Eight winners have been chosen for the Spirit of Hong Kong Awards this year, organised by the South China Morning Post and were given their awards on Tuesday evening.

Over the past few weeks, the South China Morning Post has highlighted some of the city's unsung heroes, community givers and others who inspire us - the nominees for the Spirit of Hong Kong Awards 2014.

Sheila Purves, director of the Hong Kong Society of Rehabilitation's international and China programmes, says she's constantly learning from her work on the mainland.

Some elderly people have embraced the internet and have become quite multimedia-savvy, but there are still many others who simply do not enjoy computers and hi-tech gadgets.

When Lau, 55, joined Richform, which distributes the Everpure Drinking Water System in Hong Kong and Macau, he brought his corporate social responsibility ideals with him.

Nelson Yip Siu-hong uses crutches to get around, the result of cerebral palsy, which affected his lower body but not his speech. He describes how, until the age of 16, he wouldn't leave the house by himself.

Robert Hau Kun-sun can trace back his family's ancestry an incredible 28 generations. He takes pride in showing visitors, including hundreds of schoolchildren every year, village life in the New Territories, where the Hau family has lived for centuries.

Donating bone marrow hurts. That's a fact. What isn't true is that it is in any way detrimental to one's health.

Sham, 29, studied engineering at Chinese University before starting his own company, then called Hong Kong Robotics. His first foray into business involved creating custom designed circuit boards for factory automation and education.

A community in South Africa discovers a crack in their church wall and needs to find a way to reinforce the wall. What do they do? Ask Vincent Chu!

Joe Kwok Chun-hoi, 22, cannot speak. He was born with spastic cerebral palsy and does not have control of the muscles that enable speech.

When staff at Ultra Active Technology felt they needed to take a more cohesive approach to volunteering, their employer's solution was to set up its own charity.

"You have to have the respect of your students," said Savio Fok Kin-keung, 73, who worked for more than 30 years at the Aberdeen Technical School in Wong Chuk Hang.

American engineering student Scot Frank's solar-powered SolSource cooker was an idea born from spare time.

Gloria Leung Mei-yee was four years old when she was in a traffic accident that killed her father and changed her family life forever.

Ask anyone what embodies the Hong Kong spirit and you will get an array of answers - optimism, perseverance, enterprise, versatility, generosity, benevolence and tolerance.

Possibly the most traumatic sight for Dr Poon Tak-lun in the wake of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake was the trucks queuing to carry away the dead from the main areas around the epicentre in Wenchuan.