Higher Degree by Research Internships

- So my project started in the context of COVID, where I had originally planned to travel to Myanmar and do field research there. But with COVID-19 restrictions, I had to find a new innovative way to conduct my research. And in that context, I connected with CARE International and their daughter organisation, Aung Myin Hmu, in Myanmar, and we were able to set up a partnership together that enabled us to collect data during COVID, and then later on, the military coup in Myanmar, which is a really fruitful way of conducting field research from afar as a PhD student. By working together with CARE and Aung Myin Hmu, what we were really able to do was collect unique data on women during this very tumultuous time in Myanmar, and when access to women in Myanmar was really difficult, both with COVID-19 and then the military coup on the 1st of February in 2021. So we were able to collect their stories and give a platform for their voices that can also help inform business decisions about how to act and make decisions around their presence in Myanmar, and also other international organisations that's seeking to understand that situation better. So we really hope to bring light to the women's situation in Myanmar. So I think for me, one of the key things that I've learned and gained from working together with CARE and Aung Myin Hmu has been how to manage a project and how to manage a team across an online platform at this time of COVID-19, but also across different countries. And to learn from practitioners in the field who are not academic researchers, but are definitely doing research and working together with garment workers every day. And so learning from them, but also learning how to project manage a research project of that size and scope. So one of the key things that me and my supervisors contributed to the partnership with CARE and Aung Myin Hmu was providing workshops and trainings for them on key academic skills that they identified as something that they wanted to develop. So for example, we ran a set of workshops around feminist interview techniques, and helping them understand sort of key ways to actively listen to participants when doing interviews. And these were things that they were already doing, but we just helped them frame that in a different way and perhaps finetune those skills.

- Because my research is all about how values can influence the way that you design games, what my research is is looking at how individual stakeholders can influence the design of a particular game. So when I'm working with various stakeholders, for example, the subject matter experts from defence, that's where I can sort of understand more about where they're coming from, what their values are, what's important to them, and I can make sure that that's embedded into the game design. And it's an important thing to understand. Various stakeholders will have various values and they'll be coming from different perspectives. So if you can really, and I guess trying to account for those is actually trying to place a value or measure those values. So if you're able to do that, you're really able to make everybody happier at the end of the day and make a game that satisfies all the stakeholders involved, including, in our case, the learners at the end who have to actually use them. The biggest thing that I've learned is how to deal with the various stakeholders in a project. So that's everybody from the developers in my team. They've all got their own sets of values and they all want to do things according to their values. So for example, on our last project, one of them was, "Let's design a Japanese garden. People love Japanese gardens," and I'm able to instantly glean that, well, he's coming from the inspired world and he's doing things that inspire him. He's not necessarily coming from a place of evidence or a place of this is gonna make money or anything like that. He's coming from what inspires him. Whereas some of the other team members have different perspectives. For example, what does the evidence suggest that we should be doing? Or what's already been done and what's proven to work? You know, what's been proven through a scientific process to work? So understanding all of those perspectives allows you to talk to people, understand their point of view, and then perhaps make them a little bit happier with the final outcome once you do understand where they're coming from. So one of the ways that my PhD's really helped me in my current position is now that when the client or our development team suggests something, I know how to research that idea, I know how to look up who's done it before, and I can actually provide some evidence for why we should or shouldn't be doing that. The thing I'm enjoying most about my PhD is it's really helping me to understand the world around me. Not just my job, but also my personal relationships and the reason why things are the way they are. So that's been a really fascinating journey to go on at this stage of my life.

- The industry partner I'm working with is a game developer and they develop the game Bogart. My research helped this industry partner to extend their game beyond it's original purpose. I am using this game to develop the higher education students' wellbeing literacy. So instead it's original purpose for developing the professional accountants' ethics. Working as a researcher is very, very different from working in the industry. And for me, I myself, I really want to pursue my career, extend my current research to the future career that is a very close combination of the serious game and education. And by working with this partner, actually have a lot of the profound understanding of how this industry works, how the game developers, the game designers work, and how the life cycle of a game is like. So this really helps me to link to my future career. There are a lot of ups and downs but I really enjoy the whole process 'cause I'm almost at the final stage of the PhD journey, and I'm lucky to have very supportive supervisors, and who help me to link to the industry partners and I get this extra exposure to the real life. This really makes me feel, "Okay, what I'm doing is not just publishing the papers, "it's making some real life impact for the whole society." This is kind of encouraging for me. By participating with the Game for Change community, I have the opportunity to network with a lot of people with a similar interest and passion. I also get exposure to a bigger community that can link me to some other educators and researchers. They can provide me a lot of feedback on my research and of course on my personal development. So I feel this is really a great opportunity for me to connect to something that is bigger than myself.

- As you know, Carsales is a online marketplace for selling secondhand cars. So at this moment, Carsales uses a manual evaluation process, to value secondhand cars. And this manual evaluation process actually creates some problems, like for the evaluator, they need to travel over Australia. And Australia is big, so it's like time consuming, expensive, and not easy to travel to evaluate the car. For the seller, it is inconvenient, because they need to set a schedule, or organise a meeting with the evaluator. So my research is totally focused on this, and my research seeks to use AI, which will be done on a mobile phone, to accurately, and automatically, determine the value of the secondhand car. All of the parts on my supervisor team from RMIT, and Carsales, they help me to settle down. How can I balance between my PhD life, as well as life in Carsales. In Carsales, I work on the AI team. And the AI team has some subsections. They have a team like data science. I work on the data science team. And in data science, there is a member who is called the AI Lead. So he is actually my boss at Carsales, and directs me on how to move through a project. Especially when I started, I needed to set up in Carsales. He helped me a lot, how I can set up in a like in a team environment. Then I needed lots of elements, like my data set. I needed to set up my account. Like there are some big accounts, like Amazon Web Services. I never had experience with that, and they help me a lot, how I can work with them, as well as the communication skill between all of the people on the AI team.

- My industry partner are personal finance podcasters, of which there are few in Australia, and my research will help them to better target Australian millennial women in the way that they speak to them on their podcasts, as well as the way that they interact with them in their online communities, such as their Facebook groups. The importance of this research and integrating it with these podcasts is that Australian millennial women currently are in a position where they can make changes to their superannuation today, where they won't end up being this cohort of homeless women potentially when they're 55. So by making behavioural changes, such as combining, contributing extra and using the right amount of investment risk in their superannuation, they can get a bit of balance at retirement and achieve financial wellbeing. When I appeared on some of these personal finance podcasts, discussing my research, I was able to share some of my findings with them which went out to their wider audience. My PhD has been a journey, and I'm actually loving it. I get to really involve myself in a topic I'm extremely passionate about, and it's sort of a selfish pursuit because I really get to spend so much time doing something that I never thought I would get to do. In working with Personal Finance Podcast, as part of my industry partnership, I've been able to gain a couple of really important skills. So the first is interview skills, which has been really excellent because these are people who are professionals in their field and they really, really know what they're talking about, and you know, I'm coming in as a PhD student, so, you know, I've been able to learn a lot from them. And also, because I've appeared on the podcasts, disseminating my research, I've also gained some media skills in being interviewed myself and also being able to get my research out there and explain it in a way that people can understand and also possibly take action.