Sundaes exists to consolidate builders-in-public culture in Hong Kong — a culture that is thin here, not absent. We're the Hong Kong node of Socratica, and this is what we're actually trying to do.
Free · Volunteer-run · No label, no pitch, no fee
What we're building
Not an event series — a habit, and a public record of it. Three layers, in the order we're building them.
Vol. I complete
One volume in
Not yet earned
We're deliberately not calling ourselves a startup or a social enterprise. We're a free, volunteer-run community project with a stated public mission — and with one session behind us, that's the honest description.
It started with one observation.
Socratica began in January 2022 at the University of Waterloo, founded on a simple idea: there are increasingly few low-stakes ways for people to make interest-aligned, values-aligned friends in real life.
The answer was a room. People bring whatever they are actually working on — an app, an essay, a business, a song, a thesis — and spend a few focused hours making progress side by side. Anyone who wants to demo at the end can. No pitch, no pressure, no fee.
It worked well enough to spread. Socratica is now a network of 30+ locally-run nodes. Each adapts the format; all hold the same values.
Sundaes is Hong Kong's. The name is a pun on Sunday and the ice cream — chosen partly to play off the LA node, Sundays.
The city is dense with talent and thin on the kind of third space where that talent bumps into itself.
Most people here build alone — at home, or in a café, with no reason to show anyone.
What exists is either expensive co-working or networking events with a pitch attached.
Nothing here is free, weekly, and low-stakes at the same time. That's the gap.
Who's doing this
Two of us, plus whoever shows up. Volunteer-run, no budget, no sponsor — for now. We'd rather say that plainly than pretend to be bigger than we are.
Started the node. Partnerships, planning, and the weekly rhythm.
Runs the room on the day — intros, timing, demos, and the follow-ups.
An executive seat on the founding team, owning how Sundaes looks and sounds to the city.
The role, in full
The third seat on the founding team: owning how Sundaes looks, sounds and feels to the city, and building the team that carries it. You'd define the brand, run the marketing team, and sit in core planning as a decision-maker.
Unpaid and entrepreneurial — we won't quote you weekly hours. Two things are fixed: the weekly core team call, and hosting sessions.
A weekly core team call, where the project gets steered.
Every core member hosts sessions. No exceptions — you can't run a room you never stand in.
Decisions are made by the people who show up.
What we need
Sundaes is free to attend and free to run, which means it runs on borrowed rooms and goodwill. Three things would change what's possible — and none of them is money for us.
Co-working · Galleries
Named in every volume
Innovation offices
Next — an archive that becomes a body of work
Later — a symposium, and a node others borrow from
Come and sit in the room. It explains itself faster than we can.