HEER LIN COMPRESSED IN A SITE

At the end of J1, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and join the Youth Action Challenge alone. I repeatedly pushed myself to experience new things - networking to form a group of like-minded individuals to create a project from scratch, learning more about the business world and the complexities of enterprising, giving a product pitch, applying for grants, budgeting and many more. 

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Under the challenge statement of helping our elderly to age physically and mentally well, my group decided to explore a medication-reminder device for the elderly living alone and lacking social support. We wanted to harness technology to improve the quality of the elderly’s lives, adding a human touch to the product to make it more approachable for the elderly. 

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Although we did get a grant eventually, our project eventually halted as our team members entered different phases of life. Despite that, I learnt and grew so much from the experience. 

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I think my main takeaway from the experience is probably when my mentor told me to “just try, apologise later”. I never realised that I feared messing up to the point that it was stopping me from trying out my ideas, and it was even harder to share my opinions as I was working with people who were so much more experienced than I was. My mentor's advice reminded me that it is okay to take calculated risks here and there and that while I can check-in and ask for advice, nobody will be able to guarantee results until I actually test my hypothesis out. Sometimes, life requires a little trial and error, and I think that was the biggest lesson from my YAC experience.