about me

Fascinated by software technology since young, I created my first webpages on geocities and angelfire when I was about 11 (circa year 2000).

During secondary school, I endeavored on working on a couple of website projects on a freelance basis. I was adept with IT compared to my peers – learning about colocated dedicated servers, the alternative world (Linux), hosting game servers, shoutcasts, web/mail servers at 14 years old. It was a fun time but alas, there was the military service ahead for me.

I had to decide whether to study IT in Polytechnic (vocational school) and then upon graduation risk 2 years in military conscription losing my edge later when trying to find a job, or go for something that is less time-relevant. Back then, the IT industry was immature and vocational school in IT was looked down upon. With some discussion with my family and relatives, I chose a highly competitive field instead – Banking & Financial Services.

Little did I realize that later as I graduated and entered military service aka National Service (NS), my itch for maximizing productivity through IT just would not stop. I saw great opportunities in leveraging IT to deliver efficiencies at my vocational unit.

I negotiated for a role to implement an information management system. I was responsible and accountable for everything from gathering user requirements via on-the-job training, to designing and developing the system. I used the programming skills gained from pre-NS days to code from scratch using PHP, MySQL, jQuery. I even set up an intranet environment.

It was my first major project and I had successfully implemented it. Even though there were some who ostracized my perspective and thought I was trying to make an excuse to get away from the “real” work, I got a great sense of achievement and satisfaction from delivering the project. Those who did not appreciate or were savvy with technology did not understand it was no simple system. Based on my experience working with companies who develop and deliver similar systems, what I had delivered for free would have been easily worth more than hundreds of thousands of Singapore dollars by today’s (2020) standards. On the positive side, I gained invaluable work experience and the actualization that I obviously wouldn’t be getting as much job satisfaction in anything other than IT.

As my full-time service to NS was finally over, I really wanted to get a degree in IT. I was unwilling to spend another 3 years to get a diploma in IT, though.

I applied for computer degree courses at local universities but to no avail. I eventually had to settle for a degree in Accounting through the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) route.

But I never gave up my passion.

On hindsight, it is precisely I am armed with this dual skill set, that today I am fully capable of understanding layman (people not from the IT world) requirements and real world problems, and confidently translating them into actionable and practical solutions.

P.S. since learning is never bad, I am also fluent in the Japanese language having self studied, and then worked and lived in Japan. 🙂

Transcripts available on request

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Always striving to maximize productivity by closing the gap between business requirements and engineering capabilities, I have 4+ years of professional experience in the technology field; working in a full spectrum of specialties from managing projects, leading small teams, integrating systems, developing specifications and programming.