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Mr David Lorin Bishop, founder of an innovative experiential learning project at The University of Hong Kong’s Faculty of Business and Economics (the “Faculty”) has received the 2023 UGC Teaching Award (“General Faculty Members” category) by the University Grants Committee (UGC).

The UGC Teaching Award recognizes outstanding teaching performance, achievements, leadership, and scholarly contributions to teaching and learning within and across universities at UGC-funded institutions.

Mr Bishop, Associate Professor of Teaching at the Faculty, has for the past decade provided opportunities for students to take up key learning positions at non-governmental organisations or social enterprises to prepare them for future leadership roles. He was conferred the University Distinguished Teaching Award last year and the HKU Teaching Innovation Award (team): University-level award in 2020 and 2019.

On winning the UGC award, Mr Bishop said: “I am really excited about it, my only regret is that it was an individual award and maybe in hindsight it should have been a team award because we've got great people, really it is like a whole community there providing assistance, directly supervising our students.”

Impact Lab
Mr. Bishop’s Impact Lab course has proven to be impactful, creating and helping dozens of NGOs thrive, providing solutions to a range of problems plaguing particularly the developing world. Open to students from all faculties, the course has won much overseas attention for its innovative approach and teaching excellence. Impact Lab integrates the philosophy of Impact Based Learning, a novel model for business education that takes action-based and experiential learning to the next level, creating and scaling companies or projects with sustained social impact.

Among the leading examples are Soap Cycling, started a decade ago as a pioneer in collecting, processing the huge number of bars of soap discarded by hotels every day and re-distributing them to the underprivileged populations in developing countries to improve their sanitation. Through the involvement of students, Mr. Bishop also set up Migrasia Global Solutions Limited and EmpowerU, both dedicated to improving the welfare of migrant workers.

To date, approximately 1,200 students from 61 universities across 170 countries, many of them exchange students, have participated in Impact Lab.

“Impact Lab is the only university course in the world that we know of that actually creates and runs ongoing companies (NGOs and social enterprises) with students,” said Mr. Bishop, a specialist in ethics courses who also teaches law and social entrepreneurship among undergraduate and graduate students.

Mr. Bishop’s Biography
Mr. Bishop is an Associate Professor of Teaching at the University of Hong Kong and the International MBA Program at Fudan University, Shanghai. He has broad legal experience in the United States and across Asia, particularly China. Mr. Bishop has worked on major real estate, private equity, financing, and M&A deals, and participated in numerous negotiations in the region. He has also acted as outside counsel in connection with various corporate, technology, life sciences and commercial matters for MNCs operating in Asia.

In addition to a robust private legal experience, Mr. Bishop focuses significant time on activities and programs providing direct benefit to the community. He consults companies about their ethics, CSR, pro bono, and social entrepreneurship initiatives, and is founder and director of multiple non-profit companies. He and his students are constantly looking for commercial solutions to complex societal problems.

Mr. Bishop adopts a multicultural approach to teaching, aiming to broaden the students’ perspectives and help them to apply complex analysis to real-world legal, ethical, and business problems.

Mr David Bishop in today's UGC event and other photos can be downloaded from this link.

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Communication and Public Affairs Office, HKU
Melanie Wan (Tel: 2859 2600 / Email: melwkwan@hku.hk)
Jaymee Ng (Tel: 3910 3612 / Email: ngjaymee@hku.hk)
Kenneth Choi (Tel: 2859 2607 / Email: khkchoi@hku.hk)