Led by Professor Tsui Kai Chong, our Provost; Associate Professor Lee Pui Mun, Dean of School of Business (SBIZ); and Dr Calvin Chan, Director of Office of Graduate Studies (OGS), members of our Executive Management Programme consisting of managing directors and C-suite executives from SMEs in Singapore, including North East Airconditioner & Materials Pte. Ltd., Gaylin Holdings Limited, Well Transport and General Contractors Pte. Ltd., visited Hong Kong and Shenzhen from July 11 to 14 to explore collaborative opportunities.
The trip aimed to catalyse innovation and facilitate knowledge exchange between local and international business leaders. The group explored avant-garde solutions that might transform, expand or even disrupt their businesses in the incubation centres based in Hong Kong and China. The first stop was a visit to HK Cyberport – a creative digital community equipped with state-of-the-art tech facilities and a cutting-edge broadband network, where they had exciting business speed-dating activities with various start-ups. They also had face-to-face sharing sessions with Li & Fung, an exemplary Asian family business that is over 100 years old, and learnt how it has sustained the growth of a family business into a modern multinational corporation, as well as Tencent, one of the major digital players in the world and parent company of the application WeChat.
Calvin also gave a talk on the challenges from digital disruption and mindset change for sustainable development, along with guest speaker, Professor Roger King from Thompson Center for Business Case Studies at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Professor King shared his many years of experience in running a family business and the research findings in this area of Asian family business entrepreneurship. He also highlighted the importance of education and strong family values.
The trip culminated with the signing ceremony of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) and Galaxy Industry Group, one of the top 20 real estate companies in China with core businesses in real estate, finance, and culture and creativity. The MOU serves to build a platform for cultivating relationships in areas beneficial to both parties, including entrepreneurship development, sharing of educational resources, project-based collaboration, and academic exchanges. The SUSS-Galaxy MOU figures a FinTech and blockchain lab, as SUSS seeks to nurture entrepreneurship among students and play an active role in leading the development of fintech.
The Executive Management Programme's trip to Hong Kong and Shenzhen.