Illuminate x Markham - An Unforgettable Experience

Hi everyone! My name is Annie and I am a Grade 11 student at Richmond Hill High School. Yesterday, I had the pleasure to attend Illuminate x Markham’s regional conference. Here are my thoughts highlighting what I learned about social entrepreneurship.

To be honest, I briefly heard about Illuminate from some reposts on Instagram and I never thought I would end up attending one of their conferences. Doing more research on Illuminate, I realized how incredible this organization is and how many students take part in its events so I thought joining would be a great learning experience!

From Christal Wang's story on how she created Shimmer, I learned that it's ok to not be sure of what you want to do at first and to not rush to settle in a career you may dislike. I also enjoyed her idea of theory of change mentioned how working backwards will help you to see what you can do at your own pace to make an impact.

Out of everyone, Mashurf’s Chowdhury’s talk stood out to me the most. His advice on getting to know a company, especially their environment, really struck me because immersing yourself in their environment is a key way to understand the company better. His mentioning and emphasis on emotional intelligence also made a great point as understanding someone’s emotions allows you to better communicate with them and figure out what they may look for. Alina Huang also talked about her experience working at multiple different businesses and it made me realize that is something I also want to experience as it really helps you develop a better outlook on different businesses. In the future, I will be using these notes when researching in different companies in hopes of learning how to adapt to a business' environment better and to become a better version of myself.

As for the case competition, it was exciting working with my teammates and I am grateful that we had the opportunity to present in front of everyone. The compliments and support in the chat really helped us be more confident in our presentation.

Thank you to all the speakers and regional coordinators who made this event possible!