Initial Impressions of Leading Tech Tinkers [Whole Year Commitment]

Learning outcomes relevant to this post are mainly 1 identifying my own strengths and develop areas for personal growth, and another being learning outcome 6, engaging with a global issue.

Tech Tinkers is a service that I participated in my IGCSE period from grade 9 and 10. It mainly engages in addressing the issue of reducing waste, specifically e-waste, and also closing the digital divide. How the service functions are that we receive donations of old technology from within our community, and if its broken do our best to repair it, and eventually we find suitable partners to donate this technology to. In the two years that I worked with them, I developed my repertoire on how to repair the old technology and in a sense resilience to the stubbornness of old technology.

This year I decided to run for a leadership position within this college service. Although I didn’t exactly feel bold enough to go for such a position before, this year we are strongly encouraged to experience a leadership role. The four different positions available to us(the grade 11 students) was mentoring, technology, communications and chair. Out of these options, I was most interested in the roles of being a communications officer or the technology head. In the end, I was delegated to be a technology head.

I think one of the first challenges with being a leader that I faced was being comfortable with standing in front of a group to present. In the first session, we did a presentation explaining the gist of the service to any new members and giving some simple directions. In the presentation, we took turns to say different points. Although I have always had my doubts with any form of public speaking, I felt that this occasion went without any significant struggles. Though there were occasional stutters and stops, I was able to express and communicate the idea across to the audience. I think one aspect of why it was successful has been the fact that in the past few years we have been doing many more presentations in front of classrooms etc. and from the practice, I have developed that ability to communicate in a face to face environment. What I’ve personally gained from this experience is an increased sense of confidence in myself as a leader, one aspect that makes a successful leader is being confident in oneself but also not to a fault.