Remember this name

By Shane Scanlan

Here’s a name to look out for: Jenny Huynh.

Docklands News ran into Jenny at a recent Docklands business networking event, which is not so surprising in itself.

But, while her peers were content to stay home and watch TV (or whatever girls her age generally do), the Year 11 Northcote High School student rode her bike from her home in Preston to Docklands to learn entrepreneurship.

The Hatch Quarter networking event at Peppers Hotel on May 11 was the seventh business networking event the 16-year-old had attended in the previous fortnight. The next day, she was attending another. And there’s plenty more to come.

Her activities have already landed her a paying job with an online start-up geared towards helping international students relocate. And she’s off to Queensland for a two-day global retailing convention – fares and accommodation courtesy of someone she met at a recent networking event.

Jenny has taken the view that she will finish school but, really, she has no time to lose before following her dream of establishing a business in the wellbeing/fitness area.

She also aware of the need to balance her passion with the other aspects of her life and says her parents are beginning to appreciate her position.

She explained that her parents were unskilled factory workers with poor English. Her father fled Vietnam on a boat when he was 17, and spent time in a Malaysian refugee camp before settling in Australia. His marriage to her mother was arranged by their parents.

She’s well aware of her parents’ struggle and the racism they have encountered along the way. “I just want to make them proud,” she said.

She also said her school year co-ordinator and careers teacher were also coming to terms with her decision to immerse herself in the world of business.

Jenny says she can’t understand why people are making such a fuss about her young age.

“People are amazed,” she said. “But I can’t see what the big deal is. I’ve had this ambition since I was a little girl.”

As you can read in her account of the Hatch Quarter evening (see below), she speaks of the adrenaline rush when meeting and learning from business people.

She physically glows with freshness and energy. And it’s infectious. One can only wonder where this passion and drive will take her.

“If there’s a business event on somewhere in the city, you’ll probably find me there,” she said.