical needs. MAC Ward is just one of the solutions that came out from the Center for Innovation. Therefore, a key innovation opportunity for hospitals is to set up a team and dedicate its mission to uncover unmet clinical needs.
MAC Ward at the Fu Jen Catholic University Hospital.
Thank you very much Professor Jiang. You've been on a big journey in setting this up, so what's one piece of advice that you would give not just to other medical practitioners, but social entrepreneurs and innovators alike who are starting out on their journey and are focused on social prosperity?
Focus on the people! Listen and observe before jumping into a solution. This is my advice.
I love it! It's short, sharp and so relevant. Thank you very much for that, I really appreciate it.
Phoebe let's jump to you. You've obviously learned a lot in your journey of setting up Sunnyfounder. What's some advice that you would give to some other social entrepreneurs or innovators on their journey?
I believe in order to make the world a better place, you must be the one who takes the first step.
As Gandhi said, you must be the change you want to see in the world.
I had doubted myself once and was always thinking if anyone would ever believe or support us. However, there will be no answer without action.
Therefore, I would like to encourage everyone to be your bravest self. It will be the biggest reward while you are on your road heading towards innovation.
Great advice there Phoebe, thank you very much.
Dr. Tat Lam, you had some great reflections earlier about this irrelevance that some mainstream corporate organisations for example may find themselves in if they're not working to the SDGs. What's some advice that you would give to other entrepreneurs or innovators?
There are a lot of words of advice that are important, but maybe I can pick one, which is I think when we are actually considering a social innovation (especially from a mainstream perspective like a big corporation or start-up ideas), the important thing to do is about really considering the impact risk. I think this is because the idea of the start-up concept which for the last 20 years has been coming from Silicon Valley doesn't work.
This trial-and-error mentality is going to ruin a lot of communities, because every single social innovation is not just a business, but also is really engaging with a specific community, so we cannot let it fail. That means…
we need to be very clear about what is our impact goal at the very beginning and then [we need to] actually mitigate our impact risk.
I'm actually a little bit hesitant on taking money from venture capitalists, because the capital or the power behind the capital really lacks patience. I've also thought that hopefully more capital can now join this whole community of impact business.
A great reflection there, thank you very much for sharing that.
Phoebe, are there any specific resources or books that you'd recommend to our listeners?
Yes, I would like to recommend a book that very much inspired me called Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future. The most difficult phase in starting a business is going from zero to one. In order to pursue your dream, you must believe in yourself, find your unique value and continue to move forward. Then, you will definitely reach the future you want. Thank you.
Thank you very much Phoebe. It's been a pleasure to hear more about your journey and have your recommendations today.
Professor Jiang let's talk about some books, resources or something else that you would recommend.
I think one book is very useful for the listeners, and that is Think Big, Start Small, Move Fast. This book is from the Mayo Clinic and it's written by Nicholas F. Larusso, Barbara Spurrier and Gianrico Farrugia. It is a blueprint for transformation by the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation. I think it is a very good book to read.
Fantastic.
Dr. Tat Lam let's finish off with your recommendations of books or resources.
I want to recommend this book called Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty, and it's actually by this professor who got a Nobel Prize a few years ago. It is really about studying how money is actually generating impact. I actually bought this book on the streets in Bangladesh and it's a thick book, I want to say sorry about that, but I'm really amazed that street sellers are selling these books in the streets of Bangladesh, so that's why I got a copy.
Thank you so much for your really generous insights and time today. Congratulations again on winning APSIPA Social Prosperity Award. We wish you the best of luck in the future.
This content is sponsored by Small and Medium Enterprise Administration, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan.
Books and Resources Recommended by panelists
From Dr. Lam:
Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo
From Professor Jiang:
Innovation the Mayo Clinic Way: Think Big, Start Small, Move Fast by Nicholas F. Larusso, Barbara Spurrier and Gianrico Farrugia
From Hui-Ping Chen:
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters
