Dr Loh, fellow guests, teachers and students,

Good afternoon. Thank you for inviting me. What a wonderful crowd we have here today. I see colourful dresses ready to dance their way up the stage. I hear mellow hums ready to transform into a powerful chorus. Indeed I feel talent everywhere, ready to charm our judges.

For the younger students here, I'm guessing "talent" isn't exactly an easy word to understand. It's one of those abstract nouns people like to throw around. But let me try and explain it to you – talent means the thing you're good at, the thing about you that makes you and your family proud, the thing you want to work hard on, because you know it will pay off.

Most people will end their explanations here, but there's actually more to it. Imagine with me, for a moment, an ape and a hippo running into each other on the edge of a river. Across the river is a small island with a tall palm tree, where golden bananas and crimson apples hang seductively. The ape thinks to himself, "I'd love to get a taste of those glowing bananas, but even if I can climb that tree, I'll drown in that river. I'm useless in front of water." The hippo mumbles, "I'd love to get a bite of that gorgeous-looking apple, but there's no way I can climb up that high. I'm useless in front of trees."

What do you think happens next? In a perfect world, the hippo would carry the ape across the river, and the ape would jump up the tree and grab the fruits. Everyone gets what they want and leaves the island with a happy stomach.

Unfortunately, that's not how the story ends. In fact, the hippo stares at the ape with a frown and snorts, "You look disgusting. Why do you have ugly orange hair all over your body?" The ape covers his nose and gets back at him, "You smell awful, you big fat hippo." They turn away from each other and part ways. Never will they find out what amazing things they could have achieved together.

I am telling this story because it reminds me of the things that truly matter in a competition like today. Like the ape and the hippo, we all have different strengths hidden in us. If you have trouble discovering your talent, stay patient and experiment around. If you're not as good as you should be, stay determined and work hard. Maybe you will become a professional dancer and dazzle the world, but that sure isn't going to happen if you skip your stretching routine. Maybe you will become a singer and sell millions of albums one day, but you'll only end up ruining your voice if you don't bother to do your warm-up exercise.

Second, like the ape who can't swim and the hippo who can't climb, we all have our weaknesses, our imperfections. You may have clumsy hands and drop things all the time, but that shouldn't stop you from singing a song that touches our heart. You may have a hard time memorising new words, but that shouldn't stop you from mastering a cool dance move. When we obsess over our weaknesses, we forget our strengths. When we forget our strengths, we lose confidence. And when we lose confidence, our hope for success vanishes, and we give up developing the best version of ourselves.

Third, like the ape and the hippo, every now and then you'll probably run into people who judge you by your appearance – on the bus, in the park, or even at school. They refuse to give you the respect you deserve, the opportunity everyone else gets, no matter how talented you are and how hard you work. We call that "prejudice". Prejudice is an evil thing because it stops us from trying to learn about people different from us, from seeing their strengths and beauty, from working together to make the world a better place, where we can get our apples and bananas as a team.

Prejudice is the enemy we're fighting here at the Equal Opportunities Commission. We're the folks you can turn to, whenever you feel treated unfairly because of your gender, your skin colour, your race, or a disability you may have. The law gives us power to help you – by listening to your complaints, by setting things right with the people who did it to you, by doing research to see if others have experienced what you've been through, and by promoting a more inclusive attitude, a more open mind in society at large.

Because nearly 8% of the Hong Kong population are ethnic minorities and the number keeps growing, and because prejudice continues to plague our society and limit your opportunities in education, employment and accessing services and facilities, in 2015 we set up a dedicated unit at the Commission to advocate policy change, give training to companies in various sectors, and reach out to you to better understand your needs. Just to name a few things we've been doing – we're calling on kindergartens to adopt fair admission policies, so that your little brothers and sisters can show their true potential and have more school choices; we're urging the Government to develop more materials for teaching Chinese as a second language, so that you can learn effectively and improve faster; and we're encouraging businesses to think twice before requiring employees in all positions to know Chinese through and through, so that your parents can accomplish more at work and come home feeling fulfilled.

We're doing all this because we believe that everyone is talented and everyone has the right to shine. Indeed that's why you're here this afternoon – to shine, to show us what you've got, and to appreciate the fact that other people have their own unique talents too.

And with that, I wish each and everyone of you a great show today, and thank you once again for inviting me. Thank you so much.