We spoke to the Impact Lab students interns at FSI during the Spring 2021 semester to find out their learnings and experiences at the Impact Lab, as well as their take on social impact.
In this series, meet Tina Yau, Community Connections Intern at Foundation for Shared Impact.
Tell us about yourself? Which year are you in and what subject are you majoring in? What is one fun fact that people don’t know about you? What is the best thing about being you right now?
I am a year one HKU student and my curriculum is Bachelor of Finance in Asset Management and Private Banking. One fun fact about me that people don’t know is that I have never been to Japan. I think what’s best about me is that I have a packed schedule where I am independent and responsible to work on the things I targeted.
Tell us about your experience at Impact Lab? What are your roles and responsibilities?
I am a Community Connections intern. I am mainly responsible for reaching out to different Social Impact Partners and encouraging them to join our Program.
What is unique about the company that you work at?
FSI is unique as it helps Social Impact Partners to expand their business by connecting with corporate partners through the Community Connections Program, which I helped out during the internship. Basically, I am in charge of recruiting different Corporate Participants (CPs) and Social Impact Partners (SIPs) to join our Connection Sessions. CPs could potentially form partnerships with SIPs by volunteering their skills, based on their differentiated needs.
What are the major learnings that you gained from participating in Impact Lab? How has the experience helped your understanding of social impact?
Impact Lab certainly was a real-life work experience for me. It gave me an opportunity to communicate with Social Impact Partners, which helped me to learn more about their needs on daily operations, such as the need for technological skills or marketing skills, and the ways that we can help them. Also, I learned that most of the Social Impact Partners are seeking Board of Directors, therefore our Connection Sessions are a really good opportunity for them to connect with Corporate Partners and build up potential relationships to expand their business.
How has this experience benefited your personal growth? How will this experience benefit your future, in terms of your career and/or other endeavors?
I think this experience will definitely help my preparation for my future career. Also, from this internship, I learned the importance of having strong time management skills, as well as the best way to cope with stress and disappointment. During the internship, the schedule was really tight for recruiting SIPs and CPs, I had to make sure that there were a sufficient number of SIPs who would be joining us. Besides, I had to make sure the recruiting emails I sent out were engaging and accurate. Therefore, I had to be in control of my stress level and be motivated even though we might not receive active responses from SIPs sometimes.
How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected you?
Because of the pandemic, we can only join the activities virtually but not face-to-face. We might lose the chance of getting to know and be connected with people.
The pandemic has caused many unprecedented challenges for social impact organizations. From working at the company, how do you think the pandemic has affected the organization, its leaders, and its beneficiaries?
Take Community Connections’ Connection Sessions as an example, we have to ensure that all participants are engaged in the event, in which we offered breakout rooms and encouraged them to speak out during the event. I believe that was the most challenging part of all.
If there is one thing you can do for the world right now, what would it be?
I think I would recommend the world to use less plastic products.
Would you recommend the Impact Lab to other students? Why?
Yes. This curse allows me to learn a lot of things that I haven’t tried out before, such as real-life work experience and connecting with Social Impact Partners. Chatting with the SIPs (Social Impact Partners) gave me a comprehensive idea of what problems social impact organizations or social enterprises are facing, and how we could help them.
