Jack Read - My unexpected extended stay in Hong Kong!

I think staying behind in Hong Kong with Amy whilst she recovered in hospital was a very eye-opening experience for me.

Firstly, I was taken by surprise with how developed the healthcare system in HK was. The doctors were very attentive to Amy, as well as other patients on the ward, and there were no signs of hospital overcrowding, with each patient receiving a high quality of care. This allowed me to rest easy as I knew that Amy was in safe hands.

The experience really improved my independence, as while Amy recovered in hospital, I was essentially in Hong Kong on my own. This was quite nerve wracking at first as HK is such a busy and diverse place, so being on my own for a couple of days allowed me to test myself in an unfamiliar environment and really helped to improve my confidence. I was humbled by how welcoming and helpful the locals were, and I had previously made friends with some of the HKU students during the program, so I felt comfortable approaching people if I needed help with anything.

When Amy was discharged, there was still a lot of things to be sorted before we could fly home. I spent a lot of time on the phone to the insurance company trying to arrange for the medical bill to be paid, as well as extending our hotel stay, and finally booking flights home. This could sometimes be quite stressful due to the time zone difference but Amy and I remained in high spirits throughout. I had never dealt with things such as flight bookings or hotel reservations before so this experience has certainly helped me with my organisation and communication skills. Claire kept in close contact with Amy and I to make sure everything was okay, which was reassuring as being in a foreign country under these circumstances was quite daunting at times!

When Amy was feeling well again, we were able to make the most of the extra couple of days we had in Hong Kong! I acted as somewhat of a tour guide as I had already experienced a lot of what Hong Kong had to offer by this point. Amy is a keen shopper so I knew some of the shopping hot-spots to take her to, as well as the best places to eat! By this point I was very familiar with the local area, as well as tourist destinations, which we made the most of. We visited a nice rooftop bar to have a drink in celebration of our Hong Kong experience before we flew home!

Overall, I believe that the experience was a challenging but equally rewarding one. I have huge respect for Amy for how she dealt with the situation. Being admitted to hospital in a foreign county can’t be an easy experience and I was very impressed with her maturity and ability to remain calm under the circumstances. The experience also taught me a lot about myself. I learned that I am much much confident than I initially thought. Having only ever travelled in large groups previously, I believe that this experience has improved my ability to deal with stressful situations independently, and has seen my communication and organisational skills improve as a result.

Ultimately, me and Amy were thrilled to be returning home in one piece and would like to thank all those involved in making sure we were well looked-after. Hopefully, Amy’s next visit to Hong Kong will be a lot smoother!

- Jack

Legacy and Dissemination

Being home doesn't mean that the work is over. There's a team of staff working hard to ensure that students next year get this fantastic opportunity too.

On 26th June, staff were sharing their experiences and presenting the project at the UUKI Go International Conference 2019.

Claire Belkadi (Head of Study Abroad) & Rebeccca Clark (Outreach Manager) from the University of Birmingham, alongside Gail Armistead  (Associate Director, Global Engagement) and Isobel Mosley (Global Engagement Manager) from the University of Nottingham gave a presentation entitled "A Collaborative Mobility Project for Widening Participation Students", where they discussed the success of the Global Leadership Project, and where the program is heading in the future.

Impact & Student Feedback

Following our incredible trip, some of the students share their thoughts and experiences of the project, as well as the impact this has had.

"I loved the Global Leadership Experience because I learned so much about leadership, global issues, global solution, different people, and (mostly) a lot about myself. I don’t normally see myself as the most confident and outgoing person, so the fact that I even applied for this opportunity was one of the many ways in which I learned to expand my comfort zone. The most valuable thing I gained from this programme was the international network of friends, consisting current and former students (the incredible Birmingham alumni, who shared their inspirational stories with us)." - Sara Çakaj

Kelly Lou Shi

Gabrielle Haynes-Lees

Salwa Beik

Kyle Moffat

Aaliyah Simms

Jake Cooper

Matthew Cook

Kim Gardner

Our final day in Hong Kong & journey home

We all woke up nice and early on our final day, ready for a day of visiting Hewlett Packard and Linklaters.

