25 Jun Volunteer Alumni in Profile: Jane Wu

What was your involvement with Youth Central?

My introduction to Youth Central was through the Youth Volunteer Corps (YVC) program. As I recall, I was helping out at a race at Glenbow Park, where I showed up as a shy 13 year old, and went home with a new friend and about 10 footlong subs that were race leftovers. From thereon in, I got involved with many more YVC projects, the Mayor’s Youth Council and the Calgary Youth Foundation (CYF), and eventually CYF helped fund my own initiative.

What did you learn from being a part of Youth Central?

I learned how to be grateful, how to be generous and most importantly, how to be empathetic. Youth Central helped intersect my path with people from different corners of life that I otherwise would never had had the chance to meet. It taught me that at the core, we are all the same – people are just people.  We have similar hopes, fears, and the need for community.

Favorite experience?

I really, really enjoyed my experience working at CYF. Ros was a mentor and friend, and the committee was small but had a strong grasp of the unique opportunity we had to allocate capital in the Calgary youth community. I remember how autonomous those meetings were for us, and how much fun we had with organizing numerous events, interviewing candidates and debating over the best uses of our budget. I even had a chance to go to Edmonton with Ros and another member of the CYF committee to present our work at a national philanthropy conference. At the time, it felt like being a rockstar representing CYF and Calgary.

Oh and also, for some reason the memory of eating Pizza 73 BBQ Chicken pizza at MYC meetings sticks in my mind.

What have you been up to since Youth Central?

Oh, still running lots of experiments to figure out what I want to do with my life. I moved to Ontario to attend university, then moved to Toronto to try my hand at founding an education technology startup, and now I live in Boston where I work at a venture capital firm that invests in startups.

Would you be willing to have youth from Youth Central who are interested in your field of study contact you if they had more questions about your school, your work, etc…?

Sure thing! I studied for a B.Comm and a B.A. (Environmental Studies) at Queen’s University.

Future goals?

Oh boy!  I have a growing, evolving list. For now, I’d like to go back to school to study the economics of innovation, and I’d like to make it back in Calgary for a Stampede at some point soon –it’s been over six years since my last one :(.