Founder and CEO of local social enterprise Encompass HK, Benita Chick is an avid proponent of embracing diversity, and reducing inequality in HK. Benita is a strong advocate of LGBT rights, working as the Director of the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, curating and guiding the award-winning Hong Kong LGBT Walking Tour.

In her talk "Dive Inside to Find Yourself", Benita shares her passion for the underwater world, skillfully using the diversity under the sea as a metaphor for diversity in our communities. Amidst the irony in the celebration of uniqueness in nature, versus the ostracization of diversity within our human society, Benita shares how this became her inspiration of advocacy of diversity. Benita started her professional career in working with differently abled individuals at Outward Bound Hong Kong. More recently, she has been advocating for LGBT+ rights as Director of the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHOT) for Pink Alliance, and Board Director for AIDS Concern. Benita has shared her passion and knowledge by curating and guiding an award-winning LGBT in the City Walking Tour that explores Hong Kong’s LGBT+ history & culture. Appearing in interviews for NHK World ‘Direct Talk’ and China’s Daily, Benita has furthered the goal of diversity and inclusion within the community as well as promoting effective advocacy and progress.

With her science background at Cornell University and commitment to environmental work, she also runs sustainability and citizen science workshops for different organisations. She is also a passionate diving instructor since age of 18 teaching special needs children and differently-abled individuals. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx