PREMIUM SERVICES AND PRODUCTS
2015
Education Beyond the Classroom By Nikki Park Photos: American School Hong Kong
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s part of the Esol Education community that stretches across the globe, American School Hong Kong is heading into town. The school already has a strong presence in Dubai and the new location will allow it to expand its capacity and offer an accredited American education to students in Hong Kong. The spacious new campus, located in Tai Po in the New Territories, is now under full-scale renovation and is expected to open in September, 2016. Dr Ray Taylor, the chief education consultant for the American School Hong Kong (ASHK), is thrilled about the new opportunity. “We characterize the school here as being somewhat different from our other American schools. We know that we are coming into an educationally vibrant city. This city has an outstanding reputation for
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hosting many excellent schools and educators. Esol Education is delighted to be opening a school in Hong Kong that will help us to expand our reputation in the Middle East and Europe into a new and exciting educational environment.”
Holistic approach ASHK aims to provide an American education with strengths in the holistic development of students. The entire curriculum places emphasis on nurturing an individual’s academic, cultural and personal identity so that he or she understands how to learn in different contexts and apply the lessons learned about character throughout life. In achieving this goal, the school insists it is imperative for students to discover and understand conceptual connections in their learning.
“Our teachers will spend a lot of time talking about conceptual learning, not just learning content or remembering facts accumulated as knowledge,” Taylor says. “Knowledge is, for sure, important but once you understand the conceptual underpinnings of knowledge and link those concepts, you arrive at a much deeper level of understanding. If you observe our pedagogy, teachers are asking questions that oblige students to think conceptually. Questions should not just be about what you know, but rather what you do with what you know.” Supporting such conceptual learning is the US Common Core Curriculum, the school has adopted, which provides a robust content and skills foundation upon which a conceptually based curriculum has been designed. The pedagogy to be implemented
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Dr Ray Taylor
emphasizes the skills, attitudes and knowledge needed by students to be a part of an increasingly global society. The ASHK curriculum will include a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics) focus that provides each student with life-long learning competencies across a range of disciplines and expands literacy and numeracy into the five domains of STEAM. The school aims to build the curriculum around students and carefully shape the types of cognition and cognitive activities that it wants students engaged with. The problem-solving, performance-based assessments and the learning built around major and minor disciplinary concepts defines one of the strengths of this educationally strategic vision. “If you look at the successful careers out there today, they tend to be
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in the domains of technology, engineering and the arts. It is not an accident that among most well known people on the planet are those creative designers and innovators who have really led the way. We believe the STEAM dimension of our education adds something special that few of the other schools have done yet.”
Global citizenship ASHK’s solid American education will provide students with American models of instruction, school culture and organization. But Taylor points out that at the same time the school will be inclusive of Hong Kong’s rich regional context with an international perspective. All nationalities and languages are welcomed. International outreach and extracurricular activities will be included in the learning to
embrace diversity and expose students to a spectrum of cultures, understanding “we are defined by diversity not divided by it.” Within this community where students can reach out locally, regionally and globally, ASHK aims to develop responsible global citizens. “It’s one thing to say but it is another thing to do it,” Taylor says. International mindedness permeates every subject and underpins discussion, action and relationships. What distinguishes ASHK is how students achieve openness to diversity through real-life experiences. The academic curriculum will promote students’ concern for world affairs and intercultural understanding. The importance of these experiences is seen in the various service and leadership trips that students can initiate. ASHK students will have a wide array of opportunities to be actively and closely involved with the local community as well as with other regional and far-reaching communities where residents are not as fortunate as they are. After living and/or working in other communities students come back to share their
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life-changing experiences. These presentations are invariably emotional, and intensely engaging as individuals personalize their experiences. “They come back changed with a different perspective. They understand how privileged they are and they understand how important it is to give back to the community.” Other than service trips, ASHK will purposefully place students in situations where they must exercise international-mindedness and collaborate in problem solving in real world contexts. “We provide students with opportunities to explore the areas that they haven’t even considered before. We will challenge them by taking them out of their comfort zone so that they get to discover more about themselves and others,” Taylor stresses. Another important opportunity ASHK students can benefit from is the richness of the Esol network. As part of Esol Education’s global family of nine top-tier international schools with more than 11,000 students worldwide, ASHK facilitates cultural and education field trips between different schools that operate independently. Students will be given opportunities to interact with and host visitors from these sister schools and experience things that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to share.
