Posted on: 31 December 20182018 in Review
That was quick! 2018 went by in a breeze and we’re here with a new year. For me this year, it was about making a difference to the community.
Firstly, a big thank you to everyone (friends, family, co-workers) who have supported me throughout this year. And all the best for 2019!
MonPlan
As many of you know, MonPlan this year has been bigger than ever. In February, we launched MonPlan into beta – which is one of our biggest launches ever. The university adopted our product as the official course planning tool shortly afterwards. And just recently in October, we officially released MonPlan – a big thank you goes out to everyone who has supported us all the way through the journey.
Firstly I would like to thank Josh Nelsson-Smith who co-founded this awesome project with me, having working with him for the best part of 2 years, having supporting me when I was feeling not that great and learning a great many things with me was really amazing.
Another amazing person that I would like to thank is Saurabh Joshi, Saurabh is a really amazing person who is really great at what he does, but without his initial help at the start of the project MonPlan wouldn’t be where it is at.
All the awesome team members that we had: Charlie Campton-Strachan, David Copley, Robert Koch, Harry Ferrier, David Lei, Callistus Tan, Katie Ng, Nicholas Whittaker, Rebecca Young and Ben Clare: you guys really helped us get over the finish line, even though our team shrank in size and grew many times – but without the effort from you guys we wouldn’t be where we are. All the staff, managers and senior executives at eSolutions (such as Linh Truong, Chau Lam, Teresa Finlayson)
Lastly, all the friends who have supported me: Emily Dao, Michael Williams and Nick Priebatsch. I know that I’ve thanked you already, but without you guys being there for me and listening to me ramble about random stuff, I wouldn’t have been able to get most of the stress out.
Tech community
For me, this year I’ve participated across two hacks: Hackamon and UniHack. I mentored at this years Hackamon instead of competing, helping others grow ideas, giving them tips on pitching is something that is really enjoyable and seeing an idea grow into a solution is what makes the entire experience worthwhile. As well as giving out two Tech talks on Git and rapid prototyping.
Giving back to the community is something that I believe that every tech person should do. This year I’ve been part of 2 meetup communities: JuniorDev and MusesCode (formerly NodeGirls Melbourne). For JuniorDev, I’ve given 1 tech talk (on GCP with NodeJS) and once again mentored at this year’s Hacktoberfest event. I’ve also mentored at an event aimed at teaching JavaScript/NodeJS/ECMAScript to beginners, as part of the MusesCode meetup community.
Hobbies
This year, I’ve picked up photography as a hobby – around September I brought a new Canon 800D DSLR. And have slowly taking photos and learnt how to process them through Photoshop. Check out some of my best photos here
Travel
I know that I told myself that I would travel last year in 2017 but then it got busy.
This year I ended up going to both Japan (with friends) and China (solo) for around 5 weeks: which has been really fun. Big thanks to everyone who have travelled with me and made the experience more enjoyable. I really want to head back to Japan at some point in the future – maybe to the northern part (like Hokkaido) next time.
I am really looking forward to 2019 – with new ideas (and with it, startup opportunities), looking for grad/junior/entry level positions and finishing off my degree part-time, new hobbies and friends, potentially more travelling – I’m sure it will be an awesome year.