23 June 2017

The first HSMC Entrepreneurship Case Competition 2017 was jointly organised by the Department of Management and Ana by Karma, a well-known social enterprise in Hong Kong founded in 2014 to improve the living conditions of Bhutanese women by helping them to sell their handcrafted scarves. Students from all higher education institutions were invited to join this competition.

Over the past two months, contestants carried out analyses on the strategic development of Ana by Karma. On the Presentation Day of the competition held on 23 Jun 2017, three finalist teams presented their business plans and elaborated on their ideas to the panel of adjudicators formed by Ms Quin Thong, Founder of Ana by Karma; Prof Irene Chow, Head of Department of Management, HSMC; Mr Alvin Cheung, Senior Researcher of Our Hong Kong Foundation; and Dr Kenneth Kwong, Assistant Professor of Department of Marketing, HSMC. Ms Thong, together with Ms Pema Choden, CEO of Ana by Karma, delivered an inspiring closing remark, emphasising the importance of empowering the village housewives in Bhutan with the sale of their scarves and the various channels established to help improve their financial situations.

The competition not only enriches students’ understanding of entrepreneurship through an in-depth engagement in a designated business start-up case, but also encourages them to help the Bhutanese families as the winning teams are going to implement their business ideas through the social enterprise.

Below are the winning teams (listed in alphabetical order of team members’ English surnames):