Welcome Speech by Mr. Howard Dickson, Government Chief Information Officer, at the Cyberport Venture Capital Forum 2007
04 December 2007

Nick (Yang), Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, Good morning! It gives me great pleasure to join the opening ceremony of the Cyberport Venture Capital Forum 2007.

The theme of the Forum today is "Building Creative Businesses that Do Well and Do Good". This is not a recent theme or concept since we can trace social investing back at least as far as the Quakers who in 1758 prohibited their members in Philadelphia from buying and selling humans. Around the same time, John Wesley was exhorting on the proper use of money and outlined his theme of not harming your neighbour and to avoid industries like tanning and chemical production that ruin rivers and streams.

Here in Hong Kong we want to move on from just avoiding harm to more importantly enabling creativity. Within the Hong Kong SAR Government we are committed to transforming Hong Kong into an inclusive and knowledge-based society where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge.

You may be aware that a new version of the Digital 21 Strategy will be released very soon that reflects a series of measures for bridging the digital divide and ensuring that the entire community, in particular the underprivileged, will benefit from ICT advancement and be prepared for the Information Society.

We are planning to set up a task force, taking into account the findings of local studies and international benchmarks, in order to address digital inclusion issues in a holistic manner with an aim to enable all members of the community to have an equal opportunity to benefit from ICT development.

The task force will comprise representatives from Government departments, industry and community stakeholders. We believe such a tri-partite approach will help contribute more toward the different needs of society.

Corporate social responsibility is one of the drivers to help the disadvantaged groups participate in the Information Society. Our industry partners have been doing an excellent job in helping the underprivileged. To acknowledge their contribution in promoting digital inclusion and building a just and caring information society, we have set up the Best Digital Inclusion Award category in the Hong Kong ICT Awards since last year to encourage and recognize the development of ICT products, applications and services for the disadvantaged groups and also to raise the awareness of the public on digital inclusion.

This year, we have already received numerous nominations for the award. I am pleased to tell you that the award is undergoing the final judging stage and the results will be announced next month.

As the Chief Executive said in his recent Policy Address, we need to nurture more social entrepreneurs to achieve our social goals with entrepreneurial thinking and commercial strategies.

The theme of the Forum today indeed dovetails our efforts to promote and nurture social responsibility and social enterprises. As for our creative and digital entertainment industries, I believe that the wide range of topics today on

Thanks to the great effort of Nick and his team in lining up the distinguished speakers and social entrepreneurs from overseas and Hong Kong. I am sure the deliberations today would provide useful insights for us to further drive the development of social enterprises and the social responsibility of our creative and digital entertainment industries.

In closing, I welcome all of you, especially those who have traveled a long way from overseas to join us today. I wish the Cyberport Venture Capital Forum 2007 every success.

Thank you.

- END -