The journey
The foreigner who stayed
I graduated as a chemical engineer and walked into an ophthalmology company while my peers went to oil and gas. I was a foreigner in every sense — wrong field, wrong vocabulary, wrong assumptions. A doctor once told me, "I don't need you coming here." I went home and cried. Then I came back. Over time, I became a trusted partner to clinicians, the first specialist sent to ZEISS headquarters in Germany, and the person who turned "I don't need you" into something worth building on.
Carl Zeiss Indonesia Ophthalmology Field specialistMaking firsts happen
Promoted into product management. Then moved to Jakarta Eye Center — a network of 10+ hospitals — where I learned what it means to make things happen at scale. Indonesia's first free glaucoma implant surgery program, serving 100 low-income patients. The first in-house laser vision correction training. The first national hospital residency program. All required navigating hierarchy, building alliances, and doing operational work that no one would acknowledge publicly. I learned that impact doesn't need applause.
JEC Eye Hospitals Program design Multi-site rolloutChasing the north star
UC Berkeley. A Master's in Development Engineering, concentrating in AI and data analytics. I came in wanting to pivot to energy. I ended up back in healthcare — but now I could see the whole system. At EyePACS, I analyzed 80,000+ patient records and mapped real-world AI adoption barriers across 100+ clinics. I stopped asking "can I build this?" and started asking "is the ground ready, and who needs to walk with me?"
UC Berkeley MDevEng EyePACS AI implementation