HP’s “Shadow Day” helps ORT students eye a brighter future

Hewlett Packard opened the doors of its Moscow office to a group of ORT students recently to help them gain insight into the world of work.

Teenagers from Moscow ORT Technology School were joined by deaf students at the K.A. Michaelian Boarding School, which is supported by the St James’s Place Foundation through British ORT’s Bridging the Digital Divide project.

Accompanied by various senior figures within the company, they spent six hours learning about the company’s structure, getting a feel for the demands of a working day and tips on career prospects.

One of the students, Antonina Mukhina, said HP staff shared a lot of information which she would find useful in planning a career now that she’s graduating from school.

"It was a truly wonderful experience to ‘feel’ a major international company from the inside. The staff were really positive and made us feel very welcome," Antonina said.

ORT Russia National Director Sergey Gorinskiy said the type of cooperation between ORT and HP was new to Russia.

“It’s not the usual limited relationship of funder and beneficiary,” Dr Gorinskiy said. “Rather, it’s a partnership of people dedicated to the shared ideal of providing access to modern technologies to the widest possible range of children and adults."

Natalia Semenova, Administrative & Program Specialist at HP Russia, added: "ORT is our long-term partner; we collaborate at the international level in various fields, such as the HP LIFE program. We hope that the Shadow Day for high school students will become a regular event and raise our cooperation to a new level. I'm very glad that the children were pleased by it."