Sadly, a large portion of the group who had eaten street food the previous night had all found that it had had a slight disagreement with them, and sadly some of the group were stuck clinging to the porcelain for the morning. Oops.

Everyone else headed off nice and early to Hewlett Packard, where they received a very warm welcome, and met Gabriel Leung (Managing Director of Hewlett Packard Enterprises).

Gabriel talked about his time at UoB (where he did a degree in Electronic & Electrical Engineering in 1982), his career path since graduation, the obstacles he has faced (and how he over came them), and he talked about his role at HP & current projects that they're working on. We toured the HP Demo Centre, and then discussed careers and opportunities at HP.

After this, we met Billy Yeung, who is the co-owner and CEO of HKBN Enterprise Solutions Ltd, a world class telecoms company. Billy talked to us about effective leaders vs effective managers. It was a very insightful talk, and linked in well with what we had learned during the GLP.

For lunch, we were lucky to have more fantastic alumni giving up their time to talk to us. We spoke to:
Robert Southgate (Legal Director, Intel) gained a degree in Law at UoB in 2001, James Hacking (Senior Vice President and Strategic Planning Director, Bluecurrent Group) who gained a degree in  International Studies with Spanish at UoB in 2002; William Brocklehurst (Corporate Affairs Director, BUPA) who gained a degree in International Studies with French at UoB in 2004; Jo Hayes (CEO, Habitat for Humanity) who gained a degree in Modern Languages at UoB in 1997; and Mary Ho (Managing Partner, Silver Spring Capital Management) who gained her MBA at UoB in 2011.

They all gave us a fantastic insight into working overseas, and told us about how they came to be doing so themselves following their time studying at UoB. It was really insightful and made a lot of us think not only about where we are now and during our time at university, but how we may incorporate global mobility into our future career plans.

Sadly, after an all too brief lunch with the fantastic alumni, we headed off.

Happily, we were heading to Linklaters, a law firm in Hong Kong, to meet more UoB alumni.

At Linklaters we met Hwang Hwa Sim, a partner in the firm, who studied law at UoB and graduated in 1994. He too talked to us about his time at UoB, and how and what he has learned from the challenges presented to him as a leader.

After a very brief Q&A session, we discussed graduate careers available at Linklaters, and the law students in the group definitely started considering whether a career with Linklaters could be in their future!

We then had a very insightful workshop into CV writing and interview techniques. As everyone from UoB who participated in the GLP are all in their first year, this was particularly beneficial, especially as we start striving for summer placements, second year placements, and relevant work experience.

Sadly, at 5pm it was time to say a goodbye and head back to St John's College to collect our luggage, check out and board the coach to HK Airport.


It was a very sad time as we drove through Hong Kong one last time. Everyone was looking forward to going home, but we were also going to really miss Hong Kong.

We arrived at the airport just as exam results were released, which caused a few impromptu celebrations on the coach and concourse, before we headed off to check in.

After checking in, we said a farewell to Claire and Jack, who sadly would not be flying home with us as they were staying behind to look after a student who had become ill and ended up in hospital (and I'll be badgering them to contribute to the blog with their experiences in the near future!).

We headed off through security and went to grab food. After a week of Hong Kong dishes, some students opted for a farewell meal of HK food, and others enjoyed a much needed Pizza Express!

There was plenty of time for food, drinks, and some last minute retail therapy at the airport, before we all headed to board our plane. This time, we had a British Airways Boeing 777. We all boarded ready for the long flight home, and just before midnight we were in the air, waving goodbye to the beautiful lights of the city below.

As the city lights faded into the sparse lights of trawler boats, food was served. Unfortunately, it was at this point that we discovered that there was no vegetarian dinner option on the return flight so, if you're heading out on the GLP 2020, please make sure you book your meal in advance if you require a vegetarian or halal dish!

