For my final year at Queen's, I wanted to challenge myself with more technical leadership experience, while contributing to the Queen's Biomedical Innovation Team (QBiT). I stepped into the role of Chief Technical Officer, with the task of overseeing ten project managers, eight sub-teams, and two highly technical projects.
The first project, Breasy, aimed to develop a low-cost, at-home oscillating vest designed to aid patients with cystic fibrosis or COPD. Current solutions are expensive, bulky, and can be complex to maintain. Our goal was to bring comparable performance to everyone. The second project, KneeFit, was a smart knee brace, capable of measuring and reporting rehabilitation progress, and dynnamically adjusting support and compression based on collected data. This was unlike anything presently on the market, and would represent a huge step forward in data-driven rehabilitaion planning.
While the project managers and general members were knee-deep in the details of the projects, including materials and manufacturing research, app development, and PCB manufacturing, I was able to take a step back and lend support where needed. My responsibilities were facilitating weekly technical syncs between all project teams, ensuring we stayed on track, offering hands-on technical support where needed, planning technical skills workshops, and connecting members with external partners. I also streamlined the project update process at weekly executive team meetings, delivering project updates on behalf of the PMs to ensure consistent messaging.
This role was a rewarding blend of engineering, mentorship, and project management. It gave me the opportunity to work closely with talented peers, support two impactful projects from concept to handoff, and grow as a technical leader.
