Each year, the Rotary Club of North Ryde runs a tour, in May, of local technology based companies for students from Country NSW. We have been running the programme for 13 years or so.
We work with Rotary clubs in West Wyalong, Forbes and Inverell to source suitable students from year 10 at their local high schools. We take up to 8 students each year. The students travel down to Sydney on the Sunday and are then hosted by Rotarians through until Friday morning when they return home.
Rotarians take the students on a series of visits to technology based companies such as Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Cisco, Facebook and Google and other major companies which use technology in their businesses such as Coles, Optus and Canon. They also see how technology is used within the Universities of UTS and Macquarie and visit the Sydney Observatory.
The idea is to provide the students with an insight into not only how technology is used in the workplace but what job opportunities there are available to them after school.
This year we had 4 students from schools at Ashford and Forbes who participated in the program from Sunday 26 May until Friday 31 May. Each student prepared a presentation about their experiences during the tour at Canon on Thursday afternoon. The students gave their presentations at a special farewell dinner provided by the Club at Riding for the Disabled, Marsfield that evening.
For more photos see photo album here.