My experience with Illuminate

Hi everyone! My name is Erika and I am a Grade 11 student at Alexander Mackenzie High School. Today, I had the pleasure to attend Illuminate x Markham’s regional conference. I was able to learn a lot of amazing things about social entrepreneurship and cybersecurity. One of the main takeaways that I got from the conference is to understand my values. This was mentioned in the first key note by guest speaker Chris Wang. Throughout the conference, I was able to hear the amazing journeys of multiple speakers and it has made me realize that I will not be working only one job in my entire life. With the diverse amount of changes that will be happening in my future career, it is important for me to have consistent values. Whether the job is in a big corporation or a small start-up, it is important for me to understand what I value most in a job environment and also what impacts do I want to create in the world.

I also learned from guest speaker Mash Chowdhury about the importance in prepping early for a job. Try to contact as many people as possible a year ahead to gain a better understanding about the company you want to work in so that you can separate yourself from the competition.

Overall, I want to thank all the regional leads and guest speakers for providing such an insightful conference!