About Me Personal Statement
I am a twenty-something MIT grad student with a passion for creativity and innovation. I have over ten years of working with various forms of technology in personal, academic, and professional settings. I have a strong background in systems integration, web development, database administration, and digital media. I have experience in all major operating systems, and in many programming languages, development platforms, and software. I have lived in five countries on three continents, and am proficient in the languages of English, French and Korean.
Education School and Professional Training
In addition to my undergraduate degree, I have completed a number of professional training courses, and am currently attending graduate school at MIT.
Jun 2014
(Anticipated)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Sloan School of Management
Cambridge, MA
Master of Business Administration
MIT Sloan’s MBA program encompasses an unparalleled combination of in-depth case studies with live case discussions, stimulating collaborative projects, engrossing classes taught by exceptional faculty, extraordinary chances to interact with industry leaders, and Action Learning Lab classes.
Jan 2012
Accenture Project Management School
St. Charles, IL
Project Management school covers key project management concepts in the context of using proven industry methods, tools, knowledge, and preferred practices. Curriculum includes training on planning projects, managing resources, making decisions and ensuring the smooth flow of the project through execution.
Oct 2010
Accenture Technology Architecture School
St. Charles, IL
Technology Architecture School centers on the role of the Technology Architect and the breadth of skills needed to define and deliver architecture solutions. It focuses on applying Architecture Principles and Concerns and using Accenture Delivery Architectures.
Aug 2008
Marriott School of Management,
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT
Bachelor of Science in Information Systems
Built on a solid foundation of business courses, the curriculum advances understanding of technologies in the design and development of information systems. It develops technical expertise in systems analysis; systems design and implementation; database development and management; programming; telecommunications; networking; n-tier application development; and web application development.
Work Experience Employers and functions in time
I have been fortunate to have been employed with a number of fine institutions over the years, each of which has offered me unique experiences in which I've been able to continually cultivate my arsenal of professional, creative, and interpersonal skills.
2008-2012
Accenture San Francisco, CA
In Systems Integration Consulting I worked where technology and business intersect. I worked on large-scale projects involving implementation of new systems for a client, to help create value and meet their business goals. I was involved from the concept stage of analyzing existing processes and designing, through to delivering and integrating solutions.
2006-2008
Kennedy Center for International Studies, BYU Provo, UT
While a student at Brigham Young University, I managed and updated the Kennedy Center's website (kennedy.byu.edu,) where I developed and implemented database-driven website modules (i.e. CMS) to manage calendar events, media archive entries, and frequently changing content. I also produced several hundreds of videos featuring live lectures and presentations, which were subsequently published to the online archive I created.
Products Selected Projects and Inventions
Creation and invention are activities which characterize and define me. The following is a selection of projects, products, or inventions that I have created or developed on my own. Each is accompanied by a brief description and a general category in which they may be classified. Exhaustive explanations and/or demonstrations will be made available upon request.
Artificial Intelligence
Lyricator
Conceived September 2009
Lyricator is an artificial intelligence module which performs natural language processing operations, primarily with the intent of generating English prose. It supports the capacity to increase its vocabulary and knowledge, and learn from and adapt to human-guided corrections or collaborations, most suitably for poets and lyricists.
Algorithm
Binary Tree Relational Index Algorithm
Conceived October 2010
This algorithm creates a special index across entries in a binary tree allowing near-instant lookup of any node's relationship to any other node in the tree, along with all intermediate connecting nodes, regardless of the size or depth of the tree. This algorithm encodes every node's index with a value that is processed mathematically to reveal its location and its relationships at a fraction of the time required by standard binary search tree functions. This algorithm has proved to be particularly valuable in genealogy software.
Home Automation
"Smart House" Implementation Prototype
Conceived December 2008
This prototype combines data feeds, batch scheduling and processing, along with hardware integration in interior design to offer an automated assistance to domestic living. It features programmable morning routines, media presentations such as daily newscasts or book readings, itinerary reviews, birthday reminders weather, ambient sounds, and other ad-hoc functions through its live text-to-speech engine and other components.
Development Architecture
Multi-Envrionment Systems Monitoring Application
Released November 2009
This application was implemented in a major corporation in the tele-communications industry. It provides software developers and testers instant and up-to date visibility into the current state of each server in each system environment complete with applications deployed, build stamps, application status, up-to-dateness, and source control. It utilities base-level UNIX functions to probe file systems and gather data, and aggregates it into the application using a framework of PHP scripts.
