Elaine Truong on Leading a Tech Movement - E4

Elaine Truong is the first product technical product manager at Facebook Singapore. Facebook  connects 241 million Southeast Asians and one interesting difference is that 94% use Facebook through mobile. She's worked on connecting people in developing countries to the internet, 5G and virtual reality as well as the latest products by Facebook and Instagram. Elaine mentors startups around the world on product management and development for the Facebook Accelerator program. She is also on the Products A to Z committee at Grace Hopper Conference and is an advisor at #BuiltByGirls. She had previously launched Facebook's telecom infrastructure project and the associated Community Labs globally in partnership with Nokia, Intel, and telcos to promote open source hardware for telecom infrastructure solutions. Elaine is also an active tech community builder and an investor in startups and venture capital funds. She is on the board of SoGal Foundation, the largest community for over 100,000 female founders and investors across 50 chapters around the world. SoGal focuses on supporting diverse founders and funders to close the diversity gap in entrepreneurship and venture capital. She shared her product learnings with entrepreneurs in Cuba, Indonesia, Mexico, UK, and Singapore. She has cofounded Sprouts, consultancy to coach Singaporean startups on regional expansion to Southeast Asia. Recently, she coached Vouch.sg, a local Singaporean startup that builds localized chatbots for Southeast Asia. Prior to Facebook, she advised an IIT Bombay team that invented a device that costs less than 1 USD to eliminate smoke emissions from firewood cookstoves. It offers increased energy efficiency, reduced cooking time, and lowers harmful emissions. The pilot projects in Mumbai distributed over 2000 units. The team was a semifinalist at the DBS-NUS Social Venture Challenge, featured as a Next Generation Startup by Inc. Magazine and was a Kairos Society Top 50 company in 2014. Elaine is a member of the selective Sandbox community, a mobile society of trailblazers. They unlock human potential by bridging geographies and disciplines to create opportunities for meaningful conversation, collaboration, and discovery. She is also a global fellow at Kairos, a community that builds and funds companies to make life more affordable. They focus on critical life stages where old industries have failed to meet the needs of everyday individuals around the world. Elaine was born and bred in Los Angeles. She has a Bachelor of Science in Materials Engineering at UCLA, the University of California: Los Angeles. She enjoys traveling, reading, and learning Mandarin. Read the show notes and transcript here at https://www.jeremyau.com/blog/elaine-truong You can find our community discussions for this episode at https://club.jeremyau.com/c/podcasts/4-elaine-truong-product-technical-program-manager-facebook