She could have become a professional host of internet shows or a fashion model, but instead she is a co-founder of a technology startup, a mentor in innovation projects, and sometimes even a "factory worker".

She is Zhang Tiantian, a 30-year-old who likes working out and designing technological gadgets. She feels very lucky to have so many possibilities in her life and the opportunities to pursue what she likes.

Zhang believes lifting the status of women is significant not just to women themselves but also to the diversified development of the whole technology ecosystem.

When studying integrated product design at the University of Pennsylvania, she created and hosted a talk show on YouTube and Youku that discussed Chinese students' life in the US. It was once quite popular, attracting tens of millions of views.

Passion for high-tech

Being a host is a dream profession for many young women, but Zhang's true passion is not so typical for a young woman. After graduation in 2013, she jumped into the smart hardware industry by jointly establishing Vigo Technologies with two male partners in Silicon Valley.

Vigo, her first product jointly developed with co-founder Jason Gui, is a smart Bluetooth headset that monitors drivers' alertness and communicates with them through vibrations and audio warnings.

"When I was a little girl, I never thought that I could start a business on my own right after college," she said. Zhang said she grow up in an average family in Central China's Henan province, but her parents supported her choice, especially in the first nine months of her startup, when she had no income at all.

The entrepreneurs' efforts have been rewarded, as thousands of truck drivers in more than 40 countries purchased Vigo, but the startup founders also met some difficulties, including expanding market scale, and so eventually decided to switch their focus to a new product.

The new product is a pair of smart glasses named Vue, which can make calls, play music, and track users' activities, among other things. Compared with mainstream smart glasses in the market now, such as Google Glasses, Vue looks like a standard pair of glasses, as opposed to having a high-tech appearance.

Users can control the glasses by tapping or swiping on the arm of the Vue's frames, while stereo sound is transferred to users' inner ears through bone conduction speakers embedded in the arms. Vue uses traditional lenses so prescription and photochromic transition lenses are all acceptable.

Zhang said she was the first to come up with the idea for Vue. "Some technology startups tend to immerse themselves in developing new techniques, but they often neglect users' actual demand."

She added: "Most people who wear glasses every day do so because it is a must, such as people with myopia, like me. So they won't select smart glasses unable to carry prescription lenses."

Her team accepted her idea, which turned out to open a big market. More than 30 million yuan worth of Vue glasses have been ordered so far, half of them from US market.

"I never feel I am treated differently because of my gender on our team. We are equal and welcome different voices," she said, but acknowledged that society does stereotype women as being not as good at technology as men.

Challenge: Sexist attitudes

"It is a fact that women are the minority in technology-related schools, investment institutions, companies and even some factories, and their role usually is, or presumed to be, not as important as men's," she said.

She also comes across such prejudice from time to time. She has been ignored by investors, who made eye contact only with her male partners during presentations; and by reporters, who shaked hands only with the startup's male co-founders.

In the last few months of preparing for mass production, she has spent more than 15 hours every day together with her team in a factory in Shenzhen. She found there are many very capable women who are only middle-level managers, if not lower, but some male executives in higher positions are not as good.

Women's voices need to be increased among the overall technology ecosystem and they can indeed bring some valuable perspectives, Zhang said. In addition, she believes diversity needs to be encouraged in a broader sense.

For example, one of her co-workers is obsessed with details, not typical for a male engineer, and the obsession sometimes drives them crazy. He once argued that the upper and lower cover of their glasses' case are slightly out of sync with each other.

But he is encouraged to speak up in the team because he raises the bar of the overall product standard and constantly reminds others to check details over and over, Zhang said.

grace@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 07/19/2019 page9)