Taiwan and Hong Kong are closely connected to each other, culturally and commercially. Both take pride in inheriting the best ancient Chinese cultural practices, from drinking Oolong tea and practicing martial arts, to respecting elders. Commercially, more than 400 flights go between Taiwan and Hong Kong on a weekly basis, making the route one of the top 10 "busiest commercial airline routes" in the world in 2011. After the 2008 world financial crisis, both economies started to search for a new model of development, a model integrating innovation with broader social needs.
台湾和香港在文化和商业方面的联系更加紧密了。双方都以继承了中国古代最优秀的文化实践而感到自豪，从品尝乌龙茶和学习中国武术到尊敬长辈等方方面面。在商业上，每周有超过400多趟航班来往于台湾和香港之间，使得该航线成为2011年十大“世界上最繁忙的商务航线”之一。2008的世界经济危机之后，两个经济体都开始寻找一种新的发展模式，该模式以更加广阔的社会需求为依托来集中创新。
The World Economic Forum (WEF) categorises both Taiwan and Hong Kong as economies that have reached the state of "innovation-driven growth", the third stage of economic development. (Stage 1 of development is "factor-driven development", and State 2 is "efficiency-driven development"). Hong Kong ranked No9 in WEF's Global Competitive Index with a score of 5.4, while Taiwan ranked No 13 with a score of 5.3. And yet, 9.2% of businesses in Taiwan and 16.2% in Hong Kong selected "insufficient capacity to innovate" as one of the top five problems in doing businesses.
达沃斯世界经济论坛将台湾和香港列为已经达到以“创新驱动发展”为模式的第三阶段经济发展模式的经济体。（第一阶段为“要素驱动发展”模式，第二阶段为“效率驱动发展”模式）。香港以5.4分在达沃斯世界经济论坛的全球竞争力指数中排名第9，而台湾以5.3分排名第13。9.2%的台湾企业和16.2%的香港企业认为“缺乏创新能力”是他们在生意中遇到的最大的五个难题之一
Despite both economies' highly-developed social welfare systems, they both have room for improvement in addressing issues of social inclusion and economic access. In the past few years, organisations have hosted social entrepreneurship conferences and speaker series, creating platforms for knowledge sharing and discussions, and organising field visits for cross-learning. Social innovators there have also realised that they are facing similar issues – the lack of communication between grass-root organisations and governmental agencies, difficulties in aligning social and business visions, and shortages of socially-minded business practitioners.
尽管两个经济体都有高度发达的社会福利制度，但它们在社会问题和经济发展模式方面还有改善的空间。在过去的几年中，组织已经举办了社会企业会议和一系列的演讲，为知识的分享和传播创造了平台，为跨领域的交流提供了学习机会。社会创新者已经意识到他们正面临着一些相似的问题——草根组织和政府机构缺乏沟通，使得社会和商业的愿景很难达成一致；而且缺少有社会责任心的商人。
What could Taiwan and Hong Kong do to increase collaboration to become Asia's top social innovation hubs?
为了成为亚洲的重要社会创新中心，台湾和香港能做些什么来加强合作？
Co-learning for knowledge accumulation
通过合作学习来积累知识
Despite their similarities, Taiwan and Hong Kong walked different paths in the past century. Taiwan was colonised by Japan for 50 years before starting its own developmental path. Hong Kong, on the other hand, was ruled by the British for over 100 years. This historical difference shaped the model of social innovation: Hong Kong developed a model with strong British influence, while Taiwan learned many of its lessons from Japan. What's interesting is that Great Britain and Japan are both pioneers in the field of social innovation. By learning from each other, Hong Kong and Taiwan could blend best practices from the east and west, accumulating a wealth of knowledge on social innovation. To achieve this, the two regions should open up their respective social co-working spaces by hosting each other's social innovators and collaborating on social projects to effectively foster knowledge exchange and absorb each other's strengths.
