Illuminate x Markham

Hello everyone! My name is Aarnav Sachidanandan, and I am a grade 10 student attending Stouffville District Secondary School. I heard about this event from a friend, and we decided to take part in it. It was a pleasure to attend the Illuminate x Markham's regional conference. Here are my thoughts highlighting what I learned about the world of entrepreneurship.

To start, I would like to summarize this conference. We were given a case a few days prior to the day of the conference and were tasked with coming up with an idea using 4.0 technologies. We were to make a 10 minute presentation. After submitting our presentations, we attended the conference. After the keynote, we got to take part in our first workshop. I took many screenshots of the conference, so let me show you a few!

This is part of the first workshop where we learned all about social entrepreneurship. I chose to include this screenshot in my blog as I feel this slide summarizes what this workshop taught us. I learned that in social entrepreneurship that people are in the center. This means the people come first, everything else second. Social entrepreneurship stems from someone's need to solve a social issue.

This screenshot is from the first activity we got at the workshop. We were to choose from these topics and make a chart. The chart was supposed to help us find a way to identify a problem to solve. It helps narrow down huge social issues. I found this activity very helpful, and will definitely use it in the future when trying to come u with a problem to solve. I feel as if the knowledge I gained from this conference will help me win more hackathons in the future.

This is a screenshot from when Mash Chowdhury was speaking. He was telling us all about consulting in the cyber security world. This slide here is explaining how we can do our jobs as cyber security consultants. I found this very interesting, learning all about a career I didn't even know existed. After this workshop there was a career panel. Then we played a game of kahoot. I found this very interactive and enjoyable.

After these games the case 1 finalists and presentations were done. These presentations were very informative, and a good example of what we should have done. After that case 2 was released and were to finish it and present it. Then there was slide karaoke, then the closing ceremony.

Overall I found this conference very informative and interesting. I will take the knowledge I learned and use it in future events tat I attend, and will be sure to be part of the illuminate universe. Thank you!