Jennifer Yu Cheng has been working in education for more than a decade, beginning in 2009, when she co-founded Arch Education, which prepares students for higher education abroad. Her next major initiative came in 2017 with the debut of CTF Education Group, an integrated learning group focused on K-12 education and school management.

When Covid-19 hit, it sparked the idea for her latest venture. Yu Cheng saw the pandemic roll back so many gains that women had made in the workforce while also accelerating the rate of digital transformation. To build a talent pipeline, she launched the JYC Girls Impact Foundation (JYCGIF) in December 2020. Its key programme is 10,000 Girls4Girls Coding+, a train-the-trainer model that encourages girls to learn to code and then teach it in their communities.

Another goal is to give underserved girls opportunities to experience a leadership role and expose them to today’s inspiring leaders. JYCGIF has hosted talks at local schools with changemakers, from an AI professor to a female leader in finance. Delivering inspiration on a bigger scale, the inaugural JYCGIF FutureGen Leadership Summit took place on October 8, 2022, drawing more than 600 young girls from over 55 schools for a day of panel discussions along with digital and tech skill-building workshops.