[2014 GITC Participant] Seonghyun from Korea > Participants' Story Global IT Challenge

Greetings, my name is Seonghyun Kim and I am 28 years old, majoring in Social Welfare at Kunsan University. I have been diagnosed with a grade 2-degree disability and use crutches and an electric wheelchair. However, as soon as I graduated from university, I was able to find work using computers at a large company and am now employed as a social worker. While my job has required me to work bit far away from home, I am blessed to have my mother by my side.

I participated in GITC held at Busan in 2014, because I thought the competition could provide me with valuable experience and received encouragement from my school teacher. I remember joining a talent show on the first day where I played a clarinet, but thinking back, I recall making a few mistakes during my performance. After the talent show, there was a Vietnamese participant who was really good at singing, and as soon as they finished, I immediately approached him and told him that I wanted to become friends using a translation app. At that time, I believed that participating in a global competition would only happen once in my life, so I decided to make as many friends as possible. However, it was often difficult for me to communicate with friends from other countries, perhaps because I was physically uncomfortable interacting face-to-face. However, sitting in front of a computer and communicating came easily to me.

I had a very passive personality and was a shy, introverted student, regardless of my disability. As time went on, there were naturally more things I experienced and more things I wanted to do, but there always seem to be a big roadblock: 'disability'. Every time I faced this reality, I usually only wanted to find a place to hide. However, through my experiences during this competition, I was able to become a more positive, engaged and active person. Now that I think about it, this competition helped me realize, “What is a disability! You can too! Come on, try it!” Of course, this experience has helped me a great deal with my social relationships. When first meeting me, some colleagues at my company who did not have a disability wondered, “can this person do this job?” Whenever that happened I vowed that I'd show them it's possible! This competition was a moment that showed me that impossible does not exist.