Chairman’s Message

15th Chairman’s Message

Over the past fifteen years, Centum Charitas Foundation (CCF) has grown and developed with the youth of Hong Kong. We uphold our mission in ‘helping the underprivileged groups and alleviating hardship’ by our impactful youth and community efforts. We have assisted young people to grow through different kind of progammes, including the ‘Youth Empowerment Sharing Session’, the ‘AI Education Programme’, the ‘beANGEL action’, the ‘Strive and Rise Programme’, as well as industry exploration, exchanges and internships programme, over 170,000 beneficiaries in total.

 

As the founder and current chairman of CCF, I am grateful to walk with CCF throughout the past fifteen years. I sincerely thank all the leaders who care about us, our supportive friends, and the selfless CCF members!

 

CCF has adapted well to technological advancement and social progress by exploring development paths that meet the needs of the times. In recent years, we have devoted more resources to strengthen students’ Tech-for-good knowledge and global perspective. We encourage students to actively equip themselves and contribute their talents to address the emerging global issues.

 

In retrospect, I did highlight the rising challenges from artificial intelligence during the 10th inauguration ceremony and had addressed the importance of early AI education for our youth to equip them with future skills. We pioneered the AI Education Programme ‘for underprivileged children allowing them equal opportunities to learn AI skills and better equip them for the complex and ever-changing future job market. From 2019 to the end of 2023, the programme had enabled around 67,000 students to learn AI programming in a systematic manner; as the programme will be carried on for the next two years, a total of 83,500 students will be benefited from the entire programme, with a total programme fund over HK$16 million.

 

Throughout this journey, we have been delighted to see the HKSAR government’s increasing investment in STEAM education. We conducted a programme evaluation in early 2023 with the Hong Kong Primary Education Research Association to evaluate the programme as well as the generalisation of AI coding education in Hong Kong. Through nearly 2,000 questionnaires and focus group interviews with students, parents, teachers, and other stakeholders. We have summarised eight recommendations for strengthening AI coding education in primary schools. These recommendations were submitted to the HKSAR Government and related stakeholders. Details can be downloaded at our website.

 

In the past year, we had also visited the Chief Secretary for Administration, the Secretary for Education, and the Secretary for Innovation and Technology. Leveraging on the flexibility of the private sector, we are committed to facilitate the Government’s education policy by sharing forward-looking insights and recommendations in order to prepare for a better Hong Kong. Looking ahead, CCF is committed to nurture our youth to embody benevolence, to advance career development and to embrace difference with compassion and love.

 

CCF has been transforming in responding to global climate change and potential food crisis as well as in aligning with China’s “Double Carbon Goals”. Riding on our positive impact in driving AI coding education, we move forward to set up two new directions in pursuing Tech-for-good and ‘sustainability’ with the intention to develop young talent in this perspective as well as ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) talent. We envision to enable and empower our youth development with global perspectives so that they can participate and contribute to the emerging global issues.

 

In November of last year, we formed the ‘G3 Alliance’ in partnership with the Hong Kong Academy for Gifted Education and the Hong Kong Laureate Forum. The G3 represents Gifted, Groom, and Giving, with the primary objective of identifying talented students in the STEAM field through the ‘Young STEAM Talent Award’ competition. Our goal is to inspire and nurture talent with creativity in the ESG field, motivating them to identify social needs and propose relevant ESG solutions to be future ESG leaders.

 

In September last year, Vice President Han Zheng attended and addressed the Leaders’ Dialogue of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Summit at the United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York with four recommendations. He emphasised the importance of revitalising global development partnerships, with developed countries should fulfil their commitments to development aid and climate financing, while developing countries should deepen South-South cooperation. It is essential to mobilise all sectors to nurture momentum for development.

 

We are planning to collaborate with UBS and the United Nations organisations to host the Future Summit in the Greater Bay Area, with Hong Kong and Shenzhen as the focal points. This platform will focus on investing in the future of humanity and presenting viable solutions to climate change. Young innovators will have access to top-notch incubation platforms. Our goal is to unite forward-thinking organisations from government, industry, academia, and the public, along with effective philanthropic funds, to develop practical and viable solutions that can mitigate the impact from climate change. For this, we also seek support from the HKSAR government in advocating this platform.

 

Here and now, we are encountering both opportunities and challenges Our future will be relied on ‘4Cs’:

 

  • Children, our next generation;
  • City, Hong Kong, our home;
  • Country, our motherland is our foundation and our strength; and
  • Climate, our planet and our future!

I look forward to the collaboration with CCF and each of you to be the forces of good joining hands with CCF and all of you to be forces of good to shape the future for our children, our city, our country and our climate. With ‘4Cs’ we foresee a promising future.

 

The Year of the Loong is around the corner, I wish everyone a peaceful and prosperous new year!

Dr Peter Lee Ka-kit
Chairman of the 15th Council Members of Centum Charitas Foundation