_ABOUT_
I was born in Melbourne, did high school in Singapore, and am now on leave from Stanford University
🌲🇦🇺🇸🇬🇺🇸
Early on, I was infatuated with Green Day. To get my constant American Idiot fix I got an iPod, initiating me into the Apple cult. One day I stumbled upon Xcode, an app you could use to... create other apps. From then on, I became student by day, iOS dev by night.
When I was 14, I won a scholarship to attend Apple's WWDC 2013. It was the most significant week of my life. I joined a global community of teen developers making things, from which I have come close to some of the most awesome people I know. I am so grateful to Apple for these opportunities.
In high school, I made random things — notably software products, music covers, and long articles — a lot of times with Lenny Khazan and other friends. I also took a two-year philosophy class in school that I think was the best choice I've ever made.
In 2017, I started school at Stanford. Since then I've been influenced by a few students, alumni, and faculty who've helped me figure things out. During freshman fall, I focused on just reading, writing, and reflecting on what I want to do with my life. I may have failed a few classes, but it was so, so worth it.
_I LOVE_
- making, building, creating products: ideas, code & design!
- music: playing shows & making songs. vocals & guitars. sound engineering. punk especially :)
- writing: fiction, articles, guides, essays, w/e!
_I WANNA_
- always be creating, always be performing
- contribute to + learn about problems I care about
- work for myself & stay free. mischief forever :)
_I MADE_
- a little DIY music studio in my room & a skate pedal board :)
- The Ultimate Guide To The E-2 Visa For International Student Founders
- Full Volume Only: young san francisco noisemakers. playing shows and making records. 🤘🏻🎸
- Winno: 21st Century News, built with Nick
- DMT.FYI: a fun educational web guide for the psychedelic DMT
- the AI publication AYearOfAI.com (2016-2017): over 250k reads, referenced in A16Z's AI Playbook amongst research papers, books & university courses, including Stanford
- CryptoBets: a decentralized blockchain betting platform, transacted ~$20k the Super Bowl & ~$15k for the FIFA World Cup Final. 1 2
- Contra: a debate tool (no longer live) featured in Apple's Best New Apps and 20 Under 20 promotions
- a Keto guide after losing ~65 lbs on the diet in 2017 🍖
- in high school performing my fav song Jesus of Suburbia by Green Day to 400+ people 🎸
- open source stuff and weekend hacks on my GitHub
- a personal primer on Stanford admissions (I also have a lot of personal primers on creating apps, websites, backends, etc. so reach out to me if this is of interest to you)
- spent my first year at Stanford reading and thinking about life + purpose, which culminated to this "Narrative Identity" essay
- Travelog: a businessman's travel tool (no longer live), featured in Apple's 20 Under 20 promotion + wrote a reflective piece on my journey creating it.
- an app for IBO's 2012 conf; awarded a Certificate of Appreciation by IBO's Director-General
- an app about myself that got me a scholarship to Apple's WWDC 2013
- Hack Club: a maker community in my high school
- IDEA Hacks: an all ages hackathon in Singapore
- a digital postcard service for SingPost, driver safety features for Grab, and content editing tools for EagerPanda
- two talks at the Geekcamp.SG conference (one on iOS dev, one on virtual autonomous cars)
- a research paper comparing machine learning optimization methods
_I LOVED READING_ 📙
- Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
- Punk Rock: An Oral History
- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
- What Is Anarchism? An Introduction
- The End of Education
- Encountering Naturalism: A Worldview and Its Uses
- Industrial Society and Its Future
- In Defense of a Liberal Education
- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
- Principles: Life and Work
- Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow