ABOUT

Five years ago, I started my own social impact studio, where I owned everything from user research and design strategy to operations and client management. Owning these decisions (not just executing them) deepened my practice, sharpened my intuition for insights, and gave me a broader understanding of how design fits into real-world constraints.

With Hummingbird, I moved beyond designing digital interfaces into the intersection of service innovation and systems change. It challenged me to work in more complex contexts—go beyond observing isolated data to identifying patterns of behavior and their interconnections, and uncover the underlying structures that drive them. It also shifted my focus from deliverables to implementation and long-term impact.

What shaped my passion for what I do stems from my childhood. I grew up bouncing between a small rural town in China and big cities like Beijing and Hong Kong. Every year, I’d return to my hometown to visit family. Those trips made a couple of things clear: privilege is assigned at random, and beneath it all, there’s a shared humanity—a desire for love, freedom, and purpose.

As I got older, I saw how stacked the deck really is. Life doesn’t just start unfair—it’s designed to stay that way. Systems keep people down, reinforcing the same inequalities generation after generation.

That truth hits me hard. But it also drives me. I want to break those barriers and build solutions that make life easier, more enjoyable and rewarding for the people facing the toughest odds.

For me, design is the tool to do it. It cuts through the noise to find what really matters. It challenges assumptions and builds empathy. It brings people together to solve problems none of them could tackle alone. And most importantly, it amplifies the voices of those who’ve never had one.

The family I was born into

The move to Beijing completely changed my living standards