Engineer, Creative, Hackathon Athlete
Sydney, Australia
About
Iām a creative technologist with a strong product sense.
Currently, my interests lie in designing augmented forms of information in education, the travel space, and healthcare.
I constantly get ideas from identifying needs around me, and engineer systems of intersecting technology to answer at scale.
My recent projects are towards applications of Generative AI, Augmented Reality, and Computer Vision.
Some of my ideas are good, unfeasible at current behavioural or technology states, or just weird. My top 4 ideas have sound economic and user justification, and I am exploring one of them further. š Always open to chat and see if we have a skill fit!
My academic foundation empowers me ā as a 4th year Electrical Engineering (B.Sci with Honours) student at the University of Western Australia with a B.Com in Finance.
In industry, I've delved into instrumentation & control engineering, medical device entrepreneurship, and business intelligence. More uniquely, I had a great experience from undergoing Singapore's military service as a 2nd Lieutenant.
Currently, I'm wrapping up my computer vision thesis which helps autonomous vehicles understand drivable spaces more ethically.
Outside, I am an avid 31-time hackathoner with wins in 22, and have side-projects in pro-bono front-end development and consulting. I also enjoy learning dance choreographies and recording song covers of my terrible singing.
Growing up with the first half of my life in Singapore and latter half in Australia ā I appreciate and integrate well with Western and Asian cultures.
T-shaped technical person with non-technical skills.
Check out my LinkedIn for a full outline of my professional experiences and accomplishments.
Here are some that I particularly treasure.
My first hackathon. Applied what I learnt from Stanford's Coursera Machine Learning course.
Hackathons opened my world with cool problems outside my discipline and interesting people to work with.
I also use hackathons as a feedback system. Each time, learning to improve a technical skill, to give a pitch better, or even how to better work with others.
Over two consecutive weekends in Feb 2021. I competed in TreeHacks (Stanford University's intercollegiate annual hackathon), and SD Hacks (San Diego, Califonia's largest hackathon).
I found success in Australian and Singaporean hackathons, but I often wondered how did I measure up in the US? When hackers do as many if not more hackathons as me, and everyone has a CS degree.
Joining teams of strangers once again for both, I was able to contribute both on a technical and collaborative level. Once could be a fluke, but twice told me I could really make a positive impact in a team to problem solve, ideate and develop solutions rapidly. More than just individual contribution, I could bring the team together and magnify their impact through project management, facilitation and encouraging their drive.
For TreeHacks, out of 224 submissions and with over 1000 of the best student hackers. Our team of 4 strangers won one of the 5 top prizes, and a sponsor prize:
Most Impactful Hack Prize: The project with the greatest potential social impact. Overall, our team won a $500 drone each and $300 USD in Ethereum to split.
For SD Hacks, out of 80+ submissions and with 500+ hackers. Our team of 4 (2 strangers, someone from my TreeHacks team, and me), won the grand prize for the "Sustainability" track. The next prize above is the "Best Overall Hack". In addition, we won 3 sponsor prizes. Our solution was also the judges' favourite, earning the most overall points from scoring.
This was one of my favourite hackathons. I managed to convinced my team of web developers to take a risk and attempt this project despite all of us having no Unity/VR/Oculus experience previously. There were also two separate occasions where it was clutch (finding an adapter, finding a workaround)
More info on my exact contribution here
A 6 months MedTech entrepreneurship program with a multidisciplinary team of doctors, researchers, clinicians, business people, and engineer (me).
Here I am with an anesthesiologist who facilitated me at Fiona Stanley Hospital. I donned scrubs and observed operations in theatre ā trying to identify unmet clinical needs. Seeing a live leg amputation really made me appreciate how far medical science has come. Additionally, I pushed my limit that semester ā doing 1.5 times the normal study load. Proud that I managed to maintain a 92% average mark in university.
Despite interrupting my studies for 2 years 4 months, I found military service a great experience. I applied myself and used the stressors in an army environment to change my character for the better. While I wasn't in many leadership roles in highschool, I managed to learn to earn the trust of my peers in basic training and was in the top 10% selected to undergo 9 months of officer training. I chose to be an infantry officer ā the most physically demanding out of various types, and was responsible in managing a platoon of 27 peers.
As an Electrical Engineering intern for 3 months, I worked on multiple instrumentation and control tasks for Chevron's Gorgon and Wheatstone assets.
I was flown to site for both assets to work on my projects. Staying there for 2 weeks - it was just incredible see both assets in real life, than simply just in computer models and PNID drawings.
It brought a different and very real perspective to my work. Being included in the frontline engineering team that dealt with problems first-hand, I learnt a lot in how liquidfied natural gas was produced and how multi-disciplinary engineering supports operations.
Seeing the massive plant, made me appreciate the sheer amount of engineering completed to provide energy to the world.
Working 12 hour shifts wasn't too new, with many similarities to my time in army. With great people, excellent support through accomodation/catering/mental wellbeing programs, and a mission to achieve there; I enjoyed it!
It started with getting invited to hack at the world's largest AR/VR hackathon at MIT. After weighing the opportunity cost, I risked it for the biscuit and spent as much leave as I could to really immerse myself.
Across Jan/Feb of 2023, I travelled to Boston, Miami, and San Francisco's Sillicon Valley. I explored Stanford, MIT and Harvard ā sneaking into my friends' classes and rocking up to seminars (a highlight was speaking for 5 mins to Sal Khan). I won 3/4 hackathons ā which winnings covered my entire trip expenses :) And I caught up with friends I only spoke to online before.
Learnt a lot. I found journalling and hitting the gym even while travelling to be helpful in managing my own expectations and stress. It was also good exposure to the scene and opportunities in the US.