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Six degrees of separation from Hong Kong Television Network’s Ricky Wong

Mary Hui

Ricky Wong Wai-kay. Photo: May Tse

Ricky Wong Wai-kay, chairman and founder of Hong Kong Television Network, will be speaking at today’s TEDxKowloon conference at PMQ, in Central. The entrepreneur started his first business as a teen, when he launched a “crammer” school in Hong Kong after seeing how popular they were in Taiwan. In 1992, when international direct dialling was still a luxury in the SAR, he broke market leader Hong Kong Telecom’s monopoly by offering a cheap long-distance call service. Also speaking at today’s conference will be Sam Gellman, general manager of the Hong Kong arm of Uber …

Uber is available in over 300 cities around the world.

A “multinational online transportation network company”, Uber is essentially a car-hailing app that connects passengers directly with drivers. Since it was launched in San Francisco, in 2011, the service has expanded to nearly 60 countries and 300 cities, often facing a backlash from taxi drivers and governments. Last year, seven Uber drivers were arrested in Hong Kong for operating without a hire car permit. It’s been hard going in mainland China, too, where Uber faces fierce competition from rival Didi Chuxing, the president of which is Jean Liu Qing …

A taxi driver is reflected in a side mirror as he uses the Didi Chuxing car-hailing application in Beijing.

The daughter of Lenovo founder Liu Chuanzhi, Liu is a former Goldman Sachs executive who joined the investment firm in 2002 after making it through 18 rounds of interviews, the last of which required her to give a rendition of Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On. Liu claims to have worked up to 140 hours a week, telling the China Daily, “I looked like I was 42 years old when I was only 24.” Nevertheless, she rose through the ranks to become one of the company’s youngest managing directors. In 2014, she joined Didi, which now boasts an 80 per cent share of the mainland ride-hailing market. Last year, Fortune featured Liu in its 40 Under 40 list, alongside Ronda Rousey …

Ronda Rousey

Born in 1987 to a judo-world-champion mother, Rousey picked up the martial art at the age of 13 and, in 2008, became the first American woman to win an Olympic medal in judo, at the Beijing Games. Her three-year reign as mixed martial arts champion ended last November, when she was knocked out by a kick to the neck by Holly Holm. Rousey’s hero is a saint, who, she says, “kicked ass on her way to martyrdom”. The holy hero in question is Joan of Arc …

The 1928 film The Passion of Joan of Arc.

Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate

The 15th-century French heroine was born to a peasant family in an age when women didn’t engage in combat, let alone lead an army. But “the Maid of Orleans”, who had no military training, believed she had been chosen by God to lead France in a war against England and, at the age of 18, led her army to victory. Captured a year later, she was burned at the stake by French allies of the English, having been found guilty of witchcraft and heresy. Her life story is told in 1999 French historical drama The Messenger. Playing Joan’s “conscience” in the film is American actor Dustin Hoffman …

Standing just 1.67 metres tall, Hoffman has been described as “diminutive, wiry and unassuming”, an actor “not typically handsome” who nevertheless made it big in Hollywood, pioneering a tradition of “average-looking but emotionally explosive leading men”. In his 1967 breakthrough film, The Graduate, Hoffman played a 21-year-old who is seduced by the much older Mrs Robinson. Two years later he starred in the Academy Award-winning Midnight Cowboy, a copy of which is on sale at HKTV Mall, the online shopping platform launched with great fanfare last year by … Ricky Wong Wai-kay.