Woo:
Ada, you can’t take the same seat. You have to pick another seat.

Ada:
Can I not sit down?

Woo:
Yes, you can speak while you are walking. Where would you stand? Just now, you suddenly stood at my back, I immediately thought of a debate between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump. While Hilary was speaking standing up, there was somebody like a giant at her back, and I have a feeling similar to that.

Ada:
First of all, thank you to Danny and Wai for the invitation, and thank you to student for playing my role. Now I’m working on education. I really like culture, and I do want to promote social innovation. I really don’t know which role represents me. On the topic of cross-culturalism, I’d like to share with you 3 stories. For the first one- two weeks ago, I organized the “Ednovation Fest” at Lee Shau Kei School of Creativity. We invited the participation of some interesting schools. There was a school from Finland. In their school, there are no desks nor chairs, but only several sofas. So, children can spread themselves on the floor, just like on the stage here. They can play with building blocks, while listening to their teachers at the same time. It’s a very interesting school, but I won’t focus on it today. I want to talk about another university which did a sharing at the same occasion. That university is very interesting, as it was created by fund raising.
It was established 2 years ago, and is called Minerva Schools. There is an entrepreneur in his thirties, who believes there is a main problem in the universities around the world. The problem is that students study for 4 years only in one place. Though there is still room for exchange, as year 2 and year 3 are the exchange years. But yet, the base is set in one city. He questions why students have to stay in one single place for all 4 years of university life. So, he came up with several innovative ideas.
First, for those students studying in this university, they can go to 7 cities in the world, including their base in San Francisco- because he is an entrepreneur- and then Berlin, Hyderabad of India, Seoul of Korea, Taipei, and Buenos Aires of Argentina in South America. Every year, they admit around 100 students.
His second point of reflection is: even though there is internationalization, American universities are being internationalized, and Hong Kong universities too, but yet, students of one single nationality form the group of majority. In the HKU, for example, 80% of students are locals, and 20% are mainland and foreign students. Somehow, there is still a main stream. He doesn’t think it is right.
So Minerva Schools admit students from all around the world. There are 100 students per cohort, and they are of 30 nationalities. Less than 1/4 of the students are Americans. There are mainland students, but there isn’t any HK student yet. There is one Taiwan student and a few mainland students. So how do they study? When they go to a city, local organizations, including art and cultural organizations, NGOs and civic organizations, would explore and study the city with them. Many of the courses are delivered through video conferencing, in other words, in a distance learning mode.
In a class, on the computer screen- if there are 10 students attending the workshop, then all the 10 students’ faces would appear on the screen. So students would not be dozed off easily in the video class. I’m more interested in their majors, and I think they really transcend borders and are cross-cultural in nature. There is one major called Designing Society. Another one is Global Governance. Another one is Data Science and Data Analysis. He is of the view that our world has changed a lot, so if we go back to the traditional mode of subjects, we won’t be able to push our world to move forward. Will this university succeed? We don’t know. It’s in their second year of operation, and they would have their first batch of graduates in 2019. However, they have attracted many elites, including those from the Mainland and Taiwan. What’s interesting is how I connected with this university. Coincidentally, the few Mainland students and the Taiwanese students from the university attended the MaD forum. MaD, which is “Make a Difference” in full, is an organization co-founded by me. I learnt from talking with them, that they very much want to be innovative, and they aspire to be change makers. They are very informed about what is happening in the world.
So, at this moment, I really look forward to a conversation with them 2 years later, when they return from their study. This university is very nomadic in nature, and in 4 years’ time, they would have traveled around the world, so is the experience helpful to their world view and vison? It’s not yet known.
Some old-school people doubt if this is a good move as the students would not know where their roots are. This is the first very interesting example of cross-cultural undertakings. There is another interesting point about this university.
Now they have raised US$20 million, so their intuition fee can be rather inexpensive. If you go to the Harvard University, you pay US$40,000 in tuition fee, but in Minerva, the tuition fee is only US$10,000. But they claim that they offer an education of better quality than that of Harvard.

Woo:
Does the US$10,000 include airfares?

Ada:
No, US$10,000 is the tuition fee. Of course, it doesn’t include air tickets. But even if you go to Harvard, the airfare is equally expensive.

Woo:
But you need to travel around… and what about accommodation?

Ada:
For accommodation, the students can rent a place at the local hostels, and rent for a semester. They are like nomads, who cluster together.

