Team Spotlight: Introducing Hanbo

Every week we ask a Terra team member to let us know who they are. Here's Hanbo:

What wearables do you use?

I used to have the Huawei GT2 watch, but recently I've been testing CardioMood as they sent us some cool samples of their new biometric wearable. I like the CardioMood watch, and it's one of our integrations too.

What are some of your favorite activities?

I have been training for archery for quite a while and am an active member of the archery club at Imperial College London. I also love spending time outdoors and hiking, which I did a lot back in New Zealand. Since I got to Terra, I've also been pushed to go to the gym a bit more often, haha.

Speaking of Imperial, what are you studying, and are you involved in other societies there?

I'm currently a 2nd-year student at Imperial studying MEng Electrical and Information Engineering. I was one of the youngest people to get an offer from Imperial and was awarded the President's Undergraduate Scholarship. I'm also the treasurer of the Imperial Symphony orchestra, and I play the violin there.

Where did you grow up, and how did you end up in the United Kingdom?

So I was born in Shanghai, but I moved to New Zealand when I was about 10, and I went to intermediate school and high school in New Zealand. I was always very competitive and driven to perform well at school in New Zealand, which brought me to the United Kingdom. I competed in various academic competitions while representing New Zealand internationally.

... that's really cool. Could you highlight some of these competitions?

Sure, I'll try to list a few:

• I was 1 of 5 students to represent New Zealand in the International Young Physicist tournament; we came 3rd overall
• I won gold in New Zealand for the Chemistry Olympiad and silver in New Zealand for the Mathematics Olympiad
• I was first in the world in AS mathematics and AS thinking skills, and 1st in New Zealand in English general paper and A-level thinking skills.

How are you finding the transition from New Zealand to the UK?

The transition was not that hard, as being in a big and busy city is very exciting. The culture is also pretty similar to Auckland, New Zealand, where I'm from, in terms of the people here. So, for example, when I went to the United States, it was much more of a culture shock than moving to the United Kingdom.

Is the food here as good as back home?

The food here is generally good with a lot of great restaurants and stuff, but I miss some staples from back home.

What's your favorite food?

That must be Xiao long bao: it's basically like a steamed soup dumpling.

It's pretty hard to find good places that sell it in London, but one pretty good place is Shanghai Modern in Chinatown - it gets quite close, in my opinion.

How did you end up at Terra?

I went to a talk by Kyriakos, Raouf, and Alex at Imperial. Initially, I just wanted to ask them about Y-Combinator stuff, but once they started explaining more about Terra, I got really interested and asked if they had any job openings. Then I guess they liked me enough to give me an offer, haha.

Do you find it difficult to pursue a full-time degree at Imperial while working part-time at Terra?

I knew that I wanted to extend myself beyond the scope of school work and lectures to enhance my skills in a real-time setting, so I asked myself - why don't I use my free time to have a part-time job? The cool thing about working at Terra is that I'm given a lot of responsibilities. For example, I'm heading a few of my own projects at Terra, and I'm actually allowed to lead the engineering side of our product meetings. So if you're a student looking to be challenged and learn at an exponential rate, I can highly recommend Terra!

What do you think is the future of wearables?

I think as technology improves and people are prioritizing it more; I predict that everyone is going to use it (wearables) at some point, that it will become sort of what the smartphone is today - I believe everyone will use some type of wearable in the future.