Intern Abroad with a Startup in Hong Kong!

I stayed two months in Quarry Bay, Hong Kong. I worked as a marketing intern at an accelerator company called Brinc, which invests in startups around the world. My coworkers were all young and really nice. I definitely felt welcome among them and valued their kindness and mentorship. In Hong Kong, there are tons of great restaurants, cafés (including a mame shiba café I didn't get to visit), beaches, hiking trails, clubs, and bars. There is always something to do, which is really great. Despite the current political climate in HK, the city was super safe and I never once felt worried about my safety. The only thing is that international residents (20% of the population) stay in their bubble and do not really feel as welcome by local Hong Kongers.

My Sage Corp internship in Hong Kong was life-changing. Before, I didn't have a strong grasp on who I was and what I believe in. It wasn't until I got accepted into Sage Corp that I knew what the summer of 2019 was meant for. After some thought, I realized I had a purpose for going to Hong Kong and what that means to an Asian-American. I was able to spend more time with my extended family and meet people like me from across the globe. I met students with similar life experiences and others unique all the same. I got work experience that will help me stand out in the sea of recent graduates. I was able to learn I met an amazing group of people, expanded my network, and made connections that will stand the test of time. After, I had an experience that couldn't have been timed more perfectly.

I had an amazing Sage Corps experience. At my internship, I wasn’t running errands or getting coffee- all of the work that I completed at the startup went into production. I was able to collaborate with the cofounders, CEO, and founding partner on a daily basis to help make strategic decisions about the future of the company. I listened to the cofounders pitch to investors, took ownership for a very critical project, and built a robust professional network in HK. Outside of work, I had so much fun exploring the city with my cohort and friends from work. I also got to explore nearby countries like Vietnam and Japan during the summer. When I returned to campus, Sage Corps helped me land my full time role in consulting, as the experience was so unique. It was one of the best summers of my life and I’d definitely recommend the program to others!!

Growth and comfort rarely coexist. I warmed up to my very patient and intelligent roommate, Adam, immersed myself fully into CoCoon's ecosystem, backpacked through Hong Kong's mountains alone, and fell in love with the district's culture. For these wonderful events to happen, I left friends back in Chicago, lived with once a complete stranger, arrived to a country that silos me as a foreigner despite similar cultural roots, and embraced loneliness in a busy city. I now carry with me lessons learned then to my internship with Freshwater Advisors led by David Weinstein, Chicago's seriel entrepreneur. Then, I dream to jumpstart a traditional yoga studio and physical therapy clinic that integrates appropriate cutting-edge innovation to better my community's well-being.

While initially hesitant about joining the program, as I would be joining it's second program ever, the interview process gave me more confidence in the program. The CEO, Matt Meltzer, was very supportive and dedicated to providing a quality experience tailored to my interest. As a chemistry major and a statistics minor, I was unsure if my skills would even be applicable to start-ups, let alone international ones. Instead, I was given a great opportunity that catered to my interests and pushed me out into the burgeoning field of data analytics.

The Internship:
I worked for The CloudMiner Ltd., a data-mining and financial services company targeting the commodities industry. During the Sage Corps interview process, I spoke to one of the co-founders, Dan Bloor, who talked to me on how I could apply my statistical knowledge to their business challenges. As a web based company, all the focus was on their website product and I, along with another Sage Corps Fellow, was tasked to build a data-visualization platform to better express the company's aggregated data on mines around the world. I had very little programming experience prior to this internship but I can now comfortably program in Javascript, Python, CSS, and HTML thanks to the support of The CloudMiner team, my co-worker James Xue (studying Computer Science at Columbia), and dedicated hours outside of work. By the end of the program, we had built a powerful data-visualization tool that The CloudMiner still uses.

Day-to-Day:
The Sage Corps program fully immersed us in the entrepreneurial scene in Hong Kong; we visited co-working spaces (The Good Lab, Cocoon HK), enjoyed speaker events (Simon Squibb and Guy Parsonage of fluid), and visited local businesses to learn about Hong Kong's business situation (JLL Hong Kong). The CloudMiner personally took James and I to a product presentation of a similar product (Tableau) for business insights and networking. We stayed at the Harbor Plaza Hotel, great accommodations for such a cramped city with immediate access to the Hong Kong MTR system and buses.

The daily schedule was as follows:
- Wake up at 8, get to work by 10
- Work on fixing bugs or improving visualization platform features or begin working on new functionality
- Have lunch around 12:30 with the entire team at a local restaurant
- Return to work with various snacks that James picked out from the malls nearby
- Finish work around 18:00, take recommendations from The CloudMiner team for dinner
- Work out at the Harbor Plaza basement gym with 4 other Sage Corps Fellows and sauna after

Highlights:
- Each of the Sage Corps fellows were incredibly driven, focused, and willing to explore - some of the best people I have ever met. Everyone was interested in learning more about start-ups and becoming entrepreneurs, making the most out of their summer. We passed around a copy of the Lean Startup to read on our commutes, went to the gym together, and we visited Macau twice throughout our trip.
- I learned a completely foreign skill. Like I said earlier, I had little prior programming experience but I can now program in Javascript, Python, CSS, HTML and currently learning R and Apache Spark for data analysis.
- Experienced first-hand the business practices and ideas of a foreign country. We were educated on Hong Kong's real estate situation by JLL Hong Kong; James Guzy (another co-founder of The CloudMiner) talked at length about the difference between Hong Kong and mainland China's business attitudes. The co-working spaces we visited, especially Cocoon HK, were incredibly gracious and shared with us their resources such as pitch nights and free-lance opportunities.
- Sage Corps programming: a boat tour of Hong Kong with our country managers
- Bungee jumping off the world's tallest bungee jump in Macau

Difficulties:
- A few language barriers, I'm not fluent in Chinese. Luckily most of Hong Kong is Englicized and another Fellow was a native speaker from Beijing. We never were stuck anywhere and could always find someone to communicate with.

Through Sage Corps, I secured an internship with the CloudMiner Ltd, a tech startup in Hong Kong. I worked on a data visualization project in Javascript that helped me jumpstart my career in CS.

Sage Corps is a great program for students looking to doing real work at an innovative company, develop important networking skills, and expand their worldview by going abroad. Working abroad is incredibly valuable, and working for a startup is a great way to meet exciting people and learn practical skills - for me, it was hands-on web development.

On top of the work experience, Hong Kong has a vibrant, energetic, and youthful vibe with a budding startup community. It's a great place for college students to develop skills that they would not get in the classroom or even in America. Socially, there's something going on that you'll never be bored. Culturally, it's fascinating to interact with the locals, learn some Cantonese, and of course, eat the delicious cuisine!

I loved the summer I spent at CloudMiner, and I'm very glad that I did the program. I'm excited to see Sage Corps expand to new locations!