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Envisioning global leadership through business

Franco Ng comes into the News office poised, with a firm handshake and confidence that belies his age. The 17-year-old Richmond secondary student speaks like a seasoned businessman.

Franco Ng comes into the News office poised, with a firm handshake and confidence that belies his age.

The 17-year-old Richmond secondary student speaks like a seasoned businessman.

The young aspiring entrepreneur recently returned from his third Global Vision Junior Team Canada conference. Global Vision is a national nonprofit organization, which engages youth between the ages of 16 to 25, to become world leaders through education.

It does that by providing opportunities for aspiring youth to meet international leaders in both private enterprise and government.

Every year, 30 representatives are selected through a series of conferences for an opportunity to represent Canada on an international mission, said Franco, who enters Grade 12 this fall.

His inaugural conference was earlier this year in Calgary. There were more than 1,000 bright young minds taking part in a series of conferences.

His next symposium was in Ottawa, where the number of youth accepted dwindled down to 100.

Within these conferences, I learned to brand myself, network, and cooperate with other youth across Canada. From there, 30 of us were accepted to go to Panama and Columbia.

In Panama and Columbia, he was given access to what Global Vision dubbed the golden rolodex of names and contact information from top leaders from around the globe.

During our stay, our team strived hard to promote Canadian businesses, industries and culture, said the former cadet. We also worked tirelessly to understand the industries and culture of Panama and Columbia.

Along with the other delegates, Franco spent time meeting diplomats and government officials. However, most of the members met independently with industry representatives in their field of interest.

Franco will now use the knowledge gleaned on these trips to help promote Global Vision to local youth and other students. He plans to apply to the University of B.C. in hopes of getting accepted in the commerce program. My dad is an entrepreneur and thats my dream, to own my own company.

Part of his being accepted on the South American trip was for Franco to secure a sponsor to cover the $5,500 price tag needed for his everyday expenditures and airfare.

That exercise of finding a sponsor was for the committee to see how skillful we were, said Franco. I had to sell myself and Global Vision.

That combination of savvy business sense and acumen was enough to impress Richmond businessman Paul Tam to sponsor Francos full trip.

For someone so young, I was impressed with his intellect and how presentable he was when he came into my office, said Tam. Franco is more mature than some of the university students Ive met and he knows what he wants to do.

Tam has since decided he wants to get involved in mentoring through Global Vision on a local level. Locally, I encourage all businessmen to help guide and mentor our youth because really they are our future leaders.

For more information about Global Vision, visit www.globalvision.ca.