Loh Yi Song, Rafael

About Loh Yi Song, Rafael

Name: Loh Yi Song, Rafael
Academic Year: 3
Degree: Information Systems Management
2nd Major: Organisational Behaviour and Human Resources
Interests: Ballroom Dancing, Jogging, Keeping Fit, Meeting New people from different cultures, Gaming, Singing
Language: English, Mandarin, Korean (Intermediate)
Current CCA: Ballare - Competitive Ballroom Dancing (Marketing Director)
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rafaelloh.song | facebook
Email Address: yisong.loh.2011@sis.smu.edu.sg | Email me
Contact No: +65 9838 9167

Why TSM South Korea?

• What motivates you to join TSM?

아녕 하새요! 저는 라파엘 이애요! Well, It's been sometime since I've converse in Korean, so this is probably the time to do so in actual practice! Just kidding! I've always been passionate in learning the culture of Korea, not due to Kpop of course, but due to strong roots Korean culture has. Heading there for TSM is akin to expanding my insights into a vast new country/market. Furthermore, Korea has been a major player in the IT market and therefore makes it a valuable and once in a life time opportunity to expand my insights.

Last but not least, for what I've learnt so far in SIS, be it IS101, AA or IDP, it would allow me to apply what I've learnt into actual situations by understanding the company's structure. Given the fact that Korea has vastly expanded with the use of technology, it would a great experience for me to learn on how they tackle their challenges with the use of technology.

• Why pick South Korea?

We have seen how South Korea has created the Hallyu wave. But that's not the point. It is how they actually put marketing at work, and with the right ideas at the right time, created a storm. This is something which I would like to learn and put to good use.

Being Chinese, Korea has also some relations to us. It's deep rooted history originated from China where it later developed into its own language - Hangul. That is why some of the words sound the same as Mandarin.

South Korea is one of the most rapid changing cities in the world, and I would like to take the opportunity to broaden my exposure and put new insights into own business.

Internship Opportunites

• What types of internship opportunities interest you?

Positions as a business analyst, IT consultant where we can transfer knowledge from school and blend IT and Business together as this is the current trend. IT and business must work hand in hand for it to be truly successful.

• Any ideal firms (based in South Korea) that you wish to join?

I would like to join either Samsung or a firm that's open to ideas despite one's ranking. Samsung comprises of all kinds of IT aspects which will be a great privilege to learn more about their process and technology at use. As for firms that are open to ideas, this allows some sort of sharing and interchanging of ideas from everyone. This encourages critical thinking process and creativity which is valuable and intangible.

Giving another chance, it would be great to incorporate IT into industries that uses IT as a supporting factor. Some examples are F&B chains which is very popular in Korea and Korea's Tourism Board, which made a breakthrough into the international market.

Starting Business

• What types of business interest you?
  

Media, Strategic Retail Management and Branding, Technology, Web and Design, Marketing and Branding

• What plan do you have in starting a business? (list existing business)
  

Low Cost, High returns. That's what my dad told me and a strong principle to hold dear to. Currently, I have my own freelance/start up business, started together with Denise Wong- Web Fortitude. What we are doing now is Web and Graphic Design which consists of logo, Catalogs, Websites etc. This incorporates different elements - IT, Design, Marketing and Economics. The current business model we have is relatively simple- low cost, high profits. (Use Existing templates from wordpress--> customize--> additional plugins if required--> Publish for Client). In this way, it consumes the least time possible in web development. Furthermore, its all about finding the right price for the correct market group to maximize income. We were able to clock $13 000 in 2.5 months which is of great achievement to both of us.

We started this business when I got injured during my term of internship previously and had to go for and operation.I knew I can't be laying home doing nothing. Therefore, this is how we got it got started.We applied concepts we learnt in school and had my ups and downs in this process which allowed us to learn. We believe, every step of failure will be 2 steps to success.

Web Fortitude - Web and Graphic Design

For my portfolio on my current business: Click here (Web Fortitude)

Below is a preview of my works. Click the link above for more info.

Past Experiences

• Describe your past experience (entrepreneurship, or works in start ups etc)- Not in any order

Experience 1: Sqkii - Advertising as the Content

I am also currently working in a start-up to develop a new advertising platform called Sqkii that we are developing as our FYP project. This would be advertising as a content rather than a sideline. We have gotten a patent for this idea and development is still in progress. This is also under my IS480 project together with Eleazar Lim, Janan Tan, Denise Wong, Rafael Loh and Nicholas Li.

Experience 2: Mud Pud T shirt Design and Printing

During the phase of my poly, I got interested into design and felt that customization of T shirts was a good idea. Being my first entrepreneurship try, I got a T shirt printer that could print directly from a monitor to the T shirt. It was a different concept overall (not silk screen printing). I was the first to have brought the T shirt printing technology to Singapore. It was going well at first as the trend of graphic tees was there then. But as the trend died, I decided to wrap it up.

Experience 3: Video Sites using SEO advertising

Another experience I had was trying to earn my own income during my poly days. I picked up wordpress knowing how good it's CMS was and knew that SEO was needed to get my site to the top. At that point of time, I managed to climb to Google search rankings page 1 for newly released Anime and made used to advertising platforms to earn the income. First page on Google= more visitors = more impressions = more $$ from advertisements. This gave me an extra pocket allowance of 900USD/month.

Experience 4: Most Enterprising Award Competition

During my days in Siglap Secondary School, a team of 6, including me signed up for this competition. The idea was to write a feasible proposal that could be realized. What we did in a nutshell was to help the Cerebral Palsy Center generate income to sustain their operations, and putting the additional money for better welfare. Since the facilities such as the swimming pool, gym and spaces were under utilized, our idea was to rent out these spaces to the public for the extra income. This helped my team clinched the "Most Enterprising Award" among all the schools in Singapore.

In a Nutshell

I would love to see what I've done in my past business experiences being applied in South Korea and understand their market trend. South Korea would open the doors for me to garner new insights not only on my technical knowledge but also its culture =)

Finally, Credits

Layout from Agurz, Denise. Cheers! =))