Ryan wants to distribute pamphlets for me

I returned home with a tiring body after all day long election activities. Ryan, my younger boy,9, asked me if I can take him to distribute pamplets in order to help my election. My sweet boy! Ryan watched TV and news and learned some stories about election. Ryan is young and may not be able to understand the process of election. But anyway, he is so sweet. He wants to help his Dad. He wants to do something to help his Dad.

Unemployment rate and competitiveness

The unemployment rate remains 6.9%. We have the highest working population exceeding 3.5 million in Hong Kong. Our economy is growing with 6 to 7% this year. High GDP growth rate, low interest, and a high unemployment rate will remain for some time. The IT people worries about job securities although more companies are recruiting more IT professionals. Construction and IT are the two main sectors that have not gained much benefit from the moderate economic recovery. High Oil price and inflation are also threats for delicate recovering economy. Hong Kong economy needs more stimulus in order to lower the high unemployment rate. We need new thoughts and new initiatives.

Air pollution

We have pretty high air pollution index today, particularly in area like Central or Mongkok. Actually, we do not need any sort of pollution index in order to understand the level or air pollution in Hong Kong. We can simply look at our harbour. It is misty. Air quality is very important to our health. In the past 10 years, I witnessed that a number of measures have been adopted to improve our air quality. However, the situation is deteriorating. We need to seek cooperation with the China. There are 60,000 factories in the Guangdong. Pollutants can be brought to Hong Kong by the northerly wind. There are tremendous work we need to do to improve our air quality for ourselves and also for our next generation. I shall join the Environment Panel when I return to the Legislative Council in order to follow up issues to improve the air quality of Hong Kong.

Home Visits

It is important to meet and greet my voters. However, most of the private residential estates do not allow any election candidates to carry home visits unless the election candidate is invited by the resident. I carried out my home visits during the evening time, from 19:30 to 22:00 p.m. In many cases, I fail to meet my voters who may not have returned home from their office. I left my election platform and a pink note informing my voter that I came for a visit.

Therefore, I have to rely on attending election forum, pamphlets, emails to contact my voters.

Home Visits

As a candidate for re-election of Information Technology Functional Constituency, I loved to reach out and talk to our voters, understand their concerns. This will be particularly useful for my work as your representative in legco.

But reaching out to meet my voters is not easy. There are over 60,000 IT professionals in this sector. Since to be qualified as an IT voter, one needs to be voting members of an IT professional body. Altogether, 4570 voters are eligible to vote in the forthcoming election. This has already had some significant increase. There was only 3200 voters in 1998 and 3800 in 2000. Definitely, I would like to see as many IT professional members registered as possible. I did urge IT professionals to register as IT voters in April and May this year. Therefore, I rely pretty much on your positive response, email or fax reply of my survey. Most of the private residential estatbles do not allow any election candidate to carry out home visit unless such home visit is requested by the resident.

I received various sorts of comments on the current status of the IT sector. Some looks pretty gloomy. Some have some bounce-back sentiment. The feeling is relatively mixed. But the consensus seems to be about IT jobs, our competitive edge.

I was questioned by a voter in one election forum if I served the IT sector of IT voters. My reply is straight forward. I serve Hong Kong with particular interest in IT because I represent the IT sector. But a legislator do have to participate issues related to the livelihood of Hong Kong. For example, article 23, budget cut on tertiary education, SARS, etc.

I need to communicate my positions on various issues to with my voters and my constituency. Blog is a useful too. In the future, I can write my speech in the legco and publish my speech in legco after I speak in the council.

Public Service and Private life

Public service, like Legislative Councillor, is very demanding. People expect a legco member to be perfect. Definitely, public life takes up a lot of my private time including my family time. Sunday is of particular value to me. Like many others, I have morning tea with my mother. I use Sunday to check the learning progress of my two young children. They are still young, 13 and 9. They need guidance although both of them try to be independent.

Summer holiday is about an end, with only two more weeks to go. They have to prepare to be back for schools. Purchasing their school books, doing some casual readings. Because of election, I am unable to take care my two lovely boys these days. I have to rely on my beloved wife to help me and check everything for me. Without their deep understanding, I would not be able to deliver my service to our community.

Greeting on the streets

I would like to meet as many voters as possible. The day is hot. I stand in the Taikoo Place where many IT company cluster together. I greet my voters waiting for your comment and feedback.

Yvonne, Ryan and Clement are back

After finishing the election activity near Jusco at Quarry Bay to greet my voters, I was delighted to drive to the airport to receive, Yvonne, my wife and Ryan, my little son yesterday, Sunday afternoon. They came back from summer camps of Canada. In the last 4 years, I sent my boys to my sister who lived in Canada. My sister arranged summer camps for my two boys who enjoyed sports activities and making new friends with Canadian kids. That was a great experiences. Through these activities, my boys can learn skills not only in sports but also in communicating with other kids of different ethics and cultural background.

They left Hong Kong in late June and early July and enjoyed their summer breaks. My wife went to take them back. We used to go for holidays together after their summer camps. I missed our summer holiday we spent last year in the Canadian Rockies and the dinasours fossils in the Royal Tyrell Museum in Albert.

Clement and Ryan understands that I am unable to spend our holidays this summer because I have to campaign for re-elections. Clement, my elder son 13, asked me how my election is.

I am glad that my family members are all back home. At least, I won't miss them so much. Moreover, I can share my feelings, thoughts with my wife in the evening.

Election has just begun. There are 5 more weeks to go. I have to reach out and meet as many as voters as possible. I hope that we can have a short family holiday before I start my services in Legislative Council in October.

Innovation & Technology Commission Conference

I attended the consultation conference on the future funding model of Innovation & Technology Commission at the Central Government Office. Quite many people in the ICT sector attended this and spoke about their views. Although the seminar last for only 2 hours, a number of good and important idea and suggestion did come out.

However, one of my observation is that the gap between the industry and the academics is still quite large.

We need this sort of tri-partie (government, industry and academics) meeting to narrow the gap or mis-understanding.

One of the major directional or strategic change in the future funding schemes of Innovation & Technology Fund is the shift from a supply side to demand side.

I still remembered years ago when I organised seminars with the IT sector and invited the late Professor Tien to explain to us about the idea of mid-stream Research & Development. It took 2 or 3 years to implement to recommendations of Professor Tien's report. By now, we have 2 to 3 years of experience of triggering our more R&D through ITF.

The effectiveness of the ITF is crucial to our HK's technology development and IT development. Why? The government is facing severe budget deficit. Thanks to Professor Tien. HK SAR government appropriated 5 billion for Innovation & Technology Fund. We should treausre this ITF as an engine for growth.