Valerie Pang
Liberal Arts Undergraduate at Yale-NUS College
Summary
I am passionate about learning and building up new skills in order to make a positive impact on the world.
I am an innovator whose interest in technology, startups and social good has led me to intern with 9 different companies. These include three tech startups, a VC firm, an incubator, a food startup, a social enterprise, an NGO, and an executive coaching firm.
I am also the Co-founder of a social enterprise, SDI Academy, which helps migrant workers learn English and integrate into society. Representing SDI Academy, I participated in Singapore International Foundation's Young Social Entrepreneurs Program, the IdeasInc incubator program, and the DBS-NUS Social Venture Challenge, becoming the finalist for the former and winning awards for the latter two.
I spent a year on the NUS Overseas College Silicon Valley program (2016), where I interned for two tech startups in the San Francisco Bay Area and took entrepreneurship classes at Stanford University. In Silicon Valley, I attended talks by the CEOs of Alphabet, Tesla Motors, Intuit, LinkedIn, Slack, Evernote, Asana etc. and established networks with people from multiple technology companies. I also stayed in a startup hackerhouse where I got to live with more than 80 internationals over the course of 10 months.
At Yale-NUS College, I am a Liberal Arts undergraduate and an Environmental Studies major, with the experience of taking classes in the sciences, social sciences and humanities.
Feel free to check out my medium: https://medium.com/@valeriepang :)
Experience
Tilt.com
Tilter Happiness Intern Feb 2016 - July 2016
Tilt is the fastest growing company in the crowdfunding space. Launching out of Y-Combinator three years ago, we’re launching more crowdfunding campaigns per day than any other platform in the world by focusing on what crowdfunding will look like in a mobile world. Tilt has raised over $70 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz, SV Angel, Y-Combinator, and others.
Job Scope
• Provide patient, friendly, timely assistance to Tilt's growing community by resolving customer issues
• Communicate product bugs to the engineering staff
• Work closely with the Tilter Insights team to better understand and aggregate user feedback for new product additions and designs
• Test new website features, troubleshooting bugs, and help with website copyThe Founder Institute
Marketing and Operations Intern Aug 2015 - January 2016
http://www.fi.co/
The Founder Institute is an American business incubator, entrepreneur training and startup launch program that was founded in Palo Alto, California in 2009. Although based in Silicon Valley, The Founder Institute maintains chapters in over 80 cities and more than 40 different nations across the globe. It offers a four-month part-time program for new and early-stage entrepreneurs that helps them develop their business ideas and form a company.
Job Scope:• Published 40+ articles on the Founder Institute blog
• Looked through 800+ applicants for the Founder Institute program, wrote notes, and decided on acceptances
• Monitored Google Alerts and documented noteworthy news of graduates of the Founder Institute
• Conducted social media marketing (Facebook and Twitter) of photos, events and blog posts
SDI Academy
Co-Founder and Vice President (Marketing and Public Relations) Jan 2014 - Jul 2015
www.sdi.academy
Social Development Initiative Academy (SDI Academy) is a social enterprise founded in 2013 that empowers migrant workers to better integrate into Singaporean society and perform more effectively at work through customized English proficiency courses. Thus far, we have a fully developed set of curriculum and course materials in Bengali, and conducted a pilot 10 week course for 70 migrant workers in January.
Job Scope• Conceptualized the scope of the social enterprise
• Assisted the incorporation of SDI Academy as a Private Limited and registered with the Social Enterprise Association
• Developed the business pitch, business presentation and executive summary
• Networked and liaised with external parties to create partnerships and raised $70k of initial capital and funds
• Organised a 16 week English proficiency course for Bangladeshi migrant workersGreen Pea Cookie
Growth Marketing Intern Feb 2015 - Mar 2015
www.greenpeacookie.com
Peasures is a food manufacturing company based in San Francisco. Their vision is to be a global brand that inspires by upholding positive values, innovation, and creating products that delights people while adding value to society.
Peasures's first product is a delightful guilt-free vegan cookie called the Green Pea Cookie, an original recipe developed in Singapore. The original Green Pea Cookie is called Peater and it comes with a gluten free flavour as well.
