I'm one of those people with loads of ideas stewing at the back of my head. They come and go (out of fashion) but one idea stuck around for more than five years. It's an edtech for children, so by the end of last year, I decided that maybe I should take the plunge. Plus I was getting bored of freelancing for corporations. First step is to find out whether I actually like to work with children - because I think that's important even though it's edtech - and whether the assumptions I made were sensible enough. My dream is to make reading (English) as universal and enjoyable as possible, particularly for disadvantaged children.

So off I went to South East Asia. I volunteered at a semi-Montessori school for poor and refugee kids for three months. To talk about the experience will take much more than a single post, but let me just say that without it, I would still be feeling that I'm so clever of thinking about this idea when I was actually faffing about. The reality of poverty and hardship came down like a ton of bricks. I saw clearly the barriers that the children had, for just being born in the wrong place at the wrong time. And the usefulness of books and the Internet stuck out like ... they're essential, they're the only fair chance these kids can ever get. (One thing I also learnt is that mobile phones are practically universal, poor or not.)

So that made the idea all the more urgent. And another thing that I never expected to pick up was that I gained a lot more confidence - I'm the shy type who would shake and get sick just thinking about presenting in front of my team - but in those classrooms, man, it's merciless, and plus you love those kids and have the ultimate responsibility to manage them ...

I wouldn't say that this fully prepared me for the CEO job but it's definitely a strong stepping stone for me :) And those memories really stay with you forever. So if anyone's thinking about volunteering - because this feeling doesn't occur but in specific times - I highly recommend you to go for it. It will at the very least teach you how to give without expecting anything back in return.