Next Chapter

Friends and family,

I’m starting a new job tomorrow! It’s at a company called Hook & Loop here in New York which is an internal think tank and R&D department for Infor, a big enterprise software development company. A lot of what I’ll be doing will be similar to what I’ve been learning for the past couple of years at Loverly: leading a team of designers and developers as a product manager. Infor has software that’s used at hospitals and hotels, for HR and within industrial enterprises. Some of that can be a little boring but Hoop & Loop focuses on researching and building prototypes for how new technology and interfaces can be used to improve the often terrible computer programs that are in enterprises. For example, one of my first projects will focus on hospitals and health care. There’s a lot of changes happening in the US with health care right now with government mandates and incentive to move towards digital records which means pretty big opportunity to be doing innovative things with technology. We could be building iPad apps for doctors or for in emergency rooms, where people can fill out those dumb forms digitally which could reduce wait times and also maybe catch higher risk patients much earlier. Pretty exciting.

I’ll be getting a nice pay raise too and have more paid time off, so it means that I’ll be able to fly home more often for long weekends and holidays and enjoy more travel and vacation which I haven’t had a chance to much.

I’ve also been doing volunteer work with an organization called Village Science. They are group of educators, technologists, students, and engineers connected together to work on projects for change focusing in South East Asia. I’ve been helping them with the tech side of building a pilot project that will bring computer systems based off of inexpensive hardware like the Raspberry Pi and tablets to communities for educational and communication purposes. The board swore me in as Chief Technical Officer of the organization a few weeks ago even though I asked for Knighthood.

Having a new job and new responsibility with Village Science is a lot to take on but I’m excited and blessed by the opportunities and the places it’ll take me.