Job Scope
• Contributed to Kickstarter campaign reaching 774% of its target and getting 1268 backers www.kickstarter.com/projects/1877303117/green-pea-cookie
• Sourced and created a PR contact database
• Executed a PR cold-emailing strategy, achieving 3 PR hitsConjunct Consulting
Associate Consultant January 2015 - Present
http://conjunctconsulting.org/
Southeast Asia’s first social change consultancy, Conjunct Consulting is engaging, mobilising and empowering pro bono talent to strengthen social good organisations in Singapore. Conjunct does this through pro bono consulting projects, strategic collaborations, and one-day corporate scalathon events.
Job Scope
• Learnt about: Problem definition, Issue identification and frameworks, Effective Brainstorming, Solution Formulation, Hypothesis Formulation, Research Planning, Data gathering and collation, Analysis and Modeling, Solution Assessment, Recommendation Development
• Worked with a team on two simulated Case Projects• Went through a rigorous selection process and was one of the few selected to be an Associate Consultant
Glints Intern
Campus Ambassador January 2015 - March 2015
Glints is a platform for young talent to build up the career readiness through internships and online challenges. They actively source a diverse variety of employers and opportunities to build our employer-talent community.
Job Scope
• Facebook marketing of JFDI Fellows program and Glints platform
• Brought in users for usability testing
• Developed marketing strategies to increase awareness of Glints to the campus community
• Wrote marketing content on the topic of internshipsClickstream Ventures
Venture Capital Apprentice Dec 2014 - Feb 2015
www.tyro.vc
I am one of the top 10 contestants (youngest and the only female) selected in the Tyro.VC competition, the VC Apprentice Show, jointly organized by Infocomm Investments and Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore.
As part of the competition, I am mentored by William Klippgen of Clickstream Ventures and Tigris Capital. I have also attended training sessions by Alex Lin (Head of Infocomm Investments), Wayne Siew and Connie Ang.
Job Scope
• Sourced for potential deals, performed evaluation and due diligence of startups, made investment recommendationsQuarter Life Crisis
Intern Dec 2014
QLC is a newly minted startup in Joyful Frog Digital Incubator's Accelerate Program. It aims to avert the quarter life crisis that young working professionals may face by providing short term, flexible, remote career change opportunities. In doing so, QLC minimizes the risks people face in quitting their corporate job while empowering them to experiment and explore working in a startup.
Job Scope
• Utilized growth hacking tactics and contributed to signups increasing by 200% and enrollments increasing by 100%
• Created spreadsheets on marketing channels, potential customers, potential investors
• Developed website through editing descriptions and copy, creating new program pages, doing user testing, creating FAQ
• Increased brand awareness of qlc.io through networking with startups and prospectsFlare Communications
Sales and Marketing Associate Sep 2014 - Present
‘INSPIRIT: How Asian CEOS Inspire Action from the Stage’ is a non-fiction business book that seeks to crowd source wisdom from 12 leading Asian CEOs in the domain of public speaking and presentation skills. This book explores how these CEOs use speaking as a means to build their personal and professional brand, grow their businesses and inspire action.
The book is written by Benjamin Loh, an Executive Speech Trainer and Coach, and the Founder of the Speaker’s Flare Training & Consultancy, a niche outfit founded to empower executives in communicating effectively and persuasively.
Job Scope
• Handled the online social media marketing campaign for the book “Inspirit – How Asian CEOs Inspire Action From The Stage”
• Curated and designed marketing content e.g. memes, articles, videos, infographics
• Developed and implemented sales and marketing strategies in order to secure leadsYouth Corps Singapore
Vice Leader of Ground Up Initiative-Simei Care Centre Project Jun 2014 - Present
http://tinyurl.com/youthcorpssingapore
Youth Corps Singapore was launched in 2014 as platform for youths who are passionate to serve the community and interested to co-create sustainable solutions with community partners to address these critical community needs. It is a year-long programme involving two Semesters of Service (6 months each) where youths can design and implement two community projects either locally or overseas.
