Transcriber: Mohand Habchi Reviewer: Elisabeth Buffard
Kevin Hussey: I am a technical group supervisor,
which is the lowest form of management at JPL.
And I am proud of it.
My joy this evening is to introduce a young man,
that I have a privilege of hiring,
after being assigned a very ambitious project called,
"Eyes on the Solar System".
It's a project to allow you to explore the solar system
using your web browser.
But I needed somebody.
So I asked another one of our young engineers,
"Hey, do you know anybody that can program well?"
He said, "Sure,
you should talk to my friend Jon."
So I spoke with Jon, I hired him,
and assigned him this project
just to bide this time while the other programmers finished,
"The Eyes on the Earth".
But in the short time that Jon was given this project,
he worked so hard and so well that he established himself,
as the team lead,
and went on to design and be the chief developer of a piece of software
that he is going to demonstrate to you shortly.
So without further delay, I would like to introduce Jon Nguyen.
(Applause)
Jon Nguyen: Hi everyone.
As mentioned, I am Jon Nguyen.
I have been working for JPL for about a year now.
And to be honest,
I am actually working at the organization that I've dreamed of working for.
When I tell young students like yourselves advice,
advice for school,
I always try to tell them, "Join a student group,
join a student group."
And there's two good reasons for that.
One is you learn a lot in your classes.
You learn a lot in your classes.
And until you actually apply that knowledge that you've learned,
you haven't really learn it yet.
And thiese students groups are great
because they give you a means
to apply what you learned in students projects.
So the group that I joined,
well, we made a plane,
we did aerospace engineering and we made a plane.
That was our project.
All the student groups, they made rockets.
And when they actually applied that knowledge,
they knew it spot on.
The second reason why student groups are great is
the people you meet, the friends you meet ,
the connections you make.
And you've got to realize something:
the connections you make generate opportunities down the line.
And I have two personal examples about that.
So when I was a student at UCLA,
JPL was looking for an academic part-time hire.
Well, they contacted a student group organizer at UCLA,
who forwarded to a student group leader,
who forwarded to another student group leader,
who happened to be my friend in AIAA.
He forwarded the email to me,
and immediately when I saw JPL on there,
I sent my resume off.
Because, I want to work for JPL, that's what I want to do.
And luckily they accepted me,
and I did active part-time internship at UCLA,
sorry, at JPL.
And I did that for nine months as a systems engineer
on the Mars science laboratory.
And think about this,
I was a young student and I got to do systems engineering
on the Mars science laboratory,
that was that big six-wheel rover that Jim Adam showed,
I got to work on that and it was incredible.
Now, that only lasted nine months,
because I had to go back to UCLA and finish my education,
I wanted to graduate, of course!
And I graduated June 2009,
and the problem is June 2009,
that's in a global recession.
And JPL couldn't guarantee me a job after I graduated.
A lot of us, a lot of my friends, we were anxious,
we weren't sure if we were going to have a job.
Well, I was actually lucky enough,
to have a job offer when I graduated.
But the thing was, it wasn't for JPL.
It was for another engineering firm,
and it wasn't in aerospace, but I love aerospace.
And so I took a gamble,
I told myself, you know what,
this passion means so much to me,
that I actually turned down that job offer.
Luckily, I have pretty supportive parents,
but my friends, they thought I was crazy,
because, you know, it was really hard to get a job,
they told me, "You should taken that."
Well, I was unemployed, obviously,
and I was unemployed for about six months,
but I want to go back to why connections are so important.
Six months into my unemployment, a friend called me,
just as Kevin mentioned,
my friend Anton, he's an old high school friend.
He called me and he said,
"You know what,
our group is looking for a new programmer,
do you think you can do it?
I jumped right on,
it was at JPL, it was in programming which I love,
and it had to do with space.
Of course, I got to jump on that.
And so I got the job, as Kevin mentioned,
and we have been working for the past
about a year,
working on The Eyes on the Solar System program.
And so now I have kind of come full circle,
because as a kid,
I was inspired to be a space enthusiast
because of those pretty pictures.
Well, now I am in a position to inspire a whole new generation
of space enthusiasts, hopefully you guys are here,
because I'm working on Eyes on the Solar System.
And I hope that after seeing the solar system for yourselves,
you'll be inspired as I was when I was a kid.
Thank you.
(Applause)