Education Meets Inspiration: The 'Dream Plan' and Its Impact on Hong Kong's Youth [Create Creators] #2

Previous Post｜From Banking to Dream Business: How I Started the Hong Kong Education Startup [Create Creators] #1

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The "Dream Plan" with Plan

My dream was to write lyrics, and I was fortunate to have the opportunity to publish 100 song lyrics over the years. My younger brother's interest was Chinese painting. He resolutely quit his surveying job and went to Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts to pursue his dream of studying in the Chinese painting department, becoming the only graduate from Hong Kong in history.

Being able to pursue our dreams was a great source of happiness, and we wanted to spread this value further. 

Hong Kong is an excellent place to chase dreams. The city is digitally connected, a place of mixed culture between Chinese and Western, and abundant reserves. These favorable conditions have made people more courageous in chasing their dreams. 

Still, people in Hong Kong are accustomed to giving up their dreams for various reasons. We are reluctant to accept this and want to encourage others to bravely pursue what they want to do, to activate their aspirations, so that they will not become mechanical people in this lifetime. That’s why I started a "Dream Plan.”

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Two silly boys (my brother and I) carry an unplanned dream plan, not knowing how to do it or which way to go. We keep mentioning the concept, stating it in interviews, and telling our friends in casual conversations, hoping to get more opinions.

The more we talk about it, the more people identify with it. We met a very caring senior who unconditionally sponsored us for 50,000 dollars. That's how the plan officially started.

By combining other private sponsorship and personal funds, the first edition of the Dream Plan was completed with only 170,000 (including 100,000 in prize money for the winners). The sharing session was simple, without huge funds and extensive publicity. Still, it received unanimous praise and became a "hot" event. Many winners told us this plan was not a competition or a performance but a platform like a big family, allowing everyone to pursue their dreams and support each other.

The plan focused on the ten winners with touching stories and different beliefs. They are not stars; their dreams are ordinary and down-to-earth but unique and close to people's hearts, embodying the plan's principle of "no age limit, no scale limit, no type limit." This also made us understand that "simple and simple" is the concept and atmosphere we most want to maintain.

With a positive response, we received support from more than 20 media outlets and received a lot of feedback from the community. Many people said they wanted to volunteer or help us, and more caring people supported us financially. To keep the charity work independent of our primary business, we established a charitable organization to continue the Dream Plan.

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Many event organizers hope to expand the scale of their annual events or seek breakthroughs: the number of participants doubles, the shared venue becomes more magnificent, more reports, and more selling points. These indicators have never been what we pursue. Of course, it's good if the scale and size become more extensive, but the prerequisite is to keep the original image well. 

The second edition of the Dream Plan just continued based on the past, making it relatively easy for the volunteer organizing committee to handle. Afterward, we found that the second edition had more ideal performance in many key indicators and received a lot of corporate sponsorship and institutional support. Still, these were different from what we deliberately cultivated.

The theme of the first Dream Plan was "Unlimited," and the second edition's theme was "Life". In the third edition, we have chosen "Happiness" as the theme, with the slogan "Seek Happiness, No Dream Unrealized." Everything is still in progress. We don't only sometimes make breakthroughs; we just hope to keep our original intentions.

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Under Production

The winning team of the Dream Plan project, Memory Records, had a deep impression on me: a secondary school teacher reuniting with his multi-talented former students. These students had talents in photography, filming, and singing. Still, after graduation, they didn't have the opportunity to pursue these passions. Instead, they did jobs they were not passionate about to make a living.

The teacher wanted to gather them together, even if just this one time, to let them rediscover their love and organize a "memorial event" through the Dream Plan project.

The enthusiasm of this teacher and these young people deeply touched me. During the review, I reflected on the narrowness of professions in Hong Kong. Most people think that without professional qualifications and not going into finance or the service industry, it's difficult for young people to have a bright future. As a lyricist, I know that taking the path of creative industry or artistic creation in Hong Kong is difficult. I wondered again,

"What can I do?"

After much consideration, another company, Under Production, was established. We wanted to provide practical opportunities for a group of students or youth with the passion and potential for design and creativity.

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Combined with the spirit of lean entrepreneurship, we tried to understand clients' needs in our familiar network (the social welfare sector). We found that many associations or non-profit organizations also want to use the widespread reach of the Internet for promotion. Still, they don't need high-quality promotional materials or a high budget for promotion, either. 

At the same time, we noticed that many young (studying or just graduating) creators and designers needed an opportunity to practice. For these client groups to entrust promotional materials to student teams, they need more confidence, so we recruited a few experienced professionals from different creative fields to serve as volunteer consultants. We are also willing to put in the effort to communicate with the less experienced creators. We found a good position for ourselves: project manager.

That’s how a win-win-win situation was created: clients found reasonably priced services while not having to spend too much time and effort yet could still support young creators; young creators got the opportunity to intern and participate in meaningful projects; Under Production had high gross profit and promoted our philosophy. This model can be applied to video production, music production, and book publishing, and there is supply and demand for us to coordinate and connect. 

So far, in just over half a year, we have operated profitably, with an expected revenue of up to a million. The projects we've signed, as the name "Under Production" suggests, keep coming, and our student team keeps growing.

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Conclusion

I became an educator to promote creativity.

From seeing students' lack of dreams and interests and launching the Dream Plan project to learning about the reality of passionate and talented youth lacking opportunities and establishing Under Production to fill the gap, I've come full circle. Interestingly, the new blood of Under Production is precisely responding to the initial discovery of the lack of youth creativity. We've come a long way, but we've done pretty well as a small company with only four full-time employees.

Along the way, we met many like-minded people, and the help and support we've received are more than I can describe in a few paragraphs. I'll save that for next time.

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Written by Kit Wong (Linkedin)

More stories to read : Transforming Asian Education: Kit Wong’s 10-Year Journey from Finance to Creativity