From China to Panama, Min Chen Breaks Down Barriers for Women in Latin America and Worldwide
Min's startup, Wisy, is considered to be one of the most successful startups in The Americas, with headquarters in Silicon Valley. It was founded out of the need to solve a critical problem within the consumer packaged goods industry: optimize product assortment on shelves to avoid financial loss and promote sustainable operations.
“We are not only solving a customer-experience problem but also a sustainability problem,” Min said.
Wisy aims to address this issue by drawing on artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize the in-store shopping experience, making it easier for consumers to buy their favorite products and avoid waste due to unsold products past their expiry date. The platform applies the data it collects from image recognition to track and detect out-of-stock items at a physical store to provide instant insights to field employees for corrective and preventive actions.
Min grew up with a strong work ethic and a desire to make a positive difference from the time that she immigrated with her family from China to Panama at the age of four. Her entrepreneurial spirit led her to apply for – and be awarded – a Fulbright Scholarship, and she enrolled at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to study Software Engineering from 2004-2005.
Min’s Fulbright experience accelerated her interest in using technology to solve social issues, and she applied what she learned to start her own company in Panama. Wisy was the first startup in the country to raise over $1 million in investment capital. With a team of three co-founders, Min turned her startup into a successful global company that would expand into Silicon Valley, addressing a one-trillion dollar problem using technology, data, and AI.
As she was growing her company, Min was also committed to supporting women in STEM. As she built up Wisy, she also led a program to support girls and women in STEM in Panama at a global scale with IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE), the largest international professional organization dedicated to promoting women engineers and scientists. Through the Student-Teacher and Research Engineer/Scientist (STAR) Program, she worked to address the concern that girls are discouraged from pursuing STEM fields at a young age.
Min became the chair of IEEE Women in Engineering in 2014, and with her help, the organization has since garnered global recognition – Min’s team in Panama applied for, and won, an Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund (AEIF) grant, which has helped to broaden the scope of its programming and to promote more women in STEM.
With a commitment to her start-up vision, a willingness to take risks, and an exceptional founding team by her side, Min has become a role model for young women, entrepreneurs, and ExchangeAlumni alike, as she continues to bridge the transnational divide between Central and Northern America.
Biography
Min Chen is an award-winning serial entrepreneur and software engineer with 20 years of experience helping companies complete digital transformation in several countries. She is a Fulbright recipient with a Master’s in Software Engineering from Carnegie Mellon and an Innovation Management degree from UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. The CEO and co-founder of Wisy, a startup that uses AI to optimize product assortment at stores, Min has been invited as a keynote speaker to important global innovation venues and has been featured in Forbes.
Wisy, which received the 2022 Startup of the Year Award at the Cloud Wars Expo, has also been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, TechCrunch, and Univision.