[Applause]
hi everyone thank you for being here
thanks and thanks for that nice
introduction so when I was 14 years old
I founded a youth-led NGO dedicated to
education inequalities and youth
empowerment through leadership if you
look at the white piece of paper over
here with my handwriting that was
actually my very first brainstorm when I
was trying to figure out what I wanted
the organization to be and where I
wanted it to go so I thought today I
would just talk about more of what more
more of what influenced me to start this
organization and the challenges I faced
in running it and and how I overcame it
what started as a ragtag team of seven
students from one school operating one
program has now grown to an NGO with
successfully registered NGO with over a
hundred and eleven volunteers operating
eight different educational programs and
youth empowerment events so we’ve also
expanded to other countries including
Singapore and South Korea so those two
pictures are from that from that and so
I just wanted to now talk about what
influenced me to do this because it’s
you won’t find a lot of young teenagers
going out in the world to do something
so I just wanted to talk a bit about my
parents growing up I had a very cushy
life I lived a very comfortable life
anything I needed I could get anything I
wanted I could get I had good education
but I always knew outside of my life
there were definitely people who were
facing even more hardships and facing
those and people who face those
hardships including my parents both of
them came from very humble backgrounds
they worked hard they pushed through the
barriers they persevered and they became
very successful and now they’re senior
executives at
major companies in Hong Kong my dad grew
up in Hong Kong’s notorious public
housing he had nine siblings all living
in a tiny 400 square foot apartment his
dad was a security guard his mother was
a stay-at-home stay-at-home mom
luckily education back then and and now
actually more education back then in
Hong Kong was free and my dad enjoyed
his education he finished primary school
he finished secondary school and he
loved learning he always wanted to learn
more at the end of secondary school he
wanted to be an engineer but the only
thing was his parents could not afford
it because his parents could not afford
University my dad was was heartbroken
because he really wanted to pursue a
life where he could give back to the
community through engineering and
infrastructure so my dad worked hard he
worked in factories he worked in
construction sites he worked until the
age of 23 when everybody in his
graduating class were coming back from
university he was going to university
because at the age of 23 he managed to
just earn enough money to send himself
to one year at the University of
Sunderland in the UK he worked night
jobs when he went to the UK and through
by doing so he was able to pay for his
college tuition and now he is a very
successful leader of a major engineering
company in Hong Kong on my mother’s side
she also grew up in a very humble
commute back round although it wasn’t it
wasn’t that bad she still faced a lot of
difficulties my grandmother worked for
different jobs and one full-time you
have three part-time and my mother
basically didn’t have any time with her
she had to manage her own life she had
to lead her own life and make sure that
she did everything and got everything
done as a result she got good grades and
my grandmother because of all the jobs
that she was doing was able to send all
her children all her to university so
now again my mum is a is a very
successful executive at a major company
in Hong Kong so this influenced me in
that showed me education really made a
difference education is a key for
enabling different opportunities in the
future and so that sort of influenced
why I started the organization but the
catalysts of why I started the
organization was when I was at a summer
course a speaker came into the summer
course and talked about how he was at
night at the age of nine the founder of
an environmental NGO that had planted
trees all across the globe in South
Korea in Singapore in Los Angeles and
now it’s there everywhere and that
really inspired me it showed me that
really even if you’re young you can
still do something so I started support
and it hasn’t been an easy process their
numerous straight numerous things like
you know the legal process and all of
that
finding a board of directors which you
can see down here but I I wanted to talk
more about the challenges I faced with
leadership because when you’re 14 or 15
there’s no way you’ll know how to really
lead a team of students and if you ask
anybody I know or anybody who works with
me they’ll tell you that I am really
hard-headed and when I said when I set
my head on something I really want to
get it done and I would move everything
I’ll move heaven and earth to just get
that done but although this sounds very
good and like very very important to
have this sort of hardheadedness as a
leader my senior team at in October of
2015 came to me and told me Joseph if
you don’t stop if you don’t listen to us
we will quit in my heart headedness
and in my sort of vision I kept thinking
of what the organization should be and
how to really scale that up to be
something of that level and I in in that
since I completely disregarded my team
I didn’t hear their opinions I didn’t
really care about their opinions and I
just really cared about where I wanted
the organization to be and regardless of
their input it was gonna happen
