Hong Kong Needs An Innovation Revolution

Stop preaching what you don’t practice

Following my story on Hong Kong Does Not Need More Startups and after working in Hong Kong for just over a year, there is nothing more frustrating than seeing people trying desperately to break out of the system but find themselves back right where they started. The ones who thought they might try out art, but end up studying finance. The ones who wanted to change the world for the better, but ended up working at their parent’s store. The ones who want to take a year off to travel but end up working at a corporate job.

The environment does not support outliers.

You can spot this as a tourist, you can spot this as a local. Even the people that I knew who encouraged personal growth, have come to succumb to this traditional or fixed mindset. Everywhere you go, people shut you down if you just ‘don’t know’. You may be brave enough to ask but then they look at you with annoyance and disgust, as if you should already know. Asking questions, having a sense of curiosity is discouraged in this society.

Many things have popped up in Hong Kong in efforts to “so call develop the entrepreneurship community” including the many co-working spaces which has not only been nothing more than a real estate play and because they’re run by people who don’t understand the true value of co-working spaces have unavoidably tarnished the values, purpose and definition of co-working spaces. The government has also been throwing money into grants, programs and initiatives that are meant for “innovation” but the programs are run by people who come from a traditional system, and have a fixed mindset.

What good is it if you pour money into a system that sets outliers up for fail?

How is that creating a culture for innovation? What they have not come to realise is that these programs need to be run by people with a growth mindset, and not one who has a closed fixed mindset. In fact, the society doesn’t act well to anything new.

What ends up happening, is that these people through these programs are introduced to these new concepts but people don’t truly understand them and they don’t truly practice it because the instructors or teachers running these programs, teaching these concepts are not leading by example. Larry Salibra, an American entrepreneur who has lived in Hong Kong for 7 years (10 years total in Asia), states, “It’s as if the government has decided they can create innovation on demand. The pressure to conform to an outdated set of traditional values is preventing innovation and creativity.”

So are there programs helpful? Is Hong Kong really cultivating an environment that encourages experimentation? Does society welcome people, their children, their next generation to openly learn?

What the government should be focusing their efforts on is figuring out what regulations would help cultivate this culture of innovation.

They can do that by first actually hiring those with a non-traditional mindset. The Hong Kong government can look to the West for examples and perhaps start with those who have a Hong Kong heritage but grew up in the West. “Innovation is the result of iterative learning processes as well as environments that encourage experimentation, critical inquiry, critical debate, and accept failures as a necessary part of the process.” in “Creating An Innovation Culture” Forbes June 20, 2012.

The only way that Hong Kong can understand or create this kind of environment is by having people who understand this, to run it. To have people create and come up with regulation that cultivates this kind of environment so that the people who teach it, can practice it so that Hong Kong can lead by example for the next generation.

Hong Kong needs to replace the people running the system with people who have a growth mindset to cultivate a culture of innovation.

I think this is one of the ways and the first step that Hong Kong can escape their small closed minded bubble, and move forward, advance to a society that grows. Hong Kong will always be an afterthought if they don’t take some dramatic steps, fast.

Afterall, how does one city make a mark without innovation?

Thank you Larry Salibra and Tak Lo for editing this.