尽管他们有相似之处，但是在上个世纪，台湾和香港走的是不同的发展道路。台湾在开始走自己的发展道路之前被日本殖民了50年。另一方面，香港则被英国统治了100多年。这种历史的不同塑造了他们不同的社会创新模式，香港的发展模式深受英国的影响，而台湾也从日本那里学到了很多经验和教训。有意思的是，英国和日本都是社会创新领域的先驱者。通过互相学习，香港和台湾可以融合来自东方和西方的最好实践经验，积累社会创新方面的知识。为了达到目的，这两个地区应该开拓自己的社会合作空间，可以通过举办双方的社会工作者和社会项目合作的活动，有效地促进知识的交流和吸收对方的优点。
Co-operate to expand and grow
通过合作来成长和拓宽视野
Neither Taiwan (23.2 million) nor Hong Kong (7.4 million) has a large population. This has been one of the major barriers for social enterprises in both places to achieve scale. Based on the law of comparative advantage, social enterprises on both sides could explore opportunities to sell products in each other's market, effectively creating a larger market. For example, Taiwan is known for producing high-quality agricultural products, while Hong Kong essentially does not have an agriculture sector. Hence, it is possible for a Taiwanese agricultural social enterprise to sell its products to a Hong Kong food distribution social enterprise. This effectively increases the Taiwanese social enterprise's potential market share by a third. Moreover, social enterprises can also co-operate in production and marketing. For instance, a medical screening device can be produced by a social enterprise in Taiwan, sold by a different social enterprise in Hong Kong, to elders with chronic medical conditions in Taiwan, Hong Kong, mainland China and even other Asean economies.
不论台湾（2320万）还是香港（740万）都人口众多。这已经成为阻碍双方社会企业实现规模化的最主要阻碍之一。基于比较优势的法律，双方都能够在各自的市场中寻找商机、出售商品，有效地创建一个更大的市场。例如，台湾以生产高质量的农产品而著称，而香港根本就没有农业。因此，台湾的农产品企业可以将自己的产品卖给香港的食品加工企业。这种方式可以有效的增加台湾企业的潜在市场份额。另外，企业之间还可以在生产和销售方面加强合作。例如，医疗检测设备可以由台湾企业生产，然后经由香港企业卖给在台湾、香港、大陆，甚至是东南亚国家的慢性疾病患者。
Cross-investing to diversify portfolio
通过交叉投资以使证券投资组合多元化
Venture philanthropy and social investing are more developed in Hong Kong than in Taiwan, not surprising given that Hong Kong has one of the most efficient financial services sectors in the world and ranks No 1 in financial market development (Taiwan ranks No 19). Though Taiwanese society is very generous when it comes to charitable donation, the idea of investing in social-purpose businesses is still novel. If social investors in Hong Kong can start looking into investment opportunities in Taiwan, it would not only help them diversify their investment portfolio, but also give Taiwanese social entrepreneurs a new source of funding.
香港的公益创投和社会投资比台湾的要发达得多，不要奇怪，因为香港有世界上最有效率的金融服务体系，并且在金融市场发展领域排名第一（台湾排名第19）。虽然在遇到慈善捐赠时台湾的人民都非常的慷慨，而社会目的的商业投资理念却不被人们所理解。如果香港的投资者能够开始观察台湾的投资机会，这不仅能够帮助他们丰富自己的投资结构，而且还能给台湾企业提供新的资金来源。
Although still small in size and under-studied, the social innovation sectors in Taiwan and Hong Kong are booming. With collaborative efforts from both sides, Taiwan and Hong Kong will be on their way to becoming Asia's leading social innovation hubs.
虽然规模很小，而且仍处于研究之中，但台湾和香港的社会创新正在蓬勃发展，在双方的努力合作下，台湾和香港一定会成为亚洲重要的社会创新中心。
Wendy Pan is based in Taipei and is a member of Social Innovation Research Group, a thinktank funded by the Asian Institute at the University of Toronto.
原文作者Wendy Pan立足于台北，是社会创新研究组织的成员，该组织是由加拿大多伦多大学的亚洲研究所投资创办的一个智囊机构。
|