Dinner was meat (chicken or beef) with veggies, mash and gravy, and a delicious cake for dessert. Sadly, there was no tea and coffee service after dinner as we hit some pretty rough turbulence and had to buckle up and hold down anything that wasn't glued down! After about an hour or so, the turbulence eased off, so we had some drinks and then either settled in for a nap or took advantage of the on board entertainment.

It didn't seem that long until breakfast came around, not long before landing. We enjoyed the option of either a full English or a Spanish omelette, and then just after the trays were cleared, we prepared to land.

It was such a warming sight, flying towards Heathrow, the London landmarks below us. We were home! (well, almost).

After a stroll through security, a brief wait at baggage claim and then another brief wait for our coach, we were on the final leg home.

Despite it being the early hours of Saturday morning when we arrived home (our plane landing at around 5:30am) everyone was in good spirits and reminiscing happily about the trip, whilst excitedly counting down the minutes until they were back in their beds or with their families.

There was much excitement as we saw Old Joe rising in the distance as we approached, and we arrived back to be welcomed by family and friends.

___________________________________________________________

Overall, this has been an incredible experience for all of us, and we cannot thank everyone enough for the opportunity to visit Hong Kong and take part in the Common Purpose Program.

So to all the staff at UoB, UoN and HKU who worked tirelessly to make this happen, to Louise, Ivy and Shradha at Common Purpose, to the Alumni and guest speakers who gave us their time and expertise, and to Santander, the alumni and the generous donors who funded this incredible opportunity, we say THANK YOU. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts, we will never forget this experience, and for many of us I would wager it has been a life changing one.

Global Leadership Project - Day Four - Responses to the challenge

On Thursday morning, some of us were still enjoying our beauty sleep whilst a group of students decided to join one of our lovely UoB Alumni on a 4am Hike up Mt Parker in Tai Tam Country park to watch the sun rise from the peak. It was a sweaty, long, and hard hike, but the views from the top were absolutely worth it.

After a quick walk back down and a speedy shower, it was off to our final day of the project.

At 8:30am we all headed to HKU excited to fine tune our presentations and present them to the room.

The morning started off with us making any last minute adjustments to our plan, before dividing ourselves up between projects. In our working party we had one group making an illustrative poster to advertise our concept, one group filming a video to showcase our idea, one group writing a brief and also preparing the final presentation. It was all systems go!

Our films ideas were developed and then brought to life around the HKU campus, and we were very proud of our one.

We got everything uploaded onto the common purpose portal, and headed off for lunch.

After lunch, the room had been transformed with all chairs facing the stage, and a panel of local stakeholders sitting behind a desk, waiting to listen to our ideas and talk to us about our projects. The final panel consisted of Ian Holliday (Vice-President and Pro-Vice-Chancellor, University of Hong Kong), Vivian Hau (Founder & Executive Coach, Flow Consulting Limited) and Arrann Young (Director of Learning & Development, KPMG)

One by one, each group went and gave their presentations. Everyone had really incredible ideas, and it was hard to believe that we had come this far in just four days! The groups presented confidently and proudly, and the panel were wowed by the innovation in the room.

We received some incredible feedback from the panel, who were not only impressed with the innovative ideas which had been developed, but also at the way in which the groups were able to answer questions and challenges about their project, which demonstrated the thought and effort which had been put into these ideas.

Following the presentations and feedback, we moved our seats into a circle and we sat and discussed how we thought the project had gone from day one until now. We discussed how we performed as leaders, how we had developed and grown throughout the project, what we had learned about being a leader, and what we had learned about ourselves. It was very emotional and joyful to see everyone opening up with such confidence, even people who had been nervous and quiet on the first day.

It felt like a huge achievement, and we got into our working groups one final time in order to present each other with our graduation certificates. Our group did this with each person talking about what they admired about the person who's certificate they had been given, before announcing who that person was.

We headed outside for one final photo, and then said our goodbyes to all of our new friends, particularly the HKU students who had been so welcoming to us.

