Part Two
TOWER cranes lured her back. Ten years ago Katrina Rausa Chan graduated at the Carnegie Mellon University with a degree in materials science and engineering with additional major in business administration.
But the United States was still reeling from an economic recession and tensions against immigrants were running high.
A Christmas trip to her homeland one day gave her a different view: tower cranes everywhere, she said.
In an e-mail interview with the BusinessMirror, Chan, now 28 and the current executive director of Qbo Innovation Hub, bared her journey from an atmosphere of recession to a budding ecosystem of start-ups in the Philippines.
In this Q&A, Chan also shared the roots of her patriotism, planted during her life as a student of the Philippine Science High School (PSHS) fondly called by alumni as “Pisay”.
How did you develop the passion for science in your younger years?
Ever since I could remember, I’ve been really curious about how everything works. I enjoy figuring things out. I was never the stereotypical nerdy/science kid (I went to parties, liked arts and fashion, played sports and music and had quite a myriad of interests. (Also,) both my parents were lawyers so I think most people assumed when I was younger I’d follow in that path and didn’t necessarily expect that I’d be working in technology as a grown-up.
I did love reading, looking things up (on the encyclopedia in the 1990s!) and also trying to build stuff or conduct experiments. It wasn’t a conscious thing, but I found it fun and satisfying to solve puzzles and discover more things about the world, and I still do to this day.
On hindsight, I think what’s interesting and special about STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), more than what niche you actually end up specializing in, is the way of thinking or approach that it espouses. The scientific method is propelled by ideas—theories and hypotheses, but ultimately grounded by observations and experiments—the discipline of an evidence-based approach. It never gets boring just because there’s always more left to explore and each answer leads to an endless number of new questions.
What inspired you to study in Philippine Science High School (Pisay)?
It’s a funny story, but Pisay is really a happy accident that ended up changing the course of my life. I actually took the Pisay exam on a whim since somebody mentioned it was a tough test, just to see if I’d pass. Again, I was a curious kid, but I didn’t see myself then as a “science” person.
Since Pisay is high school only, all of the kids that matriculate there are technically “transfer students,” (from every conceivable province in country, because the system then encouraged the entrance exam top scorers to go to the main as opposed to regional campuses) so they conduct a two-week orientation in advance of when classes formally start everywhere else, to get everyone onboard.
I was actually already enrolled in ICA (a private all-girls school where I studied elementary) but I lived 10 minutes to 15 minutes away from the Pisay campus in Quezon City and didn’t really have other plans. Plus, all Pisay students get a free full scholarship, so I figured there was no harm in making new friends and hanging out at Pisay for a couple of weeks during orientation before “real school” started in earnest. I never looked back from that orientation week and ended up graduating with High Honors from Pisay in 2007.
No doubt Pisay was one of my life’s most transformative periods.
How would you describe your stay in Pisay?
Enlightening. High school is when people come of age, but Pisay really helped me understand myself and grow as a person. The facilities were definitely terrible compared to what I was used to coming from a private school.
You couldn’t buy your own new books, but instead borrowed these really old, used ones; the grass on the football field was mostly brown, and so patchy you could trip on rocky spots if you weren’t careful. What ultimately made me stay, though, and what really made the difference, were the people.
Our entire faculty was highly accomplished and knew their stuff. They were passionate not only about the subjects they were teaching, but also that their students were really learning.
More than that, however, was my fellow students. I didn’t really realize until I entered Pisay, how sheltered my life thus far had been. It was in Pisay that I understood what a meritocracy really meant. Unlike earlier in my life when I felt that a large part of my identity was based on how my peers judged what brand handbags I was wearing, or which boys invited me to which parties, in Pisay, nobody cared about that superficial stuff. Boy or girl, farmer’s kid or tycoon’s kid, provincial dormer or Manila urbanite, it didn’t matter once you entered the classroom. You were assessed on the merit of your work.
I made the most unexpected and profound friendships with young people of very diverse backgrounds that I otherwise perhaps would never have had the opportunity to meet—my classmates challenged, pushed and supported me. I was indelibly changed. After Pisay, I knew I wanted to make a difference for the country and open up opportunities for people who have commitment and talent, and are just hungry for a shot.
This greatly influenced my approach when building QBO.
To be continued