Job Scope
• Organised the launch of the Something Old Something New thrift shop with an activity-filled carnival
• Facilitated follow-up action on issues raised in meetings
• Managed project deliverables in line with project planPhilanthropy in Motion
Summer Intern Jun 2014 - Jul 2014
www.pimchina.org
Philanthropy in Motion (PIM) is a non-profit organization launched in Hong Kong in 2013. PIM provides young people with the funds, training, and networks to become intelligent givers. It is founded by a team of graduates from Yale, Harvard, Cornell, and Peking University.
Using the philanthropic education model developed at Yale and other leading American universities as a basis, PIM designs programs that allow young people to converge in forums to evaluate and allocate crowd-funded donations to China-based NGOs.
Job Scope
• Assisted the organizing of a 5-day Model Foundation conference
• Organised the Closing Dinner procedures and Awards presentation
• Designed various certificates and crafted survey questions for the conference
• Worked on Debriefing document and Donor Report
• Conducted Competitive Landscape Analysis and researched on social entrepreneurship and the NGO sectorThe Thought Collective
Intern Jan 2013 - May 2013
http://www.thethoughtcollective.com.sg/
The Thought Collective is a leading social enterprise group in Singapore that shares the common purpose of building up Singapore's social and emotional capital. The Thought Collective comprises of five social enterprises, namely School of Thought, Food for Thought, Think Tank, Thinkscape and Common Ground.
Job Scope
• Assisted curriculum planning and development in School of Thought
• Wrote articles for Broader Perspective magazine (regarding social security, governance and the disadvantaged).MY VISION IN LIFE
To be a global leader in doing good
Extra Curriculars
Greylock Hackfest Second Place Winner
July 2016
https://news.greylock.com/greylock-hackfest-2016-372dae813444#.cazt063uz
Greylock Partners organized its fifth Hackfest which took place at Facebook Headquarters in Menlo Park. With 24 hours to build, the teams worked together to hack their best web, mobile and hardware projects for a grand prize of $10,000. The top ten teams presented in front of our final judging panel, which included Discord CEO Jason Citron, Facebook VP of Design Julie Zhuo, Slack VP of Engineering Michael Lopp, and Greylock Investing Partner Jerry Chen.
My team, Team ChromeLens, who placed second overall, built a collection of developer tools that allow developers to simulate what their webpage would look like with different types of visual impairment.UP Singapore Clean and Green Hackathon First Place Winner
June 2015
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/ideas-to-solve-littering/1931422.html
The Clean and Green Hackathon 2015, organized by UP Singapore and National Environment Agency, was a three day Hackathon meant to increase the environmental consciousness and environmentally-friendly practices of Singaporeans.
Our team, Green Sense, came up with a mobile messaging platform that uses location-based technology at sporting or leisure events.The platform will inform spectators of the nearest trash bins based on their location. Spectators can use the app to inform organisers when the bins are full.
We won First Place, winning a cash prize of $2000. We also appeared on television on Channel News Asia.UP Singapore Manpower Hackathon First Runner Up
Feb 2015
UP(Urban Prototyping) Singapore's Manpower Hackathon was a 3 day Hackathon where participants came together to deliver solutions that would change the way the Ministry Of Manpower (MOM) engages with employees and empowers them to have safer work environments and lead healthier lives. The judges were top management from MOM, Workplace Safety and Health Council, Infocomm Development Authority and Accenture.
I worked with a team on the idea of an Interactive English Learning platform for migrant workers.
We won second place in the Hackathon, winning a cash prize of $1500.
https://www.facebook.com/UPsingapore/photos/pcb.782415341811752/782414115145208Startup Weekend EDU Singapore - Winner
November 7-9 2014
http://www.up.co/communities/singapore/singapore/startup-weekend/3883
Startup Weekend EDU is a three day long Hackathon where participants come together to create a sustainable, socially positive business model to help young or adult learners. The judges: Matthias Yeo, Joey Gan, Mike Michalec, Leslie Loh, Ashley Tan, Tong Yee
I worked with a team of 4 other coders on a startup of a code evaluation platform designed for students to develop good coding habits that meet industrial standards.
My team won first place in the Startup Weekend: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152511514240875&Ideasinc Business Challenge 2014 - Winner
April - Oct 2014
Organized by NTU Technopreneurship Center
Ideasinc is a six month long startup accelerator program cum competition.