In the evening, we were very lucky that our very own Claire Belkadi was treating us to a fabulous dinner on the University! We were booked into a fab looking grill restaurant from 7pm.

Some of us, however, made a bit of a detour before dinner, as one of our guest speakers, Janet Pau, had given us the opportunity to attend an event hosted by the Asia Business Council about public health and climate change. The event was held in a small theatre at the Asia Society's headquarters (which were absolutely stunning), and had guest speakers (Nigel Snoad and Professor Kwok-Yung Yuen) who were discussing the challenges to public health caused by climate change, and the work that was going on with mosquitos in order to minimise the spread of such diseases. It was very interesting, and we are very grateful to Janet Pau for giving us the opportunity to attend.

We then headed to join the others for a delicious dinner, before heading off for our final night in Hong Kong. 

For our final night, a group of us decided to head back to the Temple Street night market to grab some last minute gifts. We had a nice slow after-dinner mooch through the stalls, bagged some bargains, and then stopped for a delicious fresh fruit smoothie. Then we waved a sad farewell to the night market, and headed back to bed ready for a busy day the next day. 

Some of the others headed to the harbour for some farewell drinks at the water's edge, and some tasty street food... 

Global Leadership Project - Day Three - The Process of Innovation

On day 3, we again headed off to more immersion visits. Today's kind organisations who hosted groups of students were:

Society for Community Organization

Society for Community Organization (SoCO) is a human rights pioneer in Hong Kong. SoCO firmly believes that everyone should be entitled to equal rights. Equal opportunity for participation and fair distribution of social resources is the foundation of human rights. In the face of the widening disparity between the rich and the poor, and the increasingly restrictive political arena, they stand firm in their crusade to establish an equal society and to build a strong power base for the people. SoCO are motivated by a common dream, and that is: "Let us work hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder to build a caring, equal and just society"

Crossroads

Crossroads Foundation is a Hong Kong based, non-profit organisation serving global need. They believe that, in a broken world that sees too much suffering, we should do all we can to link those who are in need with those who can provide help. So they provide an intersection, literally a crossroads, to bring both together. Crossroads’ Global Distribution provides aid for relief and development in over 90 countries, as well as in Hong Kong, and they also provide ‘business solutions’ for people in poverty: fair trade and social enterprises.


Sprouts Foundation

The Sprouts Foundation envisions a world where all children, especially the underprivileged, receive high quality education that helps elevate their lives and creates a positive future for our world. They aim to establish purposeful and effective long-term educational programmes, particularly in the fields of English language and technology skills. They commit to delivering high-quality programmes by closely monitoring the progress and development of their projects with teams of qualified educational specialists, and use the data they analyse from their programme results to offer ideas to education policy-makers in the regions where they operate.




Hong Kong Housing Society

The Hong Kong Housing Society (HKHS) is an independent, non-government and not-for profit organisation established in 1948, providing quality housing for the people of Hong Kong. Incorporated by Ordinance in 1951, HKHS has implemented various housing schemes to meet the needs of niche markets. Governed by Members with a Supervisory Board and an Executive Committee made up of professionals coming from different sectors of the community, we have been serving the Hong Kong community with a social mission.


1aspace

1a space, founded in 1998, is an independent, non-profit making contemporary visual art organization and art venue founded by a collective of Hong Kong artworkers. It moved from its original location an old government warehouse at Oil Street, North Point, to the current location at Cattle Depot in 2002. 1a space aims to promote the making, experimentation, exchange and dissemination of contemporary art both in Hong Kong and in the international arena.


Once again, the organisations we visited proved to be an incredible help to us in highlighting areas of social need within Hong Kong, and the information they shared with us was hoping us start to develop our idea for our final project.

We all arrived back from our respective visits, and after a quick lunch, got down to business.

We revisited our city maps from the previous day and added lots more information in. From there, the individual working parties set about identifying a social issue, and how they could use technology in an effort to tackle that issue. We then set about developing our ideas.

