Auckland’s Avondale College and Manurewa High School may seem a world away from the fabled Silicon Valley, but for twelve IT-savvy students the dream of visiting the world epicenter of technology became a reality with a six day trip spent touring tech giants, meeting with startups, and stopping by at Kiwi Landing Pad.
The students visited Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Xero, Zendesk, Renaissance Leadership, IDEO, Stanford, and met many influential entrepreneurs including Wildfire’s Victoria Ransom, and Pertino Network’s Craig Elliot, during their early July trip.
Andrew Patterson, CIO Summit 2014 MC, and RadioLIVE business correspondent founded the program to help high school students become more involved with the technology industry, particularly high achieving students from lower decile schools.
During their visit to KLP the students heard from entreprenur Oliver Johnson, Booktrack’s Jason Hovey, and KLP’s Shannon Brown, but it was most inspiring to hear the students ambitions and ideas for technology startups.
Patricia Salcedo, a student from Avondale College, is currently working on a user-friendly, home budgeting program as an alternative to banks and complicated budgeting programs.
“Many people do not follow a budget, which leads to overspending or not having enough emergency money. The program is simple to use, can be used in the privacy of the user’s homes, and shows how much people have spent or saved.”
For Lynna Son a student from Manurewa High School, the trip has given her a clear path to follow, and she is now striving towards becoming a product designer or web designer.
“Every place I visited was beyond words, but the highlight for me was visiting Kiwi Landing Pad, Xero and Google. Seeing New Zealanders collaborating with each other and making their dreams come true with their hard work was truly an inspiration to see.”
Shweta Sharma from Manurewa High School is now embracing the Silicon Valley tagline ‘If you fail, fail fast and move onto something else’, giving her the confidence to kickstart her career.
“Kiwi Landing Pad in particular made me realize that I have a chance to make it into San Francisco, into Silicon Valley. Now the goal for all twelve of us is to one day be back at Kiwi Landing Pad and gain the support to create the next big thing” added Patricia.
Sponsors for the program included Xero, Vend, ATEED, Vodafone, Jade, Fronde, Westpac, Callaghan Innovation, Mainfreight, Deloitte, Milford Asset Management, Just Water, Mai, Power by Proxi, Montoux, Endeavour Capital, Wiki Capital and David Levene Foundation.
For more information visit SVExperience2014.