Instructional Team (MEMSI 2022)

Marina Chan

Senior Director, MEMSI
Head of Education, MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node

Marina leads entrepreneurship program development and content creation at the MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node, working with corporates, universities and high schools to fuel the entrepreneurial mindset. She received her master’s degree in education from Harvard University in 2014, where she studied emerging models of educational innovation and is a member of the Dean’s Leadership Council at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Previously, she co-founded a social enterprise which aims to nurture creative problem-solving for young students, which was awarded by the HKSAR Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Fund. In an earlier part of her career, she was vice president in the Asia Pacific equities business at Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong, and prior to that, worked at Nortel Networks in Canada in the optical networks division as a financial analyst. She sits on the board of the Hong Kong Red Cross Hospital Schools and is a CFA charterholder.

Charlotte Lam

Education Program Manager, MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node

Passionate about creating social impact and purpose, Charlotte focuses on program development, communications and marketing at the Node. As a creative individual and a believer in the growth mindset, she is interested in enhancing the entrepreneurial and innovative spirits of our future generations to solving real-world challenges. Prior to joining the Node, she worked at the Li & Fung Foundation for three years to help drive employee and community engagement globally for the Fung group, focusing on internal campaigns, communications and events. From environmental to health & wellbeing related social issues, she has implemented numerous global campaigns to raise awareness and encourage behavioural change in order to make a difference. Charlotte graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and completed her dissertation on “Cognitive Planning in Young Children”, where she collected and analysed eye-tracking, EEG, behavioural data as well as IQ test results from 6 year olds, 9 year olds and adults to look into how children learn in comparison to adults. She also runs her own online cake business on the side and enjoys dancing in her free time.

Nick Tsang

Project Manager, MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node

Nick graduated with a Bachelor’s degree of Art in International Affairs and Political Science from Northeastern University. Unconventionally passionate in technology, creative ideas and problem solving, Nick has been working within the entrepreneurship ecosystem throughout his career. Prior to joining the MIT Node, Nick was a member of the Inno Space team of Hong Kong Productivity Council, and had worked with startups, local schools and students to push forward the progress of the STEM education network in Hong Kong. During those 2 years, Nick had coordinated various STEM and startups events, including co-organized MIT Node events, which helped build a strong relationship between him and MIT Node.

After that, Nick joined an A.I. startup, specialized in the NLP technology in Hong Kong as a Marketing Associate. Currently, Nick is developing his own startup company, responsible for business development and marketing, as well as supporting the development of education programs at the Node. He’s hoping to utilize the experience from both sides to improve himself and the startup scene in Hong Kong.

Tuan Phan

Associate Professor of Marketing, University of Hong Kong Business School

Dr. Tuan Q. Phan is an Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) Business School, in the Marketing Area and in Innovation & Information Management (IIM) Area. His research uses large and population-size datasets and spans multiple disciplines including economics, marketing, consumer behavior, computer science, and statistics. His expertise covers various industries including FinTech, retail and e-commerce, logistics and transportation, social media, news and video media, technology and consumer products, and education. His research has been published in leading scientific and management journals including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), Havard Business School Publishing (HBSP), Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing Research (JMR), and Information Systems Research (ISR). Dr. Phan was previously at National University of Singapore (NUS) for nine years where we received tenure in the Department of Information Systems & Analytics (School of Computing), and the Department of Analytics and Operations (Business School). He was also a Research Team Lead at the Institute of Application of Learning Science and Educational Technology, and affiliated with the Business Analytics Centre. He received his doctorate from Harvard Business School, and an undergraduate from MIT. He is also an entrepreneur, expert witness, sits on the boards of several companies, and frequently consults industry leaders.

Team Coaches

Zahra Kanji

MIT, Master’s in Integrated Design & Management

Zahra Kanji is a student in the Integrated Design & Management (IDM) program at MIT. Her experience spans from working in non-profits, research labs, startups and large corporations. Working with the Perkins School for the Blind, she helped redesign the brailler for the first time in over fifty years. At Apple, she worked alongside the factories in Shanghai to develop tests for the new iWatch. Outside of work, she tried her hand at starting her own startup and was a finalist at the MIT IDEAS and 100K competition. After losing in the last round by sticking to her intuition she decided it was time to up her understanding of entrepreneurship and business by joining the Startup Leadership Program (SLP) run by TIE. She taught what she learned to high school students and MBA students at Northeastern.

Outside of school, she loves being in nature and practicing meditation though she has not yet done both at the same time.