The group I was part of decided the issue we would like to tackle was accessibility and mobility for people with disabilities. We had noticed that accessibility wasn't well highlighted in Hong Kong, and whilst there certainly were ways to get around for disabled people, these weren't necessarily always highlighted. We came up with the concept of an app, similar to google maps, that would create a route mindful of accessibility requirements (so avoiding stairs and instead directing to lifts or escalators etc.). We developed our idea and brainstormed different areas such as features and functionality, how to generate revenue, the social benefits available from such an app etc.

We then developed a 2 minute pitch in order to present our idea to a group of external consultants who would be coming later. Our pitch started by identifying the social problem, outlining our idea in brief, outlining the main features, outlining the benefits, and finally acknowledging problems that may arise and how we planned to circumvent them.

Following our afternoon break, we were lucky enough to have external consultants come in to listen to our ideas, and use their knowledge (both of business and Hong Kong) in order to help us hone our ideas into something workable.

The external consultants we had were Andre Kwok (Founder, Future City Summit), Devi Novianti (Equal Opportunities Officer, Equal Opportunities Commission), Robbie McRobbie (CEO, Hong Kong Rugby Union) and Philip Niem (Director of Global Banking and Investment Solution, Bank of Singapore). The consultants listened to our pitches and gave us some fantastic ideas and areas for development, as well as helping to identify issues and helping us to address and solve them. We were extremely grateful for their input, and we had more ideas than ever on how to make our idea a success.

We finished the day by honing our ideas and ensuring our projects were in top form ready for tomorrow, our fourth and final day, where we would be fine tuning our presentations ready to present them to each other, as well as a panel of local stakeholders. We were all very excited to share our ideas with everyone!

On Wednesday nights in Hong Kong, we were told, students like to head to the local race course "Happy Valley". At ten HK dollars entry (about £1) and cheap drinks on offer throughout the night, this sounded like a great plan! Sadly, upon arriving, we found out that there were no races scheduled until the following Wednesday! And so everyone went out and about exploring again. Some people went to the beach, some visited Victoria Peak, and some headed out for some more retail therapy! Most of us ended up back at our accommodation at a reasonable hour for once, with the week catching up with use.

Global Leadership Project - Day Two - The World Through Someone Else’s Eyes

Day two began with our first round of immersion visits. Groups of students were graciously hosted by several businesses and organisations, who talked to us about who they are, what they do, and helped us understand more of the challenges faced by the people of Hong Kong. We asked questions about what they do and what they think is needed for progression, and left with a wealth of information. The businesses we visited were:

Hatch

An impact purpose initiative by Social Ventures Hong Kong, aims to revitalise the “Made in Hong Kong” by bringing well-known local brands together in a co-working factory space. HATCH employs women from underprivileged families as Hatch Talents, and provides them with career building opportunities, family-friendly flexible working hours and childcare support. HATCH aims to be a brand new platform for these talents to broaden their vision, job skills and career paths, thereby creating ladders out of poverty for them and their families.






Hong Kong Foundation for Charities

The Family of Foundations were established to increase the flow of philanthropic funds to organisations worldwide. The Foundations offers charities, non‐profits, educational institutions, NGO’s and other organisations the opportunity to fundraise simply and effectively in countries without having to set up dedicated legal entities.


CareER | Talent No Boundaries

CareER is the first joint higher education institutions student community for higher educated students and graduates with disabilities and special needs. It was established in 2013 and started with three founders and a group of passionate higher educated graduates with disabilities, aiming to create a platform for students to help one another through alumni experience sharing and a charitable job matching platform by our HR professional knowledge.

PILnet: The Global Network for Public Interest Law 

In order to inspire lawyers to advance the public interest and strengthen the ability of civil society to influence laws and policies and assist individuals in need, PILnet develops pro bono (or volunteer) legal practice around the world. Although in recent years, lawyers and firms have become increasingly willing to undertake pro bono matters, they often lack a direct connection to the community. PILnet’s pro bono clearinghouses in Hungary, Russia, China and its cross-border Global Pro Bono Clearinghouse serve to bridge that gap between lawyers seeking opportunities to provide free legal help and those who need it.


