Abstract
- A brief look back at the dots in my life so far, how they connect to where I am now, and where I want to go.
- inspired by Steve Job’s connecting the dots
I grew up half my life in Singapore, and the latter half in Australia. My accent leans more towards Australian, and switches back to Singaporean when among Singaporeans.
When I was a kid, I loved taking apart old electronics and tinkering with circuits. I felt called to study electrical engineering (especially when at a “day-in-the-life-of-an-engineer” event by a local uni, they asked if we tinkered with electronics and said you should study engineering).
I stayed curious growing up – Dad constantly encouraged me to observe the world and would pose questions to me on why things were the way they were. Why is that traffic light green? Why do you think that person is doing that? What would you design differently? Mum was always nurturing. Having someone who believes in your potential – does wonders.
Studying finance was mainly driven by a desire to understand money from growing up pretty frugal.
I would have studied computer science, but unfortunately, I allowed a high-school computer science class to convey to me the poor impression that computer science was about drawing 2D houses with Python - which I found uninspiring.
Although, it was fun taking the skills I learnt to make and host Flash game sites to bypass my high-school’s website restrictions.
My life direction changed in 2015, during the time I returned to Singapore for mandatory military service – when an inexperienced doctor misdiagnosed my medical condition, and I discovered machine learning. How machine learning on chest X-rays were diagnosing more accurately than experienced doctors. I learnt about Stanford university, and took Andrew Ng’s online ML course.
Using the free time I suddenly had as I recovered – I started attending tech, startup, and investing meetups in Singapore, registering as a private investor (with ~$3000 in my bank account) to attend large tech conferences, asking attendees if they could +1 to PayPal’s ‘Introduction to Coding for Girls’, and attending monthly investor gatherings at McDonalds.
I returned to Australia with broader horizons and saw beyond the typical success-route in Western Australia of working for a big oil and gas company as an engineer, or studying medicine. Why treat one patient at a time when you could build something to fundamentally empower thousands at once?
Around me, I was still encouraged by my parents and peers to explore the typical path ‘electrical engineer in the resources industry’. Especially, as it was more financially clear and allowed me to fulfil my responsibilities to pay my university fees through the internships and part-time work.
I loved uni. It’s a privilege and joy to be able to study. I’m also thankful I could hold jobs that paid my school fees. My first hackathon got me part-time work at an engineering consultancy, and I got the internships at the FANG-equivalents of Western Australia in my field of study.
I also worked at a call centre, as a student librarian, lab demonstrator, teaching assistant, and tutor. I found time to give back and do pro-bono consulting and frontend development, and volunteered in rural education.
I developed a pretty frugal mindset. I would look at a meal and calculate it as the number of hours of work it cost me. I would pause before going to parties and events if I could work a shift at the library for $100. A frugal mindset has pros/cons. I learnt to save well, while learning to spend came later. I learnt to be generous with friends and frugal with self.
Still, I kept my vision and interest alive. I devoted as much time and energy as I could to continue exploring emerging tech – especially in healthcare as it was the reason I resonated with machine learning. I did Perth BioDesign to explore medtech, and started doing hackathons as a way to learn to build products.
I made my own research project to “embed a sense of morality into autonomous vehicle path planning” and worked on an autonomous bus on campus.
Things were going well! I was maintaining a 92% weighted average mark academically and topped courses, was financially ready, and was on-track to hit my goals by the end of 2020.
COVID-19 derailed most of my plans. The Joey now, would have adapted better.
The Summer internship offer I had with CSIRO (Australia’s national research institution) to work on machine learning optimisation with 3D printing fidelity – was cancelled. My research lab had lockdown and disruptions. Many of my personal support systems was disrupted (gym lock-downs, social isolation, no common study-mates…etc).
I had to start working full-time in 2021 and help my parents’ mortgage – while trying to finish my studies.
Still, I continued to keep my passions alive and took advantage of hackathons moving online. Suddenly, I could compete in the US big leagues outside Australia – like a fish leaving the small pond to grow bigger. I continued hacking and opportunities led to opportunities.
Frankly, doing hackathons was one of ways I kept the spark in me alive. Most of my hackathons started to be US-based, bringing a higher level of talent, competition, mentors…etc that inspired me. And it also gave me some solace from the lonely moments found in working-remotely and changing life circumstances – hackathons can be like getting to spend time with 3 new friends for 2 days.
Taking a bet, I took my first trip to the US in Feb 2023. The grand prize money for the hackathon I was going for wouldn’t cover my airfare, it was going to be an investment in the experience (and my frugal mindset really had to rationalise it).
However, in many ways – I just needed that trip. It was hard to keep my motivation and the focus on my goal alive after working in a big company for a couple years. You can easily get busy and swept by the environment around you. I needed a practical reminder on what’s out there, who is out there, and why I want to be there someday. Why did I want to take the difficult route?
I warmed my socialising skills by choosing my flight seats for 5 segments to the US to be next to someone, and tried talking to strangers on the plane. I’m still friends on Facebook with one of them :)
I built with generative AI for the first time – and it completely changed my perspective on product and what’s possible for users. I explored MIT, Harvard and Stanford – friends I made from hacking graciously brought me around. I hacked at the world’s largest AR/VR hackathon at MIT. I spoke to Sal Khan. I met Sergei, the co-founder of Google.
I slept on friends’ couches and negotiated with strangers for a cheaper price to stay on their couch. I loved it~
In the end, I managed to win enough cash from the hackathons (+3 more) to cover my airfare and a bit extra – which was nice. But even when I was half-way through the first hackathon, I thought to myself that the money was well spent. It represented a fundamental shift in my frugality.
I met a lot of cool people, and built some cool stuff – I was reminded of the world beyond Australia and what I could possibly build with others. The energy there is incredible.
Later on, I got ad-targeted on Instagram to do a “dance competition, win a trip to S.Korea” (because I picked up the hobby in uni). I passed, because I’m not that good a dancer.
I got ad-targeted on Instagram to do a “hackathon, win a trip to S.Korea”. I entered, won that trip, and took dance classes in Seoul.
Recently in 2024, I reached a better financial position and can afford to do more things now. I quit my job to focus on finishing my thesis. After that, I want to build products in the field of generative AI as it has too much potential to ignore. People can be empowered in so many ways now.
I want to move to the US at some point because that’s where things are happening and the best people working in the space are being drawn there.
Work-wise, I want to do work I find meaningful with brilliant people while having some creative agency, and make things that people want. I’ve seen the magic when even just 4 people come together and smash out a weekend to build something.
Life-wise, I want to build long-term connections with my close friends, family and significant other.