YouthRocks Internship Fair Attracts Thousand of Undergrads to Tap Into the Startup Scene
Recently, YouthRocks kicked off with their online Internship Fair, inviting nearly 60 technology startups covering AI, AR/VR, e-commerce, blockchain, SaaS, and Martech industries to set up more than 300 internship vacancies; among them are NEXT BIG representatives jointly nominated by Taiwan’s startup community as trailblazers of innovations — KDAN, CoolBitX, KKday, Greenvines, 91APP, and iKala. Since the launch of the portal, the fair has already attracted more than one thousand local and international undergrads from across Taiwan to sign up.
This year, YouthRocks optimized the functions of the online platform to provide better user experiences. Students get to visit companies’ booths, learn about job vacancies, message human resource personnel about questions, and communicate with other students directly by touring with their own avatars. The platform will be in operation for a month, it offers a one-stop service where students only need to upload their resume once to book interview appointments with various companies, eliminating the tedious standard process and allowing companies to identify, target, and recruit the talents of their needs all at once in a short amount of time, greatly improving efficiency for both students and employers.
With more and more startups arising all across Taiwan and the overall innovation atmosphere reaching a peak, YouthRocks has been able to expand its influence and really play its role as the bridge between startups and undergrads. Simultaneously, now that Taiwanese startups are ready to expand into the international market, YouthRocks is fully committed to connecting outstanding foreign talents to startup opportunities, providing them with paths to stay in Taiwan upon graduation. On one hand, recruiting prominent international talents for Taiwan, and on the other, injecting momentum into startups through talents of diverse backgrounds.
Before the kick-off, YouthRocks went on a roadshow to National Taiwan University (NTU), National Central University (NCU), and Shih Chien University (USC) to expand its reach and introduce startup resources to students. The session at USC with the Office of International Affairs (OIA) and Excellent Long-Established University Consortium of Taiwan (ELECT) invited representatives from startups already exploring foreign markets and foreign founders who have started businesses in Taiwan for sharing. International students from Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, the United States, France, and more all participated. In the Q&A session, Nicole Young, Co-Founder of Group N°8 and CSO of CreatorDB gave her advice to young overseas talents looking to accumulate practical experience in Taiwan: “Be driven, be curious, be open to learning new things, and avoid staying in your comfort zone because to be an effective professional in your field you will need to have a 360 degree understanding of the industry and how different parts of the company connect with what you are doing.”
From the early preparatory stage to actual interaction with students during different events, YouthRocks observe that the students actually hold high curiosity and interest in Taiwan’s startup ecosystem, but lack and need more resources and channels for in-depth understanding. This is where YouthRocks stands — to allow students to get in touch with Taiwan’s startup ecosystem while they are still in school, to assist university students to pursue careers in startups, and bring new blood into startups.
