Finding purpose through volunteering: part 1
Year 1: Shaking Hands and Making Friends | October 2017 — September 2018
October 17 2020, marked my 3rd anniversary at Generation Entrepreneur (affectionately known as Gen E). Thank you, LinkedIn, for reminding me because time does fly!
Generation Entrepreneur is a not-for-profit organisation on a mission to empower our youth through entrepreneurship. We run hackathons, school workshops and online competitions just for high school students.
It’s the place where I spent the majority of my free time during university, the place that has opened lots of doors for my career and most importantly, the place where I found a sense of purpose alongside a group of like-minded people.
This is the first of three posts about my time at Generation Entrepreneur.
⭐ How it all started
In my first year of university, I spent a lot of energy building up my resume — working at a startup, volunteering for pro-bono consulting societies and more. I learned a lot from these experiences, and I felt ready to start giving back to the community.
My story with Generation Entrepreneur started at an Edtech (education technology) startup demo night. I bumped into a university friend, Jack (the CEO at the time), and was inspired by the work that he was doing with Generation Entrepreneur. The best part — they were hiring too! Startups, social impact, education — these are all things that I care about, so it seemed like a pretty good fit for my next adventure.
I joined the team as the new Head of Partnerships alongside Esmond, a well-spoken law student who has enough energy to be overly-excited about almost anything. Together with the team, we dreamed about closing the gap between high school and the ‘real world’ so students can see what is possible after school.
Our key responsibilities at the time included:
- Securing funding for the organisation through grants and sponsorships (or in other words, nailing the art of coffee chats and persuasive writing).
- Finding industry mentors who could volunteer their time to coach teams at events (also known as learning how to write a winning LinkedIn message within the character limit).
In the role, I met people who build startups, work in tech companies such as Atlassian and Canva or big-name corporates, including Deloitte. It opened my eyes to what my career could look like in a few years.
💡 Initiate 48: our flagship program
January is always an exciting time for the team — or stressful, depending on who you ask. Initiate 48, held in the January school holidays, is a high-energy weekend hackathon for high school students. It’s two days of learning, speaking with mentors and business-building for the students who attend, but for us, it’s a two-month project. The Initiate 48 in January 2018 was the first that I helped organise.
The hackathon was held at Tank Stream Labs, a co-working space in the new Sydney Startup Hub building. The demo night was held at the Deloitte office (a place that I would become very familiar with later on that year).
The Gen E team spent the weekend working with 61 students from 17 schools. I’m proud of how Initiate 48 can bring together students from all walks of life. Some are aspiring entrepreneurs and use this as an opportunity to get exposure to the startup hustle. Others come to the event because of peer pressure but leave with a new perspective on their future. Some attendees even end up joining the Gen E team — my future co-lead, Blake, attended this Initiate 48.
☕️ Find a cause that aligns to your strengths and aspirations, then invest the energy to make it worthwhile.
💝 From colleagues to friends
It’s a special feeling to work with a group of high school and university students who are all volunteering their time, effort and skills to advance the mission. I have fond memories of everyone hustling together at various cafes, libraries and spare meeting rooms (if we asked nicely!). It’s refreshing to know that we wanted to do our part for the organisation.
☕️ The people you choose to surround yourself with are so important. Invest your time with people who will challenge you to be better but also be there for a heart to heart conversation when you need one.
🌟 The start of something big
Our most ambitious program of 2018 was iEntrepreneur, a 6-week incubator program backed by the NSW Department of Education (DoE). iEntrepreneur was the first time we’d been in contact with the DoE and it was exciting to know that entrepreneurship was on their agenda.
We had no experience in running an incubator, let alone one just for high school students. In the end, 10 teams of high school students across NSW attended our workshops held at the Sydney School of Entrepreneurship, worked with mentors and hustled hard outside of school over three months to develop a business they cared about.
This program was particularly memorable because 80% of the cohort were girls. In a world where the technology industry and startup spaces are mostly male-dominated, this was promising to see.
☕️ Big ambitions, passionate people and a dash of naivety have been the key ingredients to making the magic happen at Generation Entrepreneur.
⛰️ The road ahead
During my first year at Gen E, I unashamedly dedicated the majority of my time and energy to the organisation. It became a bit of a running joke between my friends and a slight concern for my parents who worried about my nonchalance towards my studies. Most importantly, I felt that it was recognised by the team itself. In July 2018, our CEO at the time, Jack, asked me if I’d like to take on the Chief Operating Officer (COO) role in 2019.
More on that in part 2 of this mini-series!
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