#experiencewithoutboundaries

Kelly Chu has had an interest in the sciences from an early age, but by no means was this her only passion. Inspired by the insight and knowledge passed on by family members, Kelly learned the value of combining soft skills and business acumen with hard, scientific knowledge and the opportunities such a combination would create. With these multifaceted interests, the Dual Degree Program in Technology & Management (T&M-DDP) was a natural choice.

Excelling in her chosen fields—BSc in Biotechnology and BBA in General Business Management—Kelly graduated in 2020, completing the five-year program in just four years. The experience served to prepare her for a management traineeship at a healthcare solutions provider.

While many students in the T&M-DDP seek a wide range of internship experiences, Kelly chose instead to hone her leadership, communication and presentation skills by engaging in various enrichment activities. As in her second year, when she represented HKUST at the renowned International Generally Engineered Machine Competition (iGEM) in Boston, U.S., and won a gold medal in the field of Biosafety Regulation for Genetically Engineered Food. Kelly drew upon her technical expertise, and combined this with her business strengths in budgeting and financial planning and project management.

The following year, Kelly entered the iGEM as a project lead on a multicultural team. Continuing to demonstrate her strengths in science and business processes, workflows and operations, Kelly’s team earned a gold medal award for their project, providing one-stop solutions in waste management while simultaneously creating renewable energy.

While Kelly has known her strengths and passions from an early age, pursuing her chosen career path was not without its obstacles. She recognises that other more popular, conventional pathways—such as investment banking and consultancy—are considered more prestigious among peers and are likely to be more financially rewarding. However, with clear passions and a drive to succeed in the field of biotechnology, Kelly has been able to pursue her path without regret.

In her penultimate year, Kelly sought work experience at a medical device start-up that focused on developing diagnostic solutions. In the era of Covid-19, this took on particular importance, as the company endeavoured to contribute solutions to early and immediate detection of time-sensitive and life-threatening diseases.

During her internship, Kelly gained diverse experiences. She contributed to the start-up’s research and safety and emergency procedures, as well as the assessments of new medical devices and their functions, analysing not only the technical aspects of the products but also contributing to market research and data. Kelly found the most satisfaction in creating an efficiency review on the microarray production protocol, and how to optimise the use of this laboratory tool. Kelly’s experiences allowed her to demonstrate the ways in which the skills developed during her Dual Degree Program could be used in tandem to create impactful work that benefits society.

Kelly’s tireless commitment and self-starting attitude helped her make an impression in the business, and she was offered a Management Trainee position after graduation.

In her traineeship, Kelly has been assisting her manager in day-to-day operations of the project in developing a COVID-19 rapid test kit, working tirelessly to streamline processes for different departments, from research and design to production and marketing. Adapting to sudden changes and unexpected problems, Kelly worked with her team to create innovative solutions for the COVID-19 rapid test kit, and much to her pride, the product has since launched on the market to help fight the pandemic. Kelly will continue her biotech journey and hopes to create more positive impacts in society.