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Organizing Team

Adam Nguyen, Head of Operations

Adam has held several positions at Rakuten Inc., the latest of which is Project Manager in the New Service Development Office, PMO Section, overseeing initiatives from the CEO. He also holds the youngest Board Member position for the Harvard Club of Japan where he plans events for alumni and is a member of the United States College Alumni Network of Japan where he supports events that encourages Japanese students to study abroad. Prior to coming to Japan, he also had work experiences in China, Vietnam, and the United States. In his spare time, he enjoys coding for data science in R, SQL, and Python. He holds an A.B. in Economics from Harvard University.
Duc Doba, Head of Hacker Experience

Duc is a mobile & web software engineer at Rakuten. He has worked on many back-end services and has been the lead engineer in charge of core mobile apps. He  is a Certified Scrum Master, contributing to Scrum adoption at Rakuten.  Duc was the 9th president of Vietnamese Youth and Student Association in Japan and contributed to many charitable and cultural activities of Vietnamese people in Japan. He holds many awards and a patent in information technology. In 2014, he was the Google Award winner in the Code For Resilience Hackathon in Japan and his solution 'Anytime!' - A cooperative communication platform - was elected as one of 10 finalists in the global contest.
Neil Nguyen-Huu, Co-Head of Sponsors

Neil is a passionate teacher and a student of technology. Neil earned a B.S. at the University of California where he studied Mechanical Engineering, focusing on product design and mechatronics. Neil’s first endeavor after college was to build robot control systems at Arcus-Technology in Livermore, California. In mid-2009, Neil joined some friends to build OneVietnam Network, an online fundraising platform for Vietnam-focused NPO’s in the US. In 2011, Neil enrolled in Tokyo University where he earned his M.A in Economics while founding Tokyo Academics.
 
Elias Voss, Co-Head of Sponsors

Elias is a passionate student of technology, especially in the field of programming, robotics, and IoT. When Elias is not learning about technical things, he spends time building a debate club and representing his team at international debate conferences. He is also an active contributor to the betterment of local communities in China, France, England, and Japan where he lived. Oh, and Elias is good at tennis.
Maxine Zhang, Head of Marketing 

Maxine specializes in cross-functional marketing at Rakuten. She has worked with numerous teams across departments to create and carry out successful campaigns. Aside from marketing, she is passionate about the advancement of technology in the field of education. In her free time, she is also active as a development intern in Givology, an online giving marketplace that connects donors to grassroots education projects around the world. Maxine holds a B.A in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania. 
Siddharth Ray, Marketing Associate 

Siddharth began programming at the age of 13, and since then, has spent time honing his computer science skills, including programs at the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Sid is also currently involved in the VEX Robotics Competition, and will be participating in the Worlds Competition this April as Co-Captain and Lead Programmer of the Japan Team. His other interests include community service in Japan and abroad, and he is currently the President of a prominent community service group at ASIJ.