Global Media Server
Secure Mass File Hosting Solution
Released January 2011
This media hosting package integrates with a user's home media library and makes the content available on the World Wide Web, with strict security options. This allows a user to put online terabytes worth of data that would otherwise be unfeasable to host by a third party. The system takes under consideration custom DNS service, multiple CNAME records for virtual hosts, usage tracking and logging, and prioritizes a positive remote-user experience.
Lifestyle
Predictive Health Data Processor
Conceived November 2009
Originally designed as a health tool to record historic body weight, this soon evolved into a multi-faceted application which not only shows past trends of weight, body mass index, and calorie deficit/surplus, but also analyzes statistical trends and implements differential calculus to predict health metrics at a given date in the future.
Recommendations What people are saying
I always welcome and encourage constructive feedback. The following are quotes from superiors with whom I have worked. (Full names will be made available upon request.)
Cory L. (Supervisor)
KC is incredible in that he possesses technical skills as well as 'soft' interpersonal ones, as well. He was able to think strategically and troubleshoot complex bureaucratic and technical processes, saving us on our bottom line.
Lisa D. (Manager)
From a very early stage KC was delegated full responsibility, with supervisory input coming just in the form of review input and the daily team status meetings... This has been much appreciated by the [...] Lead and has enabled her to focus on other areas that were more in need of ‘management’.
Tariq N. (Lead)
KC has made significant contributions to the entire development team with tools such as the [system] environment tracker and [...] functional reports. These tools provide great visibility into dependencies and status updates that developers use on a very routine basis. By developing these tools and providing improved functionality, KC effectively gauges the needs of the developers and testers and is able to provide useful capabilities in an effective manner.
Skills and Abilities What I am capable of
Through the years, I have obtained and developed a substantial skills set which has empowered me to pursue my educational, vocational, and personal endeavors. Here is a succinct summary.
Technical
Programming, Scripting, and Markup Languages
(X/D)HTML, XML, Java, PHP, Unix Shell, Perl, SQL, JavaScript (incl. AJAX,) CSS, RSS, XPath, RegEx, AppleScript, Oracle DAL, C, TI-BASIC; object oriented, functional, and procedural programming
Tools and Platforms
iTKO LISA, IBM WebSphere MQ, Jenkins CI, Maven, Drupal, Wordpress, Joomla, CakePHP, phpMyAdmin, Facebook Developer Platform, Zend Framework, Google Data API’s
Operating Systems, Software, and IDE’s
Windows (XP, Server 2003, Vista, 7), Mac OS X, Linux (CentOS, Redhat, Fedora, Ubuntu), Unix (AIX), IIS, Apache, MySQL, Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, TextMate, Maya, Netbeans, Final Cut Pro, etc.
Cross-Cultural
Management
I have been in the leadership of multiple offshore teams of workers, two of which were located in Mumbai, India; one of which was located in Pune, India; and one whose members were scattered across southern Asia and the Pacific, ranging from Pakistan to the Philippines. In each case, taking the time to raise my sensitivity to the cultural differences proved to be essential to collaborating effectively. I also had the chance to travel to India to work directly with one of the teams, an experience which was immensely eye opening.
Exposure
Apart from professional travels, various other life circumstances have placed me in other parts of the world; through the course of my childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, I lived for 6 years in francophone Belgium, 1 year in France, 2 years in Germany, and 2 years in Korea. In each instance, I had immersive or near-immersive cultural exposure, and made many friends and associates from across the cultural, racial, and socio-economic spectrums, gaining a sense of respect and admiration for each person based on their own qualities, and for each culture on its own terms.
Languages
Through my native and international experiences, I have become fluent in English, French, and Korean. I have also done some study and/or had some learning exposure to German, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, Arabic, and Thai.
Artistic
Film
I have a long-time hobby of filmmaking, which allows me to work at the convergence of cinematography, performing arts, writing, story-telling, film editing, musical scoring, and production management. I have entered multiple film festivals, and several of my portfolio pieces have received international media recognition or awards.
Music
I have studied and practiced music since childhood; I am a deft pianist, specializing in improvisation, playing by ear, and composition. I incorporate technical skills into my music, routinely recording multi-track pieces via MIDI technology, which empowers me to post-process, refine, mix and publish my compositions and arrangements.
