I subscribe to the mantra of “Staying Humble. Hustling Hard.” From an undergraduate degree at the Schulich School of Business (iBBA) to a masters degree at OCAD University (MDes), my journey in academia and overall learning is littered with unconventional experiences, contact with some very cool people and of course an unwavering confidence in my sense of humour to keep me grounded and intact.

Going back to school in order to complete my Masters degree has been a humbling experience. A close friend of mine described it as the following: “School by definition sets you back on calendar time but not at all in where we end up. Race cars fall behind when they’re in the pit but they’re just fueling up.” The reality is going back to school set me back financially but forced me to develop myself rapidly. I set ambitious goals and set out to achieve them at an unparalleled pace to anything I had ever embarked on in the past.

Moving beyond ME

After pitching a scalable, sustainable and human-centric design solution to address the challenge of harnessing the power of energy to transform the lives of 10 million people by 2025, my team (Lucy Gao & Juan-Carlos Sandoval) and I won our campus pitch and moved forward to Regionals held in Toronto, Ontario. The final competition is hosted at the UN Headquarters, where the winning team is awarded 1 Million USD in seed capital plus mentorship. 

I never realized how powerful my background was when it came to pursuing this sort of degree. There is something very strategic about merging the disciplines of business and design along with technology. Understanding how the three disciplines of design, technology and business are being leveraged to solve some of the greatest problems facing the world right now was an eye-opening experience and one that I wished to play in more so in the future. This programs allowed me to see that overlap in a compelling manner while exposing me to more such opportunities throughout my program.

The year is 2045.

I have always loved stories, reading and writing them. Imagining characters and landscapes and the lives my characters lead. Wondering what their worries were and what made them laugh. Who were they laughing with and whether they would be my friend. Naturally, when I started my foresight class and had to think about the future in the context of signals and trends today and be bold enough to imagine a future scenario that would exist in 20-25 years, I had an opportunity to do so while focusing on the serious future implications of “Food Waste”.

We decided to create an audio-guided museum highlighting the life of the lead rebel who lead the food waste rebellion. Imagining what a future scenario could look like was half the fun, the other half was executing our vision and presenting it to our peers.

Feature 3

The following is placeholder text known as “lorem ipsum,” which is scrambled Latin used by designers to mimic real copy. In sit amet felis malesuada, feugiat purus eget, varius mi. Donec ac fringilla turpis.