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I'm Yvan (pronounced like "even"). I spent the first 9 years of my life in Taiwan, then 9 more in Guam, where I met my greatest mentor — my robotics club advisor. Her guidance gave me direction: I rallied teams of students to compete in STEM competitions from drone design to underwater robotics, and the long conversations about the future of technology convinced me I could make a difference.
I was fortunate to receive a full ride to Northwestern University as a QuestBridge Scholar. I came in as a manufacturing and design engineering major — it seemed like the perfect major to build things. Then the pandemic hit, the machine shop closed, and I pivoted to computer science. Turns out most startups are software startups anyway, so that worked out.
In college I co-founded BearRoom, led HCI research, interned at Microsoft, and spent a summer at Techstars Chicago learning about product-market fit alongside 12 startup founders. After graduating magna cum laude, I joined Microsoft full-time on the Loop Canvas team (now M365 Copilot Pages), where I've shipped features used by millions — Citations, Copilot Shortcuts, and more.
Own Citations, Copilot Shortcuts, Hyperlinks, Dates, and Commanding Surfaces on M365 Copilot Pages. Shipped features from concept to production for a collaborative editor used by 20M+ people. Attended customer calls with Duke Energy and Coca-Cola. Pioneered an expedited accessibility test pass process.
Supported 12 portfolio companies through Techstars' accelerator program. Sat in on mentoring sessions and documented Jobs-to-Be-Done analyses, learning firsthand how reframing the customer's core job transforms product direction.
Automated benchmark comparison reporting in C# .NET for the M365 Core Substrate Directory team. Conducted pilot stress tests for domain controller performance.
Led a 5-engineer team to ship Jackbox-style multiplayer web games. Ruthlessly scoped the MVP, shipped 3 games, acquired 100+ MAU, and raised $12K in non-dilutive capital.
Led research on location-based prompts for long-distance friendship building. Pilot tested with 24 participants. Won $1K in research funding.
Built an eICU frontend prototype at ezClinic. Produced product marketing videos for ECG test solutions at WhaleTeq in Taipei.