Social Ventures Hong Kong

SVhk is committed to creating social impact by empowering innovative & sustainable social solutions through a venture philanthropy model –which leverage impact capital, professional volunteers and collaborative network in Hong Kong. It is a venture philanthropic organisation, aiming to provide financial & non-financial support to Social Purpose Organisations or Social Enterprises in Hong Kong. Since 2007, they have been supporting & nurturing social enterprises in Hong Kong, such as the Diamond Cab, & promoting young professionals’ participation in social entrepreneurship.



When we arrived back from our immersion visits, we were brimming with ideas. We had learned so much about the city we were in, the way these organisations were trying to aid society, and the challenges faced by Hong Kong.

In our working parties, we shared the knowledge that we had gained, and used it to fill in a "city map", which identified different areas (such as education, housing, employment, infrastructure, transport etc.) so we could identify challenges and strengths in order to help us develop our own projects.

We then did an exercise where we, as working parties, solved sheets of riddles as a group. This seemed like just a fun task from the outside, but actually it was a very clever exercise designed to exemplify the group dynamic. It showed those who took charge naturally, those who were happy to listen and contribute, and those who shed away for various reasons. After the task, we reflected on our own performance in the task, and shared our findings with the room. It was very enlightening.

After a brief break, we had two great guest speakers, Mark Shuper (Co-Founder & Executive Director, Sprouts Foundation) and Lalita Raman (CEO, Transitions Intl Ltd). They spoke about their journeys as leaders and were extremely passionate about what they do. They shared the challenges they faced and obstacles they overcame, and were both very inspirational people.

Following this, we again reflected on ourselves as leaders, and we each took a piece of paper and were challenged to write on it what sort of person we wished to be tomorrow. Everyone did so, and we were told to make our way outside of the building with that piece of paper. Once outside, we were told to make two lines opposite each other, scrunch up the piece of paper, and have a snowball fight! (In 35ºC heat, that was certainly an interesting concept!). We did so, and at the end everyone picked up someone else's piece of paper, came together in a circle, and read them out. It was interesting to see the range of answers, from people who were happy as they are, to people who wished to change their behaviours to accommodate others, to people who wished to be bolder and braver! 

Again, we had the evening free to explore, and so we all headed off out. A large group of us headed to the Ladies' Market on Tung Choi Street in Mong Kok.

Much like the Temple Street Night Market, the Ladies' Market was crowded and buzzing, and there were LOTS of bargains to be had. The market stretches on for what seems like forever, with a great opportunity for bagging a great deal on everything from phone cases to purses and handbags.

They call this one the Ladies' Market because there's so much there geared at women; beautiful purses, trendy handbags, plenty of shoes, clothes, pyjamas, and some absolutely stunning silk kimonos and Mandarin dresses. Then there are lots of accessories like Jade jewellery, necklaces, hair clips, fans and much more.

In the market you have to beware of fakes, though! Sometimes they're very obvious (Like the "RPADA" handbags or the "Superme" t-shirts), but sometimes they're very convincing and other than the giveaway prices you'd have no idea they were fakes! You have to beware, though, as it's illegal to import fakes into the UK, so keep to the off-brand items and you'll be fine.

After a couple of hours exploring the market, we headed into a restaurant next to it, and headed upstairs to eat. After the long walk through the hot and humid market, the arctic cold air con in the restaurant was much appreciated. Most of us had a curry dish (some had chicken, some had beef brisket, and some had pork) which was absolutely delicious. We stayed a while, ate our food, had a drink, compared our bargain finds and then headed off.


Some people went to the beach, which wasn't too far away, to dip their tired feet in the ocean and take in the views. It's such a strange feeling to be absolutely immersed in the middle of a city one minute and then, just a short ride away, be sat on a beach. There are plenty of restaurants by the beach too, if you wanted to head straight there one evening and make a night of it.

