Traralgon 15 year-old Kai Phillips went an extra step further with his year 10 work experience and flew to Kuala Lumpur where he shadowed his uncle, a board director of a multi-national fitness company.
With aspirations to one day part-own a video game business which he and his close friends have called Static Industries, Kai saw work experience with the fitness company as a way of giving him a base knowledge of how businesses are run at a higher level.
“If you look at the lessons that he would teach me, the main objective was to try and find lessons that I can take that (the company) uses and apply it to a business idea of mine,” Kai said.
“The best thing I probably took away from it was the constant question my uncle would ask me after everything I did; he would ask why everything was structured the way it was to try and get me to understand it and then be able to take the lesson away.”
While in Malaysia, Kai also went on a business trip with his uncle to Singapore to negotiate leasing deals and had a Mandarin lesson.
“They have a specific criteria they look at for every location, it came under convenience, and how they understood the culture and their idea of convenience,” Kai said.
“(The Mandarin lesson was) very good, I picked it up very quickly, I want to progress my idea across the world to be a well-known name and the exposure for me to languages came from an idea by my uncle.
“In addition to his regular secondary school studies, Kai is taking part in a traineeship at Wonder World Games in Morwell, helping him obtain a Certificate III in Multimedia which he hopes will kickstart his gaming business ventures.