but when my senior team came to me and
told me that I was shocked mainly
because I thought they were ok with it
but I was shocked because it taught me a
lesson as a leader you you’re not I to
be honest I think the leader that the
title leader is a really overused title
because now when I look at my leadership
I don’t see myself as a leader of the
organization or the manager of the
organization or whatever I see myself as
a facilitator I figured out that my team
had such great ideas they had ideas
popping out everywhere and they wanted
to do things but because of my heart
headedness they weren’t able to do that
so I scaled back I took a back seat I
tried to listen I looked at all of their
their their ideas and I heared them out
and it wasn’t me making the decision in
the end it was a vote so we basically
changed the structure of how decisions
are made but then I was no longer that I
no longer saw myself as that visionary
or leader of the organization who had to
have some great vision of the future and
where the organization should be in 10
years
I saw myself as a facilitator seeing
from my senior team what they thought
the organization should be in 10 years
the idea here here is that we as young
people have many different ideas and we
should be embracing them we should be
talking to each other about them we
should be discussing how we can create
the best possible solution for different
issues that Hong Kong and other issues
that other communities face when there
is a positive collision of ideas there
is
there’s for certain a positive outcome
and that is what I learned in my
leadership in support so I I think the
basic premise is that young people have
different perspectives and that is okay
that doesn’t mean that just because
another person on my team disagrees with
me that doesn’t mean it’s bad because
that would result in television if I
just power down what I wanted to do I
rather should embrace what they have in
their head and create something out of
that and so just on an ending note I
want to say Hong Kong is facing a lot of
different issues right now and we as
young people there and we as young
people there’s so many different
factions and young people there are some
people who support different initiatives
some people who support the government
there are many different things within
young people itself but what I want to
say here is that if all of us young
people come together with different
ideas different perspectives and and
different solutions there is going to be
a positive outcome so on just on a very
ending last note young people have to
take action don’t just stand there if
you have something you want to do don’t
just sit down wait for somebody else to
do it do it yourself you should take
action and do something thank you
[Applause]
hi everyone thank you for being here
thanks and thanks for that nice
introduction so when I was 14 years old
I founded a youth-led NGO dedicated to
education inequalities and youth
empowerment through leadership if you
look at the white piece of paper over
here with my handwriting that was
actually my very first brainstorm when I
was trying to figure out what I wanted
the organization to be and where I
wanted it to go so I thought today I
would just talk about more of what more
more of what influenced me to start this
organization and the challenges I faced
in running it and and how I overcame it
what started as a ragtag team of seven
students from one school operating one
program has now grown to an NGO with
successfully registered NGO with over a
hundred and eleven volunteers operating
eight different educational programs and
youth empowerment events so we’ve also
expanded to other countries including
Singapore and South Korea so those two
pictures are from that from that and so
I just wanted to now talk about what
influenced me to do this because it’s
you won’t find a lot of young teenagers
going out in the world to do something
so I just wanted to talk a bit about my
parents growing up I had a very cushy
life I lived a very comfortable life
anything I needed I could get anything I
wanted I could get I had good education
but I always knew outside of my life
there were definitely people who were
facing even more hardships and facing
those and people who face those
hardships including my parents both of
them came from very humble backgrounds
they worked hard they pushed through the
barriers they persevered and they became
very successful and now they’re senior
executives at
major companies in Hong Kong my dad grew
up in Hong Kong’s notorious public
housing he had nine siblings all living
in a tiny 400 square foot apartment his
dad was a security guard his mother was
a stay-at-home stay-at-home mom
luckily education back then and and now
actually more education back then in
Hong Kong was free and my dad enjoyed
his education he finished primary school
he finished secondary school and he
loved learning he always wanted to learn
more at the end of secondary school he
wanted to be an engineer but the only
thing was his parents could not afford
it because his parents could not afford
University my dad was was heartbroken
because he really wanted to pursue a
life where he could give back to the
community through engineering and
infrastructure so my dad worked hard he
worked in factories he worked in
construction sites he worked until the
age of 23 when everybody in his
graduating class were coming back from
university he was going to university
because at the age of 23 he managed to
just earn enough money to send himself
to one year at the University of
Sunderland in the UK he worked night
