[MUSIC]
My name is Amanda.
I am a fourth year undergrad at Stanford studying product design.
This past Summer, I was working through Stanford at KM Best medical works
which is a durable medical equipment company in India.
They manufacture a lot of equipment that you'd associate with being in hospitals,
hospital beds, and wheel chairs, and tables, and and
other things that are important to the hospital experience.
The main project I was working on with KM Best
was designing an affordable modular home care bed.
In India, for example, it is a cultural norm that when your parents get old,
you won't likely ship them off to a nursing home or have them in a facility.
You'll take care of them at home.
There's a big opportunity, for example,
for hospital beds being brought into a home environment, for
ease of taking care of elderly people and patients who are recovering at home.
And I was working with KM Best on a design project to understand what that exactly
might look like from a product perspective and also a business perspective.
There are so many opportunities to pursue during Summers as a Stanford student,
it can be very overwhelming.
I think I've always been the kind of person who has been a little bit uncertain
about what I wanted to pursue and I think that, what was really unique about Seed
and what ultimately made me choose Seed is the opportunity to work
in a general field, but in a completely different context.
And I think that is what I thought was going to be so valuable.
The opportunity to take something that's a little bit familiar, and
work on that kind of project in a completely new environment is so
educational and those are skills that are going to last for a last lifetime as I
come back to the States and pursue opportunities a little closer to home.
It was a really fantastic experience for me in learning that,
there's not one way to get work done, there's not one way to act in the office,
there's not one way to be productive and work as a team.
It really just depends the working styles that your team members
are comfortable with.
And that was such a great experience for
me this Summer, working in an entirely different style and
learning to be a little bit more flexible in how I approach these things.
The biggest impact that I had with campus was bringing an overall
philosophy that about design and engineering that was a little bit
different than what they had done in the past.
I think that the small way that I hope I contributed this Summer is
in bringing just a different approach to design.
It was so gratifying to come in and propose a few ideas like hey,
what if we went out and had some interviews with the customers.
To figure out what they want in this kind of home care bed.
And everyone was like yes, this is amazing.
Tell me more, I'd love to learn more about how you do design interviews and
really establish empathy with users.
So, that was really gratifying, that the learning was very much a two way street.
The very last day I was in the office, we had the physical prototype,
the CEO was like all right, like let's test this out.
Let's see what else we want to change for the next iteration.
And then it was like me, and 15 middle aged Indian engineer men, all standing
around this bed, all taking turns, like getting in it, like lying down, reclining,
seeing if it was smooth and comfortable, if it could bear weight correctly.
And there was just such joy and fun.
And then at the end of that experience, my director, superior and also the the CEO
were gracious enough to present me with the certificate of completion of
this internship project, which I still have hanging on my wall, in my dorm today.
There is a warmth to Indian culture that I found incredibly welcoming and
found myself missing a lot actually in the US.
I was spending my entire time in India, essentially strangers.
The people I worked with and the friends I met around the city, but the whole time,
I think I was welcomed in, things that I was so
worried we're going to be a massive imposition like could you show me around
this hospital or could you sit down for me, with me for a quick interview?
Things I was very worried to even ask about, people were so
willing to offer it without me even asking and I think that was incredibly
wonderful in a new place where I didn't know people having that support.
I really did feel like I was supported and cared for by the people in my company and
the people in the community broadly.
But what I'm really grateful for
with the Stanford Seed program is that I know I've been equipped
with skills that will serve me no matter what career I do at any time in my life.
The capacity to be flexible, the capacity to work with, and influence,
and learn from people who are different than you.
The capacity to travel and be comfortable conducting business and new context.
Those are just invaluable skills that are infinitely transferable to really any
field at any time.
[MUSIC]