Empower Hong Kong’s poor with technology, says jewellery CEO who quit after spending week in tiny flat earning HK$50 a day
Entrepreneur Erwin Huang sees technology as an opportunity to address the city’s widening wealth gap
As technology advances, the future looks promising, but only for those properly prepared and equipped. Sadly, it is those living on the breadline who are all too often left behind by the latest innovations.
According to government data, Hong Kong’s wealth gap continues to widen. The richest households earn about 44 times the poorest.
But Hong Kong entrepreneur Erwin Huang, 53, sees technology as an opportunity to address this social and economic divide.
Raised in a middle-class family, Huang completed his primary and secondary education at La Salle College in Kowloon. His father was the first Chinese to be appointed general manager of Rediffusion Television, the city’s first TV station. After receiving his high-school diploma, the young Huang went on to study at the University of California, Berkeley in the United States, the same university his father attended.
But after just six months he transferred to Boston University where in 1986 he graduated with a double degree in information technology and system management.
Over the years he has invested in multiple publishing, communication technology and mobile companies in mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, the US and Britain.