Driven by a passion for business and entrepreneurship, Diamond Bar High School sophomores Michael Cheng, Jackson Lennon and Tony Xu have started their own non-profit organization called Student Collaboration.

“Ever since middle school, we wanted to create a company together that helps the society in some way,” Cheng said. “In 10th grade, we saw the opportunity and we took it.”

After much consideration, the trio agreed to focus the non-proft organization on connecting students to internships and developing clubs.

“There was some difficulties in developing the idea for our business,” Cheng said. “At first, we wanted to do a financial consulting company for poor families, and over time that changed.”

Through this organization, students in the organization can be  matched to internships that meet their personal interests and preferences. According to Xu, STUcollab forms a better understanding of which internships would be suitable for the applicant after analyzing the student’s transcripts and resumes free of charge.

“The internships we provide—you can’t find them online,” Lennon said. “There are so many requirements to pass, and you have to wait a long time; what we do is bypass that so it’s much easier.”

STUcollab gets ahold of these internships thorough personal outreach, contacting various businesses to see if the company would be interested in working with them.

So far, STUcollab has managed to aid sophomore Mark Tan, who was matched into the summer internship program at Morgan Stanley, and junior Ted Yarmoski, who was matched into the summer internship program at KPMG, the accounting firm. Both students are interested in the business field and were matched up to companies STUcollab felt suited them best.  

STUcollab is currently attempting to get in contact with other school districts to help their schools develop clubs of their own.  

“There are multiple schools where students don’t have the same resources as students here in DBHS, which is why we want to reach out to them,” Cheng said. “[Thorough STUcollab] they can have an equal opportunity in education.”

Although STUcollab only started this year, the three co-founders hope to make their organization reach an international level.

“[We plan to expand] each of these sectors with students whow are interested with becoming part of our team, sharing our vision and doing what we do,” Cheng said. “That’s why we have the potential to expand our company beyond the L.A. level.”