Woo:
How many teachers are there to travel with them?

Ada:
Not many. Very often, their lectures are conducted through video conferencing. So, we may question what the relationship between the teachers and students is like. But they are cross-cultural in the real sense, as within 4 years, they would have been to South America, North America and Asia.

Woo:
Is this university registered in the US?

Ada:
Yes, it’s registered in the US, but only 25% of their students are Americans. So, this is a big change. The future of education entails change, and the practice of this university is a bit extreme. I don’t know what it will be like in the future, but I will definitely look forward to it seeing the results.
The second story is: in the past few years, at MaD, I organized various projects, which are all small in scale, and contain a lot of cross-cultural elements. I think HK is very confined to itself now, and we think like people living on a small island. But young people, in particular, need to know what is happening in the world, and what is interesting in the civic society. In the middle of this year, for the activities organized by MaD College, we invited some interesting people to cross the border of language and culture to bring their ability to act and their social consciousness to HK. Among one of them is Liz Barry. She promotes citizen science. She likes trees a lot, and she lives in New York. Every day, she sees many trees around different corners on the streets. Then she thinks, as a citizen, is she able to make a record for all the trees in her community? So together with her friends, they have written an app and set a standard format for taking pictures of a tree. Then they would measure the diameter of the trunk, take picture of the tree crown, and record the state of growth and health of the tree. In HK, we always sigh and say that nobody cares for the trees. Then in New York, there are citizens taking pictures of trees, so as to protect the trees in their community.
Trees are assets of a community, and we should all be responsible for them.
In HK, I thought that people would not have much feeling about this topic.
So, at first, I just planned to organize one to two workshops with her. I guessed that there would be about 20 participants only, but in the end, 60 people turned up. The workshops were conducted in a school, which is located near the community where people always go out to have a look at the trees. Now together with some HK friends, they try to localize the app to see if it’s possible to transfer what they have done in New York to HK. This is an example.
Besides, MaD College made the acquaintance of the winner of Turner Prize of last year, an architectural team called Assemble. Assemble comprises a group of social architects. They work in Liverpool and many other places. They think that the public space should be beautified, and they carry out their plans with local citizens. In one instance, they turned an abandoned gasoline station into a cinema, by making using of abandoned seats and materials. The results were impressive. In its initial stage, MaD wanted to organize forums like TED forums, which aims to inspire. But if we invite people from afar and ask them to stay in HK for one day and give a talk for 20 minutes, it is not a good deal at all. So, we asked them if they can stay for 10 days. We took them to Ping Che, an undeveloped place in the northeast of the New Territories. In Ping Che Village, there’s a space in the central area, and local villagers would like to have a place for exchange and communication, and also with a kitchen. So, the architects of Assemble led a group of young people from HK, many of whom are students of architecture and design, to build the place. It’s a very interesting experience.
Lastly, I know I have only one minute. I want to talk about a friend, who is an Indian youngster. Why did he make an acquaintance with me? It’s also through MaD. He came to HK. He is from New Deli and is an entrepreneur. In the past, he worked on scientific and technology education, so that Indians can learn good English. When he came to HK, he wanted to start up his own business, but in the beginning, there would not be much income. So, I said, if he could come up with a 10-week course on how to start an enterprise for our schools, then he could have a base in our school. We only offered him little resources, but he was very happy. You all know that the School of Creativity…This happened last year…is all Chinese. When this Indian first came, everyone was surprised and didn’t know how to communicate with him. What is interesting is that the young guy likes cooking a lot. One day, he went to the tuck shop at our school, and found that it was not yet in business operation, unlike this year when a group of graduates have taken up to run the tuck shop. He started to cook food there, and when he made curries, many students were attracted to him and chatted with him. It’s really a cross-cultural communication, and it’s through food. This is very interesting story. In the end, the easiest way to bring out cross-cultural education is through food. I then realize the importance of food. So, MaD’s theme for the latest season is “University of Eat”. An American artist happened to be in HK during that time, and he used food to… Now in the US, there are a lot of conflicts, internally and with China and Taiwan. There are always conflicts and arguments. He wonders if, through the artistic process, people can reconcile their differences in opinions. It would happen on the dining table. This is very interesting. He has done some workshops in HK too. From the production of a few hundred million dollars by Minerva, to the small-scale experiments by MaD or the School of Creativity, I have a strong feeling that cross-culturalism should be the most important consideration of our future education.
Thank you, all.