For Immediate Release

IT Summer Camp 2007
"My Expectations for the Beijing Olympics"

Being the one of HKCS's biggest achievements over the past few years and now in its seventh year, the IT Summer Camp aims to promote future careers in the IT industry for talented youths, by giving them early opportunities to create personal networks of friends and contacts both in Hong Kong and in Mainland China. The event provides an ideal platform for reaching this goal each year by sponsoring a number of students selected in Hong Kong to participate in the event. The key sponsor for the 2007 event is PCCW who have been an ongoing sponsor of the program.

This year's IT Summer Camp will be held in Shanghai from the 18th - 22nd of August. It has been decided that this year's theme will be "My Expectations for the Beijing Olympics". The Beijing Olympics 2008 is of course one of the most important events scheduled for China in 2008 with vast sums of money being invested to ensure a successful event.

Due to the great value of a place on the IT Summer Camp roster, applicants must face a challenging selection process before being invited to attend the event. The initial step in the selection process was the setting up of a website, inviting potential candidates to apply for places on the trip. The website also facilitated communication between the students and allowed for some pre-selection training to be conducted.

In 2007 a total of one hundred and fifty applicants were examined carefully before a selection of eighty candidates advanced to the interview stage.

The interviews (the last step in the selection process) were held on Saturday May 26th 2007. The eighty applicants who were selected to be interviewed were separated into eight groups of ten people. Then, in front of a panel of seven judges they were asked questions and scored on their responses.

The single most important selection criterion was the applicant’s pro-activity during the group interview, the key criteria included were oral presentation skills as they will also play an important part in the trip. The pro-activity was followed by question and answer session which indicate the second most important criteria. Other selection criterion included oath reciting, self-recommendation, self introduction and other skills such as music and sports were equally weighted.

Despite the strenuousness of the selection process, many of the candidates showed great potential for future careers in the industry. The twenty students were selected to participate in the trip are as follows:

The Society would also like to express its appreciation to the judges and students for their enthusiastic commitment and hard work at the selection process of the IT Summer Camp 2007.