• Developed the executive summary and business presentation for presentation to the judges
• Attended workshops pertaining to startup development
• Won the IdeasInc 2014 “Most Socially Responsible Startup” award with a cash prize of $10,000Young Social Entrepreneurs Programme - Finalist
March - Nov 2014
Organised by Singapore International Foundation
http://www.sif.org.sg/programme_detail-6-1
The Young Social Entrepreneurs Programme is a nine months long social enterprise incubator programme that allows participants to learn from and interact with leading social entrepreneurs, business professionals and other youths who are keen on social innovation.
• Created and refined a business presentation about SDI Academy to present to judges
• Consulted with McKinsey consultants
• Study visit to Mumbai to learn more about social entrepreneurship and NGO work
• Created business model canvas and regular progress reports, designed banner and posterSamsung Solve for Tomorrow Competition - University Category Finalist
Sept - Oct 2014
Organised by Samsung
http://www.samsung.com/sg/solvefortomorrow/aboutcontest.html
The Samsung Solve for Tomorrow competition is a competition where teams of four identify a social issue in Singapore, think of a way to resolve the problem using technology, and share their idea in a 3-minute video along with a short description.
• Created and developed the idea, storyboard, video script and voice over
• Co-designed and produced the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bRCvsThMfw
• Garnered more than 1000 views during the online voting period
• Won a cash prize of $2000 along with the latest Samsung tabletYale-NUS Toastmasters Club - Founder and Co-President
Nov 2013 - Present
Yale-NUS Toastmasters Club helps students improve their public speaking, communication and leadership skills.
• Conceptualised the constitution, budget and events calendar of the club
• Organized formation of club and fortnightly meetings for members
• Liaised with the school administration for approval of organisation, constitution and budget of the club
Successful Indiegogo Campaigner
August 2014
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/valerie-s-birthday-wish-raising-funds-to-do-good
• Launched Indiegogo campaign to raise funds for 4 NGOs
• Raised $1115 USD/ $1400 SGD from 62 people in 8 days through Facebook marketingSkills
Professional Skills
Excellent Writing and Research Skills
Writing papers on a regular basis
Blog and Website Creation
Wordpress, Strikingly
Social Media
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
Team Management
Asana, Trello, Slack
Public Speaking and Presentations
Toastmasters Competent Communicator Award
Powerpoint, Keynote, Prezi
Marketing
Online social media marketing
Content marketing
Knowledge of Gantt chart, Mailchimp, Hootsuite
Skills I wish to learn
In the midst of learning them, or hoping to learn them in future internships!
Creative Design
Photoshop, Illustrator, Design Thinking
Cloud Computing
Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure
Front End Development
HTML, CSS, Javascript
Marketing
Growth Marketing, SEO
WHAT I BELIEVE IN
It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be.
Education
Yale-NUS College
Liberal Arts 2013 - 2017
Yale-NUS College is the first liberal arts college in Singapore. Yale-NUS was established in 2011 as a collaboration between Yale University and the National University of Singapore. The first class, the class of 2017, consisted of approximately 150 students entering in 2013. Admission to the inaugural class began in 2012 and took place over four rounds, with an acceptance rate slightly below 4%.
Activities: Toastmasters Club, International Relations and Political Association, Investment ClubRaffles Junior College
GCE 'A' Levels 2011 - 2012
Distinctions for General Paper, History, Economics, China Studies in English, Mathematics
Activities: Interact Club, Gavel Club, Bicultural India ProgrammeRaffles Girls' School (Secondary)
Integrated Program 2007 - 2010
Activities: Girls Brigade, House Committee
Honors & Awards
Ideasinc Business Challenge 2014 Winner
Young Social Entrepreneurs Programme Finalist
Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Competition Finalist
Raffles Diploma Merit Award in Cognitive, Community and Citizenship domain
Alice and Peter Tan Scholarship
Startup Weekend EDU Singapore Winner
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
blog posts
Check out some of the blog posts I've written! :)Contact me!
For feedback, for collaboration, for internships, or even just to say hi!
Thank you for visiting my website (:
Copyright 2014