Now

Still a Surprise: my final project got honoured as the Student Runner-Up, Service Design in the 2020 Core 77 Design awards!

Work

I’m an Assistant Vice President in the Customer Experience (CX) division, Singapore Economic Development Board (“EDB”). It’s a lovely team, working on different projects: I’m working on multiple workstreams at this point.

I will be taking over a product team, which I was initially a bit down on (I like being irresponsibly free from having to manage people…) But now I am quite excited: I have been thinking these few days, that perhaps this product I am taking over is my long-awaited answer to the Hamming questions.

I am part of a team looking at telecommuting. We just did a few weeks’ of design research, which has been quite fascinating. What I can share is that telecommuting has had a significant effect on the social connections within the wider organisation, especially between teams. Seems like technology and virtual coffees can’t quite replace the in-person connections that spontaneously happen at the water points, bathrooms, lift lobbies, etc.

I’m still part of a team looking at Digital WorkPlace tools, especially around Microsoft Teams and its app ecosystem: our objective is to reduce employee fatigue and increase productivity. We had tapped on design research that I did in March.

Side Projects

I’m working with IDP ‘17 alum Yee Mun on a project. Right now, it’s in a hiatus as we are both busy with other things: I recently completed a trial project with some friends on a “gratitude service”.

I am also learning Javascript (see below). Decided to not get distracted by Lisp and Clojure, but to instead focus on learning this language to get some working prototypes of some apps by the end of the year.

I am also playing around with p5js, mainly because it is close enough to Processing (which I had learned last year, but don’t like as a language) for me to be able to code some very basic stuff. I am trying out a digital Dhamma concept for the past few weeks; will post it here when I am satisfied with the outcome.

Mulling Over

Javascript – I am learning Javascript slowly (see Eloquent Javascript below). I also bought a whole bunch of Javascript books, but not coding or learning as much as I would like.

Opportunities in digital Dhamma/dharma – I have been thinking a lot about using digital to create tools or experiences for people to enjoy calm in their minds.

Other Stuff

Reading
Eloquent Javascript – recommended to me by a colleague, I have started warming up to this piece. The website is awesome, providing opportunites to learn and test the code live.
How to be a hacker
Teach yourself Programming in Ten Years

Meditating
30+ mins a day. Latest guided meditation I used is here.

Working out
Starting Strength Linear Progression. Current weights: Squat 210lb (94.75kgs). Am off hand exercises for a couple of weeks, as I was having pains on the back of my hands.

Updated as of 30 Aug 2020