Bulletin No. 1, 2018

Eric Ng obtained his Bachelor’s and MPhil degrees from CUHK’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering in 2000 and 2002, respectively. He became his own boss in 2010 when he founded RedSo, a mobile app company with familiar names including myTV among its clientele. Boutir is his second company, which capitalizes on the rapidly growing e-Commerce business and created an eponymous app to let smartphone users establish online stores. Since its launch in August 2015, 30,000 merchants have become its registered users, offering 450,000 products. In 2015, Boutir joined the ‘Empowering Young Entrepreneurs (EYE) Programme’ co-organized by Google and CUHK’s Center for Entrepreneurship, and came into contact with nine other startups. ‘Getting to know like-minded others let us learn from one another. The event exposed us to several industry veterans, too. It also gave me the Jimmy Chan ’s startup experience spans over 15 years. More recently, he has been putting a lot of effort into developing a startup hub to provide new entrepreneurs with co-working space, funding and expansion support in a Kwun Tong factory building. Seeing many young people with entrepreneurial aspirations discouraged by the high office rental prices, he wanted to help them achieve their startup dreams. On a trip to Israel in 2015, Jimmy visited co-working spaces for startups and discovered that despite the country’s small geographical size and shortage of natural resources, the startup atmosphere there was one of the most vibrant in the world. ‘Israel is part of the Middle East and surrounded by enemies. I was told by a young Israeli that they must innovate to survive.’Although Hong Kong’s situation is not as perilous, it faces stiff competition from the rest of the world, especially the key cities in mainland China. Jimmy believes that in addition to its key sectors like finance and real estate, Hong Kong needs to stay attuned to global trends in other areas. ‘I want to foster a startup ecosystem with young people to support our city’s economic transition.’ The physics graduate has been actively giving back to his alma mater. From 2016 onwards, he has become Chairman of the Chung Chi College Alumni Association, bringing together alumni from different generations through its diverse activities. ‘The association has seen an influx of young alumni in recent years. Some of them have even become mentors, joining hands to give the College’s young students a leg up. This is our way of giving back to our alma mater and passing on its legacy.’ opportunity to visit startups in Taiwan.’ He also participated in the ‘CUHK Entrepreneur Day’ (see next page) in 2015, an event that connected him to other alumni entrepreneurs. Apart from this annual event, he looked forward to attending more such exchanges. In 2016, he teamed up with other participants to set up the CUHK Alumni Entrepreneurs Association and became its founding president. A year later the association held the first CUHK Entrepreneurship Competition. Asked whether he found it tough setting up CUHK’s first alumni association across Departments and Colleges, Eric replied, ‘Not really. Although we had to feel our way forward initially, Alan Lam , executive committee member of the CUHK Alumni Torch Fund, gave us plenty of valuable guidance. The Alumni Affairs Office was equally forthcoming with its support of the subsequent developments of our association.’ Starting Up to Help Startups Paying It Forward Eric Ng Jimmy Chan 14 Chinese University Bulletin No.1, 2018