Eddie Hui

MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node Technologist-in-Residence; Lenovo Digital Innovations Lead

Eddie Hui is a Technologist-in-Residence at MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node and is the Lenovo Digital Innovations Lead. After many moons, books and algorithms, his Smart Cities and ICT consulting and architecting spree took him to many exciting locations around the world. As the Chief Architect of iconic projects like World Expo 2010 Shanghai, Cisco Greater China Headquarters, Cisco IoE Innovation Centre and Experience Centres, Eddie continues to make technologies relevant and easy to use for all. He holds a Ph.D in Computer Science and Technology specializing in Natural Language Processing from Nanjing University.

Christina Chen

MIT, B.S. ‘23, Mechanical Engineering and Management

Christina is a junior at MIT studying mechanical engineering with a concentration in computer science. She participated in MEMSI last year where she gained entrepreneurial insights and had an enjoyable time pitching an audio IOT device with her team. Christina loves hands-on projects and collaborating with a diverse mix of people with different backgrounds and disciplines. In her spare time, Christina enjoys listening to comedy podcasts and unleashing her creativity through art/videos/photos. She is excited to be a team coach to share her team-building and technology experiences so everyone has a worthwhile time.

Kelvin Chau

Graduate from HKUST Faculty of Business

Kelvin is a tech enthusiast and works in software engineering. As a curious person, he often experiments on different ways to create and nurture an idea, and often uses different ways to effectively solve problems with the aid of technology. He has been very fortunate to learn from experts in different tech sub-fields, who own or work with different cutting edge technologies and solutions. He hopes to use his knowledge and experience to help students who want to solve problems with creative solutions.

Hector Cheung

HKUST, B.Sc. Integrative and System Design

Hector is a third year undergraduate student from integrative and system design in HKUST, a program related to computer and design. He is specialised in software development, in particularly web and also knows some basic electronics. Currently he is working on a kayak navigation system for a school project, and is responsible for software development. Hector participated in MEMSI 2021, where his team was first runner up for their project on trolley management and optimisation for the Hong Kong International Airport. Hector is keen to share his knowledge learned from his project experience and leadership skills to support the new MEMSI 2021 cohort.

Lucas Her Yun Lim

CUHK, BSc Global Economics and Finance

Her Yun or Lucas, is from Malaysia with a passion for fintech and crypto. He is currently a year 4 student studying economics and finance at CUHK. He loves connecting with people and sharing ideas with a potential to change the world, and also loves reading sci-fi and biographies. He previously worked at an e-commerce startup and a virtual bank, WeLab, to deliver viral products while solving real-user pain points.

Advisors

Charlie Sodini

LeBel Professor of Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Faculty Director, Hong Kong Innovation Node

Charles G. Sodini received the B.S.E.E. degree from Purdue University in 1974 and the M.S.E.E. and the Ph.D. degrees from U.C. Berkeley in 1981 and 1982. Charlie was a member of the technical staff at HP Laboratories from 1974 to 1982 then joined the EECS faculty at MIT in 1983. His research interests are focused on low-power medical electronic systems for monitoring and imaging. Dr. Sodini was a co-founder of SMaL Camera Technologies and has served on a variety of IEEE Conference Committees, including IEDM where he was the 1989 General Chairman. He has served on the IEEE Electron Device Society Administrative Committee and was president of the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society from 2002-2004. He serves on a variety of industry boards and is a Fellow of the IEEE. Most recently, Dr. Sodini founded and leads the Medical Electronic Device Realization Center (MEDRC); which works to establish a partnership among the microelectronics industry, the medical devices industry, medical professionals, and MIT. Working together, MEDRC seeks improvements in the cost and performance of medical electronic devices similar to those that have occurred in personal computers, communication devices and consumer electronics using advanced technology with wireless sensors.

Charleston Sin

Executive Director, MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node

Charleston worked in Canada, Silicon Valley, and Greater China for 25 years, holding executive positions in System Engineering, Product Management, and Sales & Marketing at VMware, Cisco Systems and Nortel Networks. He has strong technology appreciation and understanding of key market transition trends, such as Internet/Web, Cloud Computing, Mobility, IOT, Big Data, AI/ML, and new business models. From 2011 to 2017, he was appointed by the Hong Kong SAR Government as Member of Digital 21 Strategy Advisory Committee. Charleston studied Management of Technology at the University of Waterloo in Canada where he received his PhD in Management Sciences in 1997. He also completed a Master degree in Financial Management at the HKUST in 2005.