1415T2g1 South Korea/Participant Information/Leong Junkang, Gabriel

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About GABRIEL

Gabriel

Name:	Gabriel Leong Junkang
School:	School of Information Systems
2nd Major:	Analytics - Operational Track
Year:	3
Email:	jk.leong.2012@sis.smu.edu.sg
Hobbies:	Basketball Swimming Social work Trekking

Why TSM? | Why Korea?

Why TSM?

TSM did not appeal to me when I first joined SMU as I felt that there wouldn't be a need for it since I would be working in Singapore anyway. However, through interaction with my supervisor, colleagues and fellow interns during my internship, my perspective towards TSM changed.

I realized that embarking on a TSM would definitely increase my exposure to the different types of technology used outside of Singapore. Moreover, TSM will also give me an opportunity to travel to various start-ups and interact with entrepreneurs to find out their experience, difficulties and thoughts on being an entrepreneur. I realized that with the experience gained from TSM, it would serve me well when I step out into the working world. With my knowledge of how companies work outside of Singapore, I would definitely be in a better position to communicate better with both clients and bosses. Furthermore, with enhanced knowledge of the various business technologies, strategies and techniques that companies / start-ups outside Singapore use, it will allow me to be in a better position to provide recommendations to companies/clients.

Hence, I would like to grab this last opportunity for me to experience and learn what I can from Technopreneur Study Mission before I graduate.

Why Korea?

Cookie Run

Haven had the opportunity to go to Korea in my life, I have always been curious of how startup businesses were being ran in Korea. I have often used Korean applications such as cookie run and KakaoTalk from startup Korean firms. These applications have never failed to leave good impressions on me. I have to admit that I was amused by the capability of these start-up companies who could produce such amazing applications considering the limited capital and idea generation that startups usually face. Thus, I believe that going for a TSM to Korea would definitely allow me to uncover this information.

Moreover, the market for entrepreneurial prospects in Korea has been booming since 2010 and I am definitely excited to find out for myself how Korea inspire and encourage such strong entrepreneurship throughout these years. Furthermore, being able to immerse myself in the culture of Korea would also broaden both my understanding and perceptions towards entrepreneurship.

Internship

What type of internship interest me?

• Data Analytics Internships
  • My interest for analytics grew with the coming of big data. I have always been fascinated by how companies were able to capture, search, analyse, visualize and evaluate important information out of seemingly useless data. It was amazing to actually notice that the power of information obtained from data can help in the prediction of business trends, preventing of crime rates and many others. Hence, this challenging process of making sense out of data was one which I was interested in such that I decided to take up my major in Analytics.
    
    

• Operation Management & Logistics Internships
  • I am also interested in operation management and logistics internships.The operational management and logistics industry has been growing significantly. Businesses are often trying to out edge our their competitors by trying to move their products to the market with the least time possible without the compromising of both costs and quality. Thus, this is often the situation where information systems come in to play. Since my primary degree is in information systems and I have a 2nd major in Analytics - Operational Track, I believe that I would be in a better position to make a bigger difference in this sector. Being aware of both IT and operational processes, I would also be more effective in identifying possible bottle necks and recommending better solutions. Embarking on TSM would thus help to reinforce and enrich my knowledge of how technologies are being used in companies to enhance processes.

Ideal firms in Korea that I wish to join

DevSisters

• DevSisters
  • Well, I enjoy playing Cookie Run and Cookie Run was a production from DevSisters. When it was first launched, it garned up to 20 million downloads in the past two months. DevSister is also one of Korea's top 10 most valuable tech start ups with a net worth of up to $75 million. If given the opportunity to join DevSisters, I believe that not only would I have the chance to hone my creativity, my technical skills would also improve. Learning from the culture of one of the top start ups in Korea would also surely be an eye-opening experience for me. I would definitely wish to learn how the culture in DevSisters has allowed it to frequently improve its productions.

Starting a business

What types of business interests me?

DB Schenker

• Online Shopping companies (Inspired by Zalora)
• Multi-player gaming development companies (Inspired by Dota2)
• Operational and logistics companies such as DB SCHENKERand UPS
• Data Analytics Solutions such as ANTUIT

What plan do you have in starting a business?

The plan would be to find out problems which people face and provide solutions to solve these problems

• Help people save time while waiting at the polyclinic
  • This idea was thought up during a project proposal class taught in Interactive Prototyping Design IS306 by Prof Benjamin Gan. The plan would be to create an online instant queue portal which allows patients to get registered and obtain a queue number to see the doctor straight, skipping the long waiting duration for registration and consultation. Patient (user) can first perform the registration in the comfort of their home. Afterwhich, once the registered user is within 500m of the vicinity, the user will be inserted next in queue for the consultation.

Past Experiences

Well, I haven't had the chance to really work in a start-up but back in my secondary school days, I did had the opportunity to construct a real woking pasta maker machine with self implemented functions for my Design and Technology project. Although it is not considered as an entrepreneurship, i did felt like an entrepreneur as during the entire process, I was given opportunity to

Pasta Maker Machine

• Oversee my own project
  • Make decisions of materials to use
  • Source for materials on my own
  • Liaise and negotiate price of materials with producers
  • Pitch my product to a target group
  • Obtain feedback from what people thought of my pasta maker
  • Market the product out as a prototype to a company

• Come out with a creative and radical idea to solve problems
  • Added timer feature to allow user pre-set boiling time to allow it to double up as a timer
  • Added LED display and Light signal to inform user of time remaining when pasta in boiling to provide visual cue to users
  • Determine and add rubber guard at pasta maker handle to ensure better comfort for users

Credits

• Layout of page is largely inspired by Max Sim's wiki page