The sanitary public bathrooms in Japan are role models for all, still, locals have found ways to take them to the next level.

“Why start a company? To research. To make an impact. Not to fish in troubled waters. Making a profit is important; rushing it is uncalled for.” With a chuckle, biostatistics expert Prof Benny Zee underlines his rationale as an academic entrepreneur.

Headquartered in the Netherlands, WeTransfer is a well-known company offering file transfer services. As many as a billion files are reportedly transferred among 195 countries or regions via their platform. This June, the company announced its status as a certified B Corp.

In an interview, David Kelley emphasised that design thinking is all about “empathy. Really try to understand what they really value.” Steered by such humanistic spirit, IDEO came to be a world-famous design and innovation consultancy – despite David not starting off with a design background.

After more than 20 years of teaching, he took an 18-month sabbatical during which he pondered about two pressing issues, namely changing directions in life, and addressing one of the biggest global concerns – environmental pollution.

Prof Fanny Cheung barely took her seat when she started “protesting”; apparently too many interviewers were fixated merely on her early community work in women’s development. A trace of a smile on her lips, the petite professor slowly unravelled to us tales of her “extra-curricular activities”.

“CUHK has so much to offer, especially when it comes to social innovation. Different departments made valuable contributions, but the outside world seldom hears about it.” Perkins Ho recalled how he put forward the idea of SoCUBE two years back, that the accumulated know-how from CUHK may propagate in the community, inspiring more businesses and industries to do good.

Long before the mainland government rolled out relevant policies, Perkins Ho has launched his own travel-tech businesses two times. The practical experience proved invaluable to his current role at CUHK – facilitating scholars to engage in entrepreneurial and social innovative endeavours.

At the age of 43, Andrew Ng easily outshines his peers in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). Born to a Hongkongese family in the UK, the Chinese-American scientist co-founded and led Google’s AI team Google Brain. He later joined Baidu as Chief Scientist, before leaving in 2017 and launching his own start-up Landing AI.

Shanzhai City is in the business of empowering disadvantaged groups from remote regions with technology.