Member Spotlight: Blueprint President Nick Yang
UW Blueprint is a student run club that provides top-tier tech for non-profit organizations. Founded at the University of Waterloo 3 years ago, we could not have provided strong partnerships with NPO’s without the dedication, passion, and time of our members. We’ll be spotlighting different members and teams. Some will be the returning members of Blueprint, having worked on several projects, and some will be new to the team as of a month ago, just starting their work with Blueprint.
Welcome to our first team spotlight of the term! Nick is a second year Computer Science student, serving as the Spring 2019 President of Blueprint. He heard about Blueprint upon Blueprint in his 2A term and since then, he has worn many different hats.
To Nick, Blueprint’s main appeal is that its projects have a direct social impact and he and every other member is able to see that first-hand. Every team on Blueprint collaborates with a charity or social enterprise that serves a specific cause. Since our inception in 2016, we’ve worked with The Somo Project, Friends of the Earth, Wikitongues, and Best Friends. In his starting days on Blueprint, Nick was a developer and a project manager working with Plastics for Change, whose goal was to stabilize the income of waste-pickers in India. Blueprint’s immediate social impact is one of the reasons that he and many others have remained in the Blueprint family.
The beginning
Nick took an interest in social good long before he joined Blueprint. As a high school student in Edmonton, he organized a club to volunteer for local charities. He worked with the homeless, with inner-city youth, and with abused children. While volunteering, he realized that technology could be a valuable tool to create positive social impact. It could help connect charities with those they wish to help, and make charitable services more readily and widely available. So to explore the intersection of social work and technology, Nick enrolled in the University of Waterloo’s Computer Science program. It was by chance that he discovered Blueprint in a passing conversation with some upper-year students.
The development
Blueprint is a club where its members are encouraged to learn and grow within small, supportive teams. Nick has gone through his own share of development (pun intended). Starting as a developer, Nick learned indispensable technical skills like git; something he hadn’t touched in school or work just yet. However, that was not the only avenue of development he took. His project team at Plastics for Change gave him an invaluable opportunity to develop his collaboration skills, and opportunity where he learned that teamwork makes the dream work. During a work term, Nick met with another Blueprint developer for a four-hour coding marathon to get a project done on time for their non-profit, their work was intensive and exhausting. The next day his eyes burned, but the shared commitment among members of Blueprint towards a common mission was unmistakable to him.
The present
The art of decision making has been on Nick’s mind recently. When starting as president, Nick suffered from decision anxiety. He doubted himself even after committing to a decision; he felt like there was never enough information to justify the choices he made for Blueprint. The turning point for him was when he realized that constantly searching for more information was a detriment to himself. Eventually he realized in his position, he had to make a decision, even with limited information, and take responsibility for whatever followed.
Nick found that the lessons he learned at Blueprint were readily applicable at work. He has gained sympathy for those on projects who called the shots. They are forced to make decisions even with insufficient information. Nick often find himself empathizing with them, anticipating what kind of information they would need. The lessons he has learned have made him a better team member.
The future
In 10 years from now, Nick hopes to still be contributing to social good, although it is difficult for him to say what his role will be. He hopes to try his hand at being a designer, a developer, and a manager. With Blueprint, he’s has great opportunities to gain experience in many different roles and translate that into the workplace.
In case you didn’t hear…
We’re looking for new talent for our Fall 2019 team! If you’re passionate about social change and looking to contribute your knowledge of development, design, or project management to a group of awesome UW students, apply here!
