Let’s design HK 3.0
Lessons from Zaha Hadid’s Innovation Tower: courage and commitment
The passing of maverick architect Zaha Hadid echoes a special link to Hong Kong in the form of one of her seminal designs: a fluid, ship-like building inside the campus of Polytechnic University (PolyU). Home to the school of design, the Jockey Club Innovation Tower is a paragon example to what I call “Let’s design HK 3.0”.
Let me explicate by unpacking these three terms.
“HK3.0” represents another economic focus for Hong Kong: it continues the transformation from trading (HK 0.0) to manufacturing (HK 1.0) to services (HK 2.0). My claim is simple. Hong Kong needs another transformation to maintain its unique edge as a global quality city. Complacency is detrimental when competing with the likes of Shenzhen, South Korea, Singapore, Shanghai, and other players. A specific direction must be found – I believe “innovation” is the next economic focus (HK 3.0).
Even though some people may think the government is doing too much, in fact it is too little for the 21st century competitive landscape
By the 1990s, Hong Kong’s leaders felt that local entrepreneurs needed to compete more in the global market. To bolster the innovation ecosystem, they launched a few programmes including support for early-stage funding and innovation hubs (Cyberport and the Hong Kong Science & Technology Parks Corporation).
Even though some people may think the government is doing too much, in fact it is too little for the 21st century competitive landscape. Just giving space, or money, is not enough. In the age of globalisation and digitalisation, locale must offer much more. DJI, the drone global leader, rumoured to be worth US$10 billion, was founded by Hong Kong University of Science and Technology graduate Frank Wang in 2006, and moved to Shenzhen soon after. DJI has 3,000 employees – many of them could have been based in Hong Kong. DJI demonstrates the duality of government-led innovation. We see, in the DJI case, both the potential (of ideas created in Hong Kong), and the missed potential (of innovation departing Hong Kong for “better” places). To enjoy the long-term impact of innovation in Hong Kong, and to justify the public investment in innovation (in universities, industrial parks and other policies) we must design the entire innovation value chain for one purpose: quality jobs that stay in Hong Kong for the long run.
“Design” hints a focused directed effort, and not as a side – nice to have – tangent action. Design is about making choices. Design starts from understanding the past and present, and then setting the future. Design – as a discipline – is not just about how things work and feel. It is about how things could and should work and feel. Design is about proposing more attractive solutions to existing realities.
Design, in this innovation context, is anti-laissez-faire. The role of government is to take chances; to bet on certain domains, and to push, entice, and encourage innovation based on the unique factors of Hong Kong.
A leading government does not mean spreading the bets, or fixing the markets – it means betting on winning domains in a big way. It also means making sure the benefits of such bets come back to the public for quality of life and further investment (and for offsetting the failures of some of these big bets).