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 Tam Ka Ki Krystal, Communications and Marketing 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? 
Hi, this is Krystal. I am currently studying at The University of Hong Kong, and my curriculum is the Bachelor of Economics and Finance (BEcon & Fin). One fun fact that few people know about me is that my favorite ice cream flavor is mint chocolate! I believe what’s best about being me at this moment is that I’m living a happy life at the University of Hong Kong and have a clear goal in my career prospect.
Tell us about your experience at Impact Lab? What are your roles and responsibilities?
My role as a communications and marketing intern is to generate social media and website content and content marketing. This experience has taught me the importance of communication. It is very important to communicate well with your teammate and supervisor in order to ensure the quality of our work. Also, I learned more about different tools and applications that will be useful for my career in the future. It is my first time using applications such as Facebook Business Suite, Hootsuite, and Airtable for scheduling and updating social media content. I think they are really useful especially as I am working with another student in a team, and these tools facilitate the communication very well between my partner, supervisor, and me.
What is unique about the company that you work at?
Foundation for Shared Impact (FSI) is unique in its way where it nurtures the next generation of social impact leaders. For myself, I feel that this internship has helped me grow into a more confident person. When I just started the internship three months ago, I was very hesitant about my ideas and abilities, I did not speak up much during the team’s weekly meetings. After a while, I was more willing to take the leading role during the meetings, and I gained more confidence in speaking about my initiatives.
What are the major learnings that you gained from participating in Impact Lab? How has the experience helped your understanding of social impact?
First, I learned that I should take constructive criticism well. During this internship, I made a few mistakes and received student evaluations from my supervisor on my work performance. I believe it is for my own good and individual growth and it will improve the quality of my work onwards. I will always remind myself of what I should bear in mind and do in order to improve my work performance.
Secondly, I learned adaptability skills. I believe that it is essential to learning leadership skills, as a leader needs to be able to adapt to changing situations and lead regardless. I learned how to be flexible constantly under different responsibilities and requirements. For example, when I worked for a period of time in a specific week already, there were new different tasks that needed to be accomplished. At the same time, I need to be confident but open to improvement and focus on improving my work. Accepting challenges is a necessary step towards better performance. And I believe it is useful in my future careers.
How has this experience benefited your personal growth? How will this experience benefit your future, in terms of your career and/or other endeavors?
The internship helped me gain a better perspective on the appropriate way of behaving as a responsible employee, and a sense of how to work effectively. It is my first exposure to a real-life work setting. The marketing skills that I have learned also taught me the importance of placing effort in content generation. At the same time, I should also focus more on interaction with our subscribers in the content, and promote the work to a larger audience. It is important to increase people’s awareness toward our company.
How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected you?
Under the pandemic, a lot of activities were canceled and it is more difficult to communicate with others online, compared to face-to-face interactions.
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?
The pandemic has shown how important the work that FSI’s partner companies do, and at the same time, made it difficult for the partner companies to serve the people in need, as they were not able to conduct fundraising activities due to social distancing measures. For much of 2020, FSI had to work really hard to help the partner companies fundraise.
If there is one thing you can do for the world right now, what would it be?
I would find ways to help the world come out of COVID-19 stronger. In terms of individuals, my responsibility would be to maintain social distance from others, as what a citizen should do. In terms of community, I would remind people around me to always remember the safety procedures. I would also repost some of the COVID-19 social media posts to highlight the updates on the pandemic. It is also important to make sure we are properly disposing of the used masks to maintain good hygiene.
Would you recommend the Impact Lab to other students? Why?
Yes, definitely! Impact Lab gave me a taste of working in reality and it is a good experience to learn different things.
