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Help others to help ourselves

Eric Chen: “Success is serving the community personally and professionally, and completing each other.”

We all learned in maths class that “two negatives make a positive”. For Eric, we can extend that rule to “two positives become more positives”. Eric successfully founded a biotechnology startup “Vitargent” at the tender age of 23, and was awarded the Grand Prix at the 43rd Geneva International Exhibition of Inventions with its toxin detection technology. Perhaps his most meaningful start-up came earlier when he was a freshman, though, having spontaneously created the “Ming Yue Club” to offer free Cantonese lessons to his non-Cantonese classmates. He believes it was this good deed that led to his receipt of the Jockey Club Scholarship.

Everything has a positive cycle, Eric stresses. His altruistic spirit and selfless help to others turned out to be a factor earning him the Scholarship, which in turn encouraged him and left him with more resources to give back to society. Today, he still sticks to the concept of “creating social value” to run his business.

Eric's future life goals, in addition to serving the public, are to support and invest in other start-ups or companies with the same philosophy. “It wasn’t just a consideration of financial returns when the investors showed interest in my start-up. I hope I can help these companies contribute to society and create social value themselves.” Once a member of the Chinese Youth Baseball Team, Eric has an important message to share with others, especially those who have encountered setbacks when starting a new business. “I learned from sports competition that success is never easy. We should learn from failure and turn it into a driving force.”

Did you know?

Established in 1998, The Hong Kong Jockey Club Scholarships are one of the Club’s programmes to nurture local talent. To date, some HK$870 million in scholarships have been approved, supporting more than 1,000 students. Apart from undergraduate students, the scheme was expanded in 2015 to include students with special educational needs and those in vocational education. It also supports postgraduate students to pursue further studies at top notch universities in the world. The Club has extended the Scholarships to two further schemes in 2023 to support outstanding students with top scores in the public examinations and students who have achieved excellence while demonstrating resilience and strength of mind to overcome adversities in life to pursue their studies in Hong Kong. The Club also provides JC Scholars with opportunities for further learning, personal development and social service.

Information updated to Nov 2023

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