I’m the founder and CEO of MinorMynas
I’m 13 year old and I’m from Hong Kong
MinorMynas is a global kids community
Where we provide a real-life learning experience for us to chat and learn from each other
And now we have more than 5,000 downloads in roughly 50 countries
The idea first came around when I went to learn some Mandarin
I was in a place where we saw people from all over the world
It was then I thought about the language, the language aspect
I personally came up with the idea
And then we found a tech company to help us build the code
The app took 6 months to complete from September of 2016
And we launched the app last year in May
The heart of MinorMynas is in the group chats
For example in the riddle group, we just ask riddles
In the nature group, we’re talking about all the things in our daily lives
These groups are in love with different languages
They are really active with teaching
Right now we are in front of a small team
Honestly it’s my entire family
During the process I was pretty hands on
We were having pretty regular meetings with the tech guys while we talked about the progress of the app
Once I saw the interaction between the kids on our APP
I realize there’s so much more than just language
I believe that the best way to connect societies and different people is through children
Because we are still young and we are still open-minded
The only thing that sets me apart from other 13 or 14-year-old girls
Is that I know absolutely nothing about celebrities
I’m not very into boys
My parents are really open-minded
Since I was really really young, they were reading a lot of books to me
And trying to raise me to be as creative and critical as possible
If I want to make a decision like, when I left school
At the time I was being bullied really badly at school
We had a lot of conversations about it
Suddenly she had bad dreams at night
And couldn’t sleep well
Then she told us
Other kids like talking about stars, makeup, boys and girls or so
But Hilary is different. She doesn’t like those stuff
She likes reading and talks about some in-depth topics
Other children can’t understand her at all
She was the last one to leave the middle school every day
Because she hided in the restroom to avoid seeing others
Finally I found her pulling her own hair
I told my husband “We’re definitely taking her out”
She can choose what to learn according to her own level when she studies at home
She and her younger brother often felt it was slow in school
So I decide to also bring him out and make them study together
When she’s busy doing her things, she’s happy again
Back to the girl she used to be
Predominantly I have two hobbies
One is reading. I spend as much time possible reading as I can
I sneakily read after bed time
Sorry mommy
So this book is called The Everything Store
And it’s about Amazon and Jeff Bezos as an entrepreneur
This is one book that really stuck for me
And it tells me a lot of strategies
The way Jeff Bezos handles his employees and the way he communicates with other people
Debating is another one of my favorite things to do
Because debating lets you have analytical look on everything in the world
So I’ve got quite a few mentors and entrepreneurs which I meet
Sometimes they can go twice every two weeks, or once a week
I tend to be the youngest person there
One is in biotech and another one is working on accelerators
The best thing about being a CEO
Is that you make the final choice
But I say that drawback is exactly the same
Because the consequences of the choice will be all on you
If you ask me whether this question one year ago
I’d say that I would definitely go to university in this particular country
But now which I’m still proud about
University prepares you for the real world
And walks you out to the real world
Which I think I’m already doing now with MinorMynas
College, if you go and look at the vast majority
They just want ordinary jobs and live very ordinary lives