GARY SHENG

New York, NY

Civics Unplugged (CU) is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) social enterprise and digitally-powered community that provides leaders of Generation Z training, funds, and support to build the future of American communities and democracy.

Civics Unplugged's flagship program is the CU Fellowship, which had its inaugural year in 2020 and trained a diverse cohort of two-hundred exceptional high schoolers representing every region of the US.

The second iteration of the Fellowship, starting January 2021, will be an eight-month, digital-first leadership program through which over 400 new Fellows will come together to learn systems thinking, personal development, democratic theory, and community building. By the end of the Fellowship, participants will either be matched with a summer internship at an organization working on strengthening American democracy or get the mentorship they need to build a project of their own.

Learn how to apply for the 2021 Fellowship in Fall 2020 at https://www.civicsunplugged.org/apply

New York, NY

My team worked on building amazing user experiences for Google Cloud users. I helped carry out the top-to-bottom redesign and implementation of Cloud Datastore's UI, and then led the front-end team of Google's Cloud SQL product. March 2017, we launched our PostgreSQL offering – which increased Cloud SQL's total addressable market by ~40%. April 2019, we launched our initial SQL Server offering - which is poised to increase Cloud SQL's total addressable market by ~$6B.

Los Angeles & New York

Dancing Pineapple curates electronic music and hosts concerts in New York and Los Angeles. Our goal was to share music and experiences that make people happy. A portion of the proceeds from many of our events went to supporting youth music education via Little Kids Rock.

Durham, NC

Duke presented unprecedented scale and diversity of opportunity. My four years of phenomenal professors across the disciplines pushed me to expand, challenge, and adjust my worldview. My experience dancing with DefMo showed me the power of empathetic leadership and expanded my artistic comfort zone. My tenure throwing major, campus-wide events validated that quality stems from attention to detail. My junior fall semester abroad at London's UCL humbled me to explore my place in the world. My engagement in Duke's tech & innovation initiatives exercised my creative muscle, sparked my obsession with design, and strengthened my tolerance to adversity.

Duke showed me what I love to do, gifted me with a love for learning, and surrounded me with a wealth of inspiring peers.

New York, NY

This summer was a rite of passage into software engineering professionalism. Google's crash-course seminars opened my eyes to exciting new fields, the customer-driven culture taught me that empathy matters so much, time well spent. Developers and designers blew me away with their willingness to share their time and wisdom. The trust my teammates placed in me did wonders for my confidence in writing quality software. I continue to be inspired by this company today.

Palo Alto, CA

Flipboard taught me to surround myself with people who pushed me to my limits. The summer hacking alongside brilliant engineers, shadowing masterful designers, and helping direct projects laid the foundation for my software-engineering career. I'm grateful for the time I spent with these folks, whose work gave me a glimpse into the challenges and rewards of a startup employee's life.

San Francisco, CA

I was the first, lucky intern to work with Pocket's small, brilliant team. During these couple of months, I queried SQL data to create user analytics reports, implemented initiatives to guide product launches using A/B test results, designed Google Analytics dashboards, aided with community support, and participated in the product design process. This startup crash-course of a summer flooded me with opportunities to osmose bits of wisdom from founders, engineers, investors, and other leaders of the Valley.

Aurora, IL

I'm grateful for these three years away from home. IMSA was where I learned how to articulate my ideas (as head of the school newspaper), competed thrice in state championships (as tennis captain), fell in love with learning, facilitated service events for the local community, designed a leadership development program for underclassmen, and discovered a passion for the arts.