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Providing structure The school will first open for Kindergarten through Grade Six, basing its curriculum on the US Common Core. It will then expand to a full-scale K-12 school, providing the International Baccalaureate program in Grades 11 and 12 as well as ensuring all students earn the American High School Diploma. While ASHK’s elementary education focuses on building a strong foundation for the future, the entire middle and high school curriculum shift to another level. “Adolescence is a search for structure,” Taylor sums up. “These kids are so energetic and full of enthusiasms but often their ideas do not tie together and it is our responsibility to provide them
with some structures so the ideas can start to piece together. It is about building the constructs of understanding." “Academic learning is about making meaning by connecting concepts to create deeper levels of understanding.” Students will investigate international literature, cultures, geography and history. Courses such as International Relations and World Politics will be offered to further foster global citizenship while core values – academic rigor, responsibility and civic mindedness – are embedded in the students’ daily interactions with teachers and peers and reflections on their learning. A rigorous academic and college preparatory program will define the learning and achievement agenda. ASHK will also provide a thriving co-curricular program with a multitude of opportunities for students in athletics, the arts and community service. To ensure graduates from ASHK attend leading universities around the world, academic and college counseling will be provided. “We are passionate about what we do as educators. What inspires us to do what we do is the fact that we help to change lives in a positive way. We are passionate about the ways that we can change emotions and thinking. We change the way people think, we change the way people feel and we give them an understanding of themselves and others. We are proud to provide our graduates with a place to stand where they feel confident about who they are, how they are, and how they interact with others,” Taylor says.
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Information Is Key By Leon Lee
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s the popular saying goes, knowledge is power. This certainly holds true for businesses as the right kind of information can help them set effective business strategies and target the correct customers. But the difficult part is knowing where to get the information from. “It’s true there’s a lot of information on the Internet. I used to believe that I can collect and build my own reports, but after many tries, I found that I was wrong,” says Alexander Lo, General Manager of CRIF’s Business Information, Greater China. “If you want to do it in a structural way, it’s not that easy – even for a listed
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company. It’s not worth the money or the time. One of the problems is you go to a website but you don’t even know whether the information on the website is trustworthy or not.” CRIF works diligently to ensure the quality of the information they provide to their clients. Business information is actually one of 14 business lines the global company offers. Started more than 25 years ago in Italy, CRIF specializes in credit bureau, business information, outsourcing and processing services and credit solutions. It provides credit bureau solutions in 18 countries around the world such as Ireland, Switzerland, Turkey and Russia. On a daily basis, 3,100 banks and financial institutions and more
than 25,000 business clients use CRIF services around the world.
Multiple applications In Hong Kong, CRIF’s focus is on business information. “Business information is very different to credit bureaus. A credit bureau is a membership club. Business information is more of an open-to-the-public business. What we do is we collect open information and then we sell it to anybody who is willing to buy legally compliant information. The purpose of buying that is to help them to run their business in a more efficient way,” Lo says.
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Their sales people act as consultants as they show potential clients how to use the data and statistical analytics they receive from CRIF. Business information can be utilized by a variety of businesses for a variety of reasons. The most common applications are for credit management, sales and marketing, mergers and acquisitions as well as compliance. Lo explains that before he met potential clients in his previous career in plastics and medical devices, he would look at their business information report to learn what their earnings and margins are in order to determine pricing. In other instances, he would look at who his competitors are, how their businesses are doing and the effectiveness of their salesforce. With information like this, he can compare how his team is performing with the rest of the industry and determine if any improvements are necessary.
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For clients dealing with mergers and acquisitions, business information can provide them with input to help their decision-making. For example, there are two companies to consider for an acquisition – one with 30 patents and another with two. If every other conditions are the same, then the one with more patents is a more attractive choice since the larger amount of patents indicate that the business is focused on research and development and more innovation means higher potential in the future. With credit management, business information reports can help companies determine how many days of credits to offer a client in order to make the deal while maintaining a healthy working capital. “[The report] would tell you what is the average amount of outstanding days businesses are offering credit in the same industry. If they are offering 60 days and you offer 90, of course your client would have a higher chance of not accepting that. But what if you
Alexander Lo
offer 58 days? Then you most likely get the business and control your working capital at the same time,” the senior executive explains.
