IDCC awarded with Asia Pacific Social Innovation Partnership Award 2021
The Hong Kong Impact Data Consortium Chain (IDCC) is proud to announce winning the Social Prosperity Award of the Asia Pacific Social Innovation Partnership Award (APSIPA) for its “Impact Capacity Building (ICB) Program” launched in Hong Kong, selected from a group of 77 other applicants from 13 countries across the Asia Pacific region.
The two-year Impact Capacity Building (ICB) Program, funded by the Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Fund (SIEF), engages with ten leading impact intermediaries in Hong Kong including impact incubators, foundations, think tanks, academic institutions, and accreditation organizations. Through crowdsourcing information and knowledge sharing, IDCC’s members are co-creating a platform for Hong Kong’s impact sector that enables more than 500 social purpose organizations (SPOs) to measure and manage social impact with lower-cost and higher efficiency. Our aspiration is to engender greater trust among stakeholders through the community on the IDCC platform to unlock exponential growth across the impact sector.
By facilitating more precise social needs identification through a series of workshops, IDCC builds trust with and capacity for impact intermediaries on impact measurement and management. IDCC also helps impact intermediaries to undergo digital transformation so that they can more efficiently collect and manage data, and with the development of its blockchain-enabled platform, enables creating a more transparent, accountable, and automated social impact economy for Hong Kong with higher social financing flows between funders and SPO projects and ultimately more solutions deployed to tackle social problems.
At the award ceremony during the Asia Pacific Social Innovation Summit (11 April 2021), Dr. Tat Lam, the co-founder of IDCC, articulated the purpose ICB serves in the social innovation sector in front of (virtually) impact investors, SPOs, academics, media, and the public. He highlighted that by adopting consortium blockchain technology as the basis of the project, ICB addresses the common challenges faced by many such as the lack of data sovereignty, data privacy, and data capacity. Tat further elaborated that the consortium blockchain technology enables consortium participants to host servers that keep identical records along with the other nodes to leverage the immutability of the system, ensuring veracity, accuracy, and trackability of data to strengthen trust between funders and beneficiaries.
Furthermore, in our collaboration with the leading impact intermediaries in Hong Kong, IDCC not only enhances their data capacity, but also raises their awareness on data ethics — the importance of protecting our own personal data as well as the data given to us in the era of the internet. Besides updating Hong Kong’s impact ecosystems with digital transformation, ICB also focuses on building capacity for the impact community to adopt next generation technologies like blockchain, artificial intelligence, and cloud automation. By building the right mind and right skills within the impact community, IDCC can unlock social capital with data by providing data-driven pathways and bridges for resources to connect with need and innovation.
The Impact Data Consortium Chain (IDCC) is a non-profit organization initiated by Shanzhai City (SZC) and co-established by ten leading impact intermediaries in Hong Kong, including: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Alumni Charity Foundation (ACF), The Chinese University of Hong Kong I‧CARE Centre for Whole-person Development, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Office of Research and Knowledge Transfer Services (ORKTS), Social Enterprise Business Centre of Hong Kong Council of Social Service (HKCSS SEBC), The University of Hong Kong Center for Civil Society and Governance (HKU CCSG), Dream Impact, General Chamber of Social Enterprise (GCSE), Gravity Capital Partners, Good Seed, and BEHub of The Society of Rehabilitation and Crime Prevention (SRACP).
IDCC aims to establish a civic data sharing platform — jointly owned by the Hong Kong people — to connect different communities, advocate social innovation, and allow resources to enter efficiently and stay sustainability within the community. IDCC also advocates grassroots-driven community development and resource sharing through building civic awareness from the bottom up.
Shanzhai City (SZC), a proud founding partner-organization of IDCC, is a leader in incubating technology-driven social development projects that advance the decentralization of impact management and development finance. Its goal is to bridge the gap where development finance institutions and their intermediaries lose efficacy delivering services to last-mile communities in developing countries. SZC is currently leading other social innovation projects such as decentralized time banks, social impact assessment of universal basic income in Myanmar, and social impact mapping, time voucher project, and impact assessment of University Social Responsibility (USR) in Taiwan.
Asia Pacific Social Innovation Partnership Award (APSIPA) is a regional award advised by Executive Yuan, Taiwan (R.O.C.) and held by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan (R.O.C.). It is established to explore dynamic social innovation models in the Asia Pacific region and to motivate more change-makers to contribute to social innovation, discovering and celebrating social innovation partnerships that connect diverse stakeholders and make significant social impacts. APSIPA has four award categories, i.e. The Biosphere Sustainability Award, The Inclusive Business Award, The Social Prosperity Award, and The Special Jury Prize. This year’s Social Prosperity Award was also given to Fu Jen Catholic University Hospital’s Project — MAC WARD and Sunnyfounder who focuses on creating innovative ways for people to participate in renewable energy.
If you would like to know more about Shanzhai City and IDCC, please visit their website at https://shanzhai.city and https://www.idcc.hk/. If you would like to collaborate with us, don’t hesitate to contact us at info@idcc.hk and we will get in touch with you.
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