Career Path of a Co Founder at Lost Abroad
Jack's career path is "a bit of a convoluted one," starting with biomedical science and a master's in qualitative genetics, but ultimately shifting towards education after realizing their passion lay in "being a little bit more people facing." This led to a series of roles—from a medical device company to a high school teacher—culminating in the creation of Lost Abroad, a language learning game born from a desire to "meet learners where they are" and gamify education.
Career Exploration, Overcoming Challenges, Entrepreneurship, Education, International Experience
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Jack (Xinkang) Du
Co-Founder, Principal Educator/Chief Education Officer, CMO
Lost Abroad (lostabroadgame.com)
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. 2009
Bachelor of Science with Honors (Master's equivalent in commonwealth countries): marine biology and quantitative genetics/marine biology, 2012; Graduate Diploma of Teaching, 2015, both are from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management, 2022
Business Management & Admin
Education
Entrepreneurship and Business Owner
International Student, Honors Student, Scholarship Recipient, Took Out Loans, Immigrant
Video Highlights
1. Jack's career path highlights a willingness to adapt and explore different fields while staying true to his passions. He transitioned from biomedical science research to education, recognizing his skills and interests are better suited to a more people-facing role. This highlights the importance of self-awareness in career choices.
2. His experience at the 2014 Youth Olympic Games provided an unexpected opportunity to work with diverse teenagers from around the world, inspiring him to pursue a career in education. This shows how unexpected experiences can lead to significant career shifts and new opportunities.
3. Jack's entrepreneurial journey, from identifying a gap in the education system to founding his own company, illustrates the value of creative problem-solving and taking risks to achieve your goals. He combined his passion for education with his understanding of how people learn today, showing the importance of innovation in addressing educational challenges.
Transcript
Could you walk me through your career path? Start with your experiences in college, any internships, or jobs you had before your current role.
My career path is a bit convoluted. I was born and raised in China and moved to New Zealand at 19. I've always loved biology, especially animals.
I started my undergrad in biomedical science in New Zealand. Then I did a summer internship at the Malaghan Institute, a top medical research institute there, focusing on tumor research. I enjoyed it, but decided to pursue a master's in qualitative genetics, leaning more towards marine biology. My passion has always been with animals, but I continued on a research path.
During my master's, I did some fish research. Afterward, I realized my personality was more social than I'd expected. Spending days in a lab with only a few people didn't seem like the path I wanted for my life.
I wondered how I could preserve my passion for science while being more people-facing. That's when I joined a medical device company, a Fortune 500 from the US, working in their Chinese division as an application specialist. My experience using medical and research equipment during my internship and master's helped me get the job.
Unfortunately, I quit after a year. I discovered they were offering kickbacks, essentially bribery, to Chinese doctors to buy their equipment. This conflicted with my principles, so I left.
I then took a random job as the manager of the information center at the 2014 Youth Olympic Games. It was a bit crazy, but this opportunity allowed me to work with nearly 4,000 teenage athletes from 300 countries. I thought, "Maybe I can teach science in high school."
So, I went back to university to study teaching for a year. I then became a high school science and Mandarin Chinese teacher in a rural New Zealand high school. The school had never had a Chinese teacher.
During that time, I realized the way we've been teaching kids hasn't changed in almost a hundred years. Today's kids want to play games and watch TikTok; they can't focus for long. I felt we needed to meet learners where they are.
That's when I conceived the idea of building something gamified for education. However, I lacked business experience, so I decided to apply to the MBA program. After completing my MBA and meeting my co-founders, I'm now running my own company, "Lotto Brass," a language learning game.
It's a convoluted path, but you can see a realization process along the way. No step was wasted; everything came together for a reason. You have to act on those realizations for them to happen.