A game changer Lo learned the importance of business information during his time at General Electric earlier in his career as they use it to gauge themselves and
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charter their strategy. “They are number one for a reason,” he points out. But it is still taking some time for Hong Kong businesses to get around to understanding the benefits of business information. Lo says that most don’t even think about it because of a lack of education and training in statistics and data. And it is this shortage of knowledge that has hurt Asian companies from expanding out of their own countries unlike Western businesses. “One of the biggest things that they invest in is business information. Normally a Western company would launch market research before they go into a new market, they would know what happens in the industry in that particular country. This really helps the business reduce the probability of errors and increase their chances of success,” Lo explains. “If [Asian companies] make use of business information, they will have a higher chance. And compared to any other costs that they put into expanding the market, the cost of business information is relatively low.” However, there is a demand for business information in Hong Kong. It
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just took some time for CRIF to identify the products being demanded by potential clients in the region which was information on companies in China. This presented a tough challenge that the company had to find a solution for. “We found out that it was extremely difficult [to get that information]. The reason is because information is everywhere but our Legal Department only allows us to acquire legally compliant data,” Lo explains. “If you go to the court records website, it would tell you all the information cannot be downloaded, linked, used for commercial purposes. But a lot of the business information vendors actually collect the information from there and sell it. It took us a long time to find a solution with the Chinese government to legally license the reports to us. We’re probably the only one who has the legally compliant data. That was the hardest part.”
Growth and expansion
Besides local information, CRIF’s dominance in Europe offers plenty of
valuable data as well. In four months, they have set up a global report platform that can provide reports from over 240 countries. It allows customers to have instant access to reports rather than to wait seven to 10 days to receive them like from other business information vendors. And since CRIF manages credit bureaus from a number of countries, the information from the reports are fresh and updated daily. In Asia, the company is starting to establish the analytics business. “CRIF is very supportive of Asia because it is the last piece for them. We’re working very fast, trying to build our presence in the region. We have a very aggressive big plan for greater China. This year, our Shanghai team has grown from zero to 10 people,” Lo points out. As for Hong Kong, they will continue to develop business information. “This is a huge market and we’ve only scratched the surface. We believe with the number of headquarters in Hong Kong, this is the right place to start. From Hong Kong, we’ll interface to the whole world, including China.”
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An increasingly sophisticated Smart Properties
Customer-centric approach to integrating automation Just 10 years ago, few people talked about “intelligent buildings” without references to “in the future”. Today, however, such conversations are about the reality of intelligent automation technologies making residences and offices greener, more secure, user-friendly, more spacious and efficient. HKT Smart Living channels all the latest technology advancements into interconnected smart home systems that facilitate a much higher quality of home lifestyle. Forward-thinking property developers are now pre-installing smart home elements from the ground up, to the benefit of residential units and overall property projects. As a result, householders now command complete control of domestic facilities such as lighting, air-conditioning, entertainment systems
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and curtains – all from a single smartphone or tablet interface and on an “anytime, anywhere” basis. Similarly, property managers can wield greater control of a building and administer improved access pass and license-plate recognition systems. Couture Homes Limited integrated intelligent building solutions from HKT Smart Living at an early stage, thereby adding smart touches to new residential complexes at Causeway Bay and Sha Tin. The developer sees intelligent networking as essential to making everyday home life easier and more enjoyable. Ringo Ng, Managing Director of HKT’s Consumer Group, said: “Taking a customer-centric approach to projects and providing the best quality services enhances the developer’s image and brand, as well as the market’s perception of a property.” He added: “Integrating systems throughout a property helps create greater comfort, an ambience of luxury, better security and improved energy efficiency.”
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A video door phone system automatically captures a photo and saves it when a call is missed
Ringo Ng Managing Director of HKT’s Consumer Group
Home automation facilitates integrated control of electrical appliances via iOS or Android smartphones/tablets.
Optimum performance Improving energy efficiency boosts a building’s appeal, while transforming the business of property management. Integrating various aspects of a management system onto one IT backbone enhances overall performance and simplifies operations such that they can be controlled via a centralized and secure network designed to carry an entirety of building-system communications. Cost and frustration normally associated with installing and operating multiple autonomous building services are eliminated by integrating systems such as lighting, HVAC, alarms, power management, security, access control, video surveillance and visitor management. For example, a pre-installed video door phone (VDP) can also act as an eNotice message broadcasting system that allows property managers to send messages to residents about the weather or
maintenance schedules. Residents can also communicate directly with a property’s control center in the event of an emergency. A secure home protected by a comprehensive intrusion detection and alarm system, including wireless door and window contact sensors and passive infrared sensors, engenders peace of mind for householders and building management alike.
Rapid growth expected The intelligent building technology market is expected to grow rapidly as a result of broadening market awareness of business value generated by deployment of such solutions, according to industry researcher IDC Energy Insights. Developers seeking to stay ahead of the curve by adopting a comprehensive intelligent building approach call in solutions experts in the early stages of a development in order to integrate advanced technology into their plans. HKT Smart Living’s one-stop solutions are designed with an emphasis on satisfying a diversity of project requirements and budgets. This focus will continue as HKT Smart Living stays at the technology forefront to drive improvement, greater comfort, convenience and efficiency in homes.
HKT Smart Living
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