Some of us headed out in search of bubble tea! Thankfully it wasn't too hard to find, and we grabbed a delicious drink each (I had a brown sugar thick milk with tapioca bubbles) and headed back to St John's for a well deserved snooze!

Global Leadership Project - Day One - What We Share

On the first day of the GLP, students from the University of Birmingham, the University of Nottingham, and Hong Kong University came together for the first time.

When we arrived we signed in and picked up a name badge, before heading into the room that would be our base at HKU for the next 4 days.

Hong Kong university's main building is an absolutely beautiful place. It's the oldest building on campus, and it's post-renaissance style gives it a unique look compared to other buildings nearby. There are a couple of tranquil courtyards with lush green plants and soothing water features too.

The university is all interconnected and it's easy to get from one building to another, although you might need a map!

There are some beautiful art pieces scattered throughout, including this thought provoking piece called "Pillar of Shame" by the artist Jens Galschiot. It was originally erected in Victoria Park in 1997 to mark the eighth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests, and was designed to mark the loss of life there. The base has the words "The Tiananmen Massacre", "June 4th 1989" and "The old cannot kill the young forever." engraved into it.

When we arrived, we were warmly welcomed by Louise, Ivy and Shradha from Common Purpose. Louise and Ivy introduced themselves and the program, and introduced us to the core values of the course. Day one was titled "What we share", and was a day full of openness and getting to know each other.

Then everyone got up, went to mingle with new people (the rule was that the person you chatted with couldn't be someone you'd spoken to before!) and asked ice breaker questions, as well as some personal questions about goals and ambitions, in order to better get to know each other.

Throughout the day, we discussed key concepts such as cultural intelligence, what challenges faced us as leaders, and we were lucky enough to have two guest speakers, Tina Arcilla (Senior Manager, Diversity and Inclusion in Asia) and Lehui Liang (Purpose Capital, Social Ventures Hong Kong) who  came to discuss with us how the city works and to give us a raw insight into the city and it's challenges and successes. I won't speak much about what was said, as one of the core principles of the GLP is that we operate under Chatham House Rules in order to encourage openness of dialogue.

We also discussed as a group our core and flex values, and discussed a number of statements on flashcards and debated on how far we agreed or disagreed with them. It opened up a healthy debate between everyone, and it was great how everyone listened to each other, and even when disagreeing, did so eloquently and politely. It was a great start to the program!

In the afternoon, we started to discuss the challenges we would be facing, which was "How do we ensure technological innovation delivers societal as well as economic value in cities?". We were again extremely fortunate to have three more guest speakers; Janet Pau (Program Director, Asia Business Council), Devi Novianti (Equal Opportunities Officer, Equal Opportunities Commission) and  Emily Lau (Previous Chairperson of the Democratic Party, and the first woman to have been directly elected to the Legislative Council of Hong Kong). The speakers spoke with passion and care about the challenges faced by Hong Kong. We discussed the current protests and the poverty crisis, the political crises and many other things, and it was truly an honour to speak with and listen to these incredible people. 

We also did an exercise called "speaker, listener, observer", where a group of three took it in turns to discuss what challenges they face as leaders. Each time, the speaker spoke about their issue, with the listener listening for the first couple of minutes, and then after that spending several minutes asking the speaker questions about their issue. The observer watches the interaction and at the end comments on how the conversation went. This was a great exercise as it helped people figure out which role they felt most comfortable in, as well as some people also saying they found it quite therapeutic and even helped them to see more clearly in terms of their perceived challenges. It was really lovely and again helped to make new connections with the people we partnered up with. 

At the end of the day, we were put into our working parties, and signed up for our immersion visits the next day.

Following the program, we had some free time in the evening. Some people went back to the accommodation and chilled for the evening, some people went out for dinner, some went shopping, some explored, and some people grabbed a few drinks and went to watch the sun set at the harbour. All in all, our first day of the program was a great one.