Visiting whiz-kids help charities

By SIMON HENDERY

One day whiz-kid Ann Conley was sitting maths and computer exams at Arizona State University.

The next she was in Auckland at a home for stray teenagers, installing a computer she had helped to buy.

Miss Conley's goodwill mission is part of a whistle-stop New Zealand tour by some of the world's brightest technology students.

About 50 members of an Arizona-based leadership development programme are spending their week-long spring break at a five-day leaders symposium on Waiheke Island.

Speakers at the symposium will include New Zealand expatriate and Saatchi & Saatchi global head Kevin Roberts.

Within hours of stepping off the plane on Saturday, the group had installed computers at eight non-profit organisations in Auckland and Hamilton.

While their travel is paid for by United States corporate sponsors, each student pitched in at least $US100 ($238) towards the cost of the computers and spent several hours before they left the US developing websites and databases for the charity groups.

Richard Filley, director of the International Corporate Leaders Program, said the project aimed to produce the next generation of company presidents, and several graduates were already millionaires.

Through its management school, Waikato University is one of four universities involved in the programme.

Large US companies typically spent $US66,000 ($157,000) over two years funding a student through the programme, in return for a part-time work commitment and the likelihood they would take up a full-time job once they graduated.

"If they [companies] wait until graduation day to hire an exceptional tech student, it becomes a flat-out bidding war," Mr Filley said.

Encouraging involvement in community service projects was a large part of the programme.

Jenny Liddell, manager of the Te Whare Rangimarie home on the North Shore, where Miss Conley and others had installed a computer, said that the technology would help keep the teenagers she looks after off the streets.

At a sponsored dinner for the students on Saturday, Prime Minister Helen Clark said it was fitting their visit coincided with National Volunteer Week. The voluntary work done by 1 million New Zealanders each year had been valued at $1.3 billion.