GBA Lifestyle News
An elevator convo with Cintia Nunes and Dorothy Lam of social platform Dream Impact. See here for more from our Next Up series.
What do you do?
We are from Dream Impact, an impact resource bridging platform in Hong Kong that connects social entrepreneurs and startup founders with resources that they need to grow. We support businesses with a clear social mission and vision including but not limited to: education, sustainability, social inclusion, physical and mental wellbeing.
How does your business work?
We offer social businesses and startups the support of cross-sector and community networks, capital funding from our impact investor connections, and we also have a space (co-working and event) at Lai Chi Kok that has organically grown to 80-plus organizations in the community (of which 17 startups are in the co-working space) and the spot for 3000-plus impact events in the past two and a half years!
How did your business get started?
Dream Impact began in 2017. It was renovated from a commercial warehouse into a co-working and event space for impact. It was when Dorothy and her father Mr. YS Lam began to envision turning this space into something for greater impact, by attracting innovators, entrepreneurs and creators. Soon enough, Mr. YS Lam gathered with long-time friends and partners, including Mr. KK Tse, Ms. Rebecca Yung and Ms. HW Chan, and formed a team with years of experience in social innovation and international commerce. Since late 2019, we launched DI 2.0 to be what we are today.
Who are your clients?
Social entrepreneurs, social startup founders, impact event organizers, socially minded corporates, impact investors.
What’s a day in your working life like?
Working with different parties from the impact sector, connecting dots, matching of resources, acting as the communicator between different sectors, wearing the entrepreneur hat constantly yet thinking about the social impact different business models have in the community, strategizing and planning for the next stages of our envisioned ecosystem, pulling together events that bond the Dream Impact community. Never has a day been the same!
Where do you see your business in the future?
As an intermediary in the impact sector in Hong Kong, our work is to spearhead the growth of a purpose-driven ecosystem where people from across industries, sectors and communities can play a role in bringing positive social impact. We want to be the ultimate network resource aggregator for impact, to help social startups grow and scale to create a ripple effect for change, and to reconstruct a new economic system where business and trade are built on empathy, humanity and the environment.
