Teens, including visually impaired, dive into early career internships
發佈日期: 2025-12-28 20:20
TVB News
Not waiting for universities, teens, including the visually impaired, dive into early career internships.
This as a non-profit organisation has been offering programmes for students aged 11 to 18 to intern at different companies to gain first-hand industry experience.
The world may look different to these high school boys.
They are learning to "see" and venture into the "real world" -- early on.
A Secondary 6 student now, James interned at a tech company over the summer holidays through the Young Founders School internship programme, while being mentored by Meta's management Dan Neary.
JAMES ZHENG: "Career opportunities for visually impaired students are usually incredibly rare. I discovered that even with my visual impairment, I can actually do the same quality of work as my peers, and, I use this confidence to initiate my own projects."
His personal projects culminated in a braille transcription app which streamlines the time-consuming process for blind students to work on math exercises.
He also rolled out an open-source product which helps users optimise their social media feed removing "brain-rot" content -- known to be trivial and repetitive but also addictive in nature.
JAMES ZHENG: "To give people an authentic experience that can help them create real human connections instead of just sending reels to each other, like we always do."
Another beneficiary is Kin Chung, who interned for the Young Founders School and wishes to become a social worker in future.
KIN CHUNG: "Before, I always thought that I'm a very bad person, I cannot finish all the tasks and everybody will think that I'm not good, but now I know that I can do it, I'm not that bad."
Among the mentors was cerebral palsy patient Jacky Wan.
JACKY WAN, Senior Employment Partner, WISE: "If we can provide them with some minimal support, some workplace adjustment, they can usually function or perform their duties quite well in the workplace. If I can do that, the society can provide them with a chance, they can definitely shine."
CHRIS GEARY, Director & CEO, Young Founders School: "Not every young person goes to university, but everyone, every single young person in the world has to have a chance to make an informed decision for themselves about what they want to do in their future. We make that possible. The level of self-belief that that generates in our students is incredible."
Rolled out four years ago, the NGO's partnering companies for the 4 to 8-week internship programmes include Morgan Stanley, UBER and Visa. On average, 250 local students took part every year.
The internship programme has drawn more than 300 corporate and non-profit partners and is now eyeing ties with firms across the mainland and overseas, so students can gain first-hand experience across different fields and different cultures.
