Ying Zhou: Making Connections for Tech Entrepreneurs<\/strong><\/p>\nWhen Ying Zhou was 15 years old, employed full-time as a lathe operator in a Sichuan factory, she couldn\u2019t have imagined her future. \u201cMy education was very spotty after third grade,\u201d says Zhou, executive director of the Tech Incubator at Queens College. Although both her parents were scientists, Chairman Mao\u2019s Cultural Revolution had overturned the usual social expectations. And so Zhou found herself figuratively yoked to a heavy machine.<\/p>\n
What made her future possible was a surprise decision by Chinese universities to recruit selected peasants and workers. Zhou, then 17, was admitted to college as an English major, and graduated in less than three years. Afterward she was employed in a science library and as an interpreter for many organizations. Five years later, an opportunity to study Western-style accounting opened up; Zhou moved ahead to earn an economics degree with a major in accounting in 1984.<\/p>\n
The road from factory work in China to helping technology business entrepreneurs and students in Queens is neither straight nor short. Luck, plus lots of talent and determination, play their roles. When Coopers & Lybrand, then one of the United States\u2019 \u201cBig Eight\u201d accounting firms, partnered with the Chinese government to provide practical training to accounting students, Zhou seized the opportunity.
\u201cWhile working as an auditor for a year in New York, I became fascinated by computers and what we can do with technology,\u201d Zhou says. By that time, she knew she wanted to learn more about computers and study in America. Without a background in computer science (CS), though, Zhou couldn\u2019t be admitted to a CS graduate program. Instead, she enrolled in the CUNY Graduate Center\u2019s doctoral program in accounting, offered at Baruch College, and took as many computer classes as possible.<\/p>\n
It paid off. From 1990 to 1997, she taught computer applications in accounting and auditing as an assistant professor in QC\u2019s Department of Accounting and Information Systems. A job offer from global professional services firm Pricewaterhouse (the precursor to PricewaterhouseCoopers) was the beginning of another career phase. Zhou stayed 19 years, traveling widely to meet clients as director of Business Applications, Technology Advisory Services.<\/p>\n
In 2016, when QC opened the Tech Incubator, Zhou became its director of outreach and internship coordinator (some of the resident companies engage QC students as interns). \u201cThe chance to work at Queens College again, with computer science students, was very appealing to me,\u201d she comments. Since moving up to her current title in 2018, she has presided over a busy place that offers classes, lectures, and workshops\u2014many of them open to the public\u2014in addition to office space in different configurations.<\/p>\n
Actual incubator membership fluctuates. The roster currently includes CloudResearch, which provides a participant-sourcing platform for research projects; Lurik Labs, which helps undergraduate science students gain and retain information through game-based learning; and 5050 Style Corp, an e-commerce company. Zhou is proud to be involved with the incubator, viewing it as \u201can ecosystem that connects local communities, start-ups, and businesses in Queens and New York City to industry experts, tech professionals, investors, faculty, and students.\u201d<\/p>\n
One company that came to the incubator through the IN2NYC program\u2014NewtonX, an artificial intelligence-powered search engine that matches clients to leading investors, consultants, and technology around the world\u2014received national attention when its co-founder, Sascha Eder, was named to the Forbes \u201c30 Under 30\u201d<\/em> for 2020. NewtonX outgrew its original facilities and is now headquartered in Manhattan. Would-be tech entrepreneurs are invited to compete for seed investments and a year\u2019s discounted membership in the incubator through its PitchFest, a yearly contest open to New York City residents and people who work or study at QC.<\/p>\nFond as she is of technology, Zhou firmly believes in the value of in-person interaction. \u201cI like to think of myself as the \u2018Chief Collaboration Officer,\u2019 connecting people with people and people with ideas,\u201d she observes. \u201cThat\u2019s how exciting things happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Name: Ying Zhou Title: Director of Outreach and Internship Coordinator Department: Tech Incubator at Queens College Degree(s): MA, Economics, Research Institute of Fiscal Science, Military of Finance, China. MBA, Baruch College, CUNY. MA, Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center. PhD, Accounting, CUNY Graduate Center. Contact Information: Phone: (718) 570-0573 Cell: 917-319-4027 Office: CEP 2 Email: ying.zhou@qc.cuny.eduStudent Profiles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"page_category":[],"wf_page_folders":[137],"class_list":["post-1335","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1335"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1923,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1335\/revisions\/1923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"page_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/page_category?post=1335"},{"taxonomy":"wf_page_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_page_folders?post=1335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}