Service leadership education at City University of Hong Kong

At the City University of Hong Kong (CityU), quality professional education and whole-person development go hand in hand. With the advent of the four year curriculum and CityU’s emphasis on Discovery-Enriched Curriculum, new opportunities exist for innovative teaching, knowledge transfer, and student service leadership education. In particular, a major development was the development of a ‘Social Entrepreneurship Initiative’ in 2011 that evolved rapidly into a broad interdisciplinary platform of 30 faculty members that is now branded as Project Flame, Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship@CityU (Project Flame). With generous sponsorship from the Victor and William Fung Foundation, and building upon the curriculum framework developed by the Hong Kong Institute of Service Leadership and Management, Project Flame is committed to improving Service Leadership in Hong Kong. Based on these inputs, with additional funding provided by CityU, Project Flame delivers a vibrant range of cross-disciplinary and sectoral programs to foster the emergence of a new generation whose members possess the service values and leadership skills required to become the service leaders in our region. This paper introduces briefly Project Flame’s key program areas - Professional and Academic Education; Social Innovation Incubation; Research and Knowledge Transfer; and - the focus of this paper – Student Service Leadership. With its multi-disciplinary and community-focused approach, Project Flame’s social innovation and entrepreneurial activities enable students and staff to enhance their knowledge, skills and experience in service leadership. The paper outlines Project Flame’s unique approach, key activities, and concludes with brief reflections and a look at the future direction ahead.