jobs when he went to the UK and through
by doing so he was able to pay for his
college tuition and now he is a very
successful leader of a major engineering
company in Hong Kong on my mother’s side
she also grew up in a very humble
commute back round although it wasn’t it
wasn’t that bad she still faced a lot of
difficulties my grandmother worked for
different jobs and one full-time you
have three part-time and my mother
basically didn’t have any time with her
she had to manage her own life she had
to lead her own life and make sure that
she did everything and got everything
done as a result she got good grades and
my grandmother because of all the jobs
that she was doing was able to send all
her children all her to university so
now again my mum is a is a very
successful executive at a major company
in Hong Kong so this influenced me in
that showed me education really made a
difference education is a key for
enabling different opportunities in the
future and so that sort of influenced
why I started the organization but the
catalysts of why I started the
organization was when I was at a summer
course a speaker came into the summer
course and talked about how he was at
night at the age of nine the founder of
an environmental NGO that had planted
trees all across the globe in South
Korea in Singapore in Los Angeles and
now it’s there everywhere and that
really inspired me it showed me that
really even if you’re young you can
still do something so I started support
and it hasn’t been an easy process their
numerous straight numerous things like
you know the legal process and all of
that
finding a board of directors which you
can see down here but I I wanted to talk
more about the challenges I faced with
leadership because when you’re 14 or 15
there’s no way you’ll know how to really
lead a team of students and if you ask
anybody I know or anybody who works with
me they’ll tell you that I am really
hard-headed and when I said when I set
my head on something I really want to
get it done and I would move everything
I’ll move heaven and earth to just get
that done but although this sounds very
good and like very very important to
have this sort of hardheadedness as a
leader my senior team at in October of
2015 came to me and told me Joseph if
you don’t stop if you don’t listen to us
we will quit in my heart headedness
and in my sort of vision I kept thinking
of what the organization should be and
how to really scale that up to be
something of that level and I in in that
since I completely disregarded my team
I didn’t hear their opinions I didn’t
really care about their opinions and I
just really cared about where I wanted
the organization to be and regardless of
their input it was gonna happen
but when my senior team came to me and
told me that I was shocked mainly
because I thought they were ok with it
but I was shocked because it taught me a
lesson as a leader you you’re not I to
be honest I think the leader that the
title leader is a really overused title
because now when I look at my leadership
I don’t see myself as a leader of the
organization or the manager of the
organization or whatever I see myself as
a facilitator I figured out that my team
had such great ideas they had ideas
popping out everywhere and they wanted
to do things but because of my heart
headedness they weren’t able to do that
so I scaled back I took a back seat I
tried to listen I looked at all of their
their their ideas and I heared them out
and it wasn’t me making the decision in
the end it was a vote so we basically
changed the structure of how decisions
are made but then I was no longer that I
no longer saw myself as that visionary
or leader of the organization who had to
have some great vision of the future and
where the organization should be in 10
years
I saw myself as a facilitator seeing
from my senior team what they thought
the organization should be in 10 years
the idea here here is that we as young
people have many different ideas and we
should be embracing them we should be
talking to each other about them we
should be discussing how we can create
the best possible solution for different
issues that Hong Kong and other issues
that other communities face when there
is a positive collision of ideas there
is
there’s for certain a positive outcome
and that is what I learned in my
leadership in support so I I think the
basic premise is that young people have
different perspectives and that is okay
that doesn’t mean that just because
another person on my team disagrees with
me that doesn’t mean it’s bad because
that would result in television if I
just power down what I wanted to do I
rather should embrace what they have in
their head and create something out of
that and so just on an ending note I
want to say Hong Kong is facing a lot of
different issues right now and we as
young people there and we as young
people there’s so many different
factions and young people there are some
people who support different initiatives
some people who support the government
there are many different things within
young people itself but what I want to
say here is that if all of us young
people come together with different
ideas different perspectives and and
different solutions there is going to be
a positive outcome so on just on a very
ending last note young people have to
take action don’t just stand there if
you have something you want to do don’t
just sit down wait for somebody else to
do it do it yourself you should take
action and do something thank you
[Applause]
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