Priscilla Chan: ‘Figure out what gets you out of bed’

When Priscilla Chan got to Harvard University, she disliked it.

It wasn’t up until she began offering to tutor impoverished kids that she discovered a factor to remain and course towards pediatrics.

Chan talked to a jam-packed space throughout the Grace Hopper Celebration, a conference for females in computing, on Thursday in Houston about how to utilize abilities to take on social issues.

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As a pediatrician, Chan said she might be able to help a child with a health issue, but might not be able to address much beyond that, like systemic issues or problems at home that contributed to that kid getting sick. Sometimes, it’s not easy to see the whole picture. 

To put it in tech terms: “The applications might not be perfect, but the most critical bug existed in the operating system itself,” she said.

Chan, in addition to being a pediatrician, is married to Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The pair founded the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) in 2015. The organization focuses on the areas education, criminal justice reform and biochemical research, as well as topics like affordable housing. In 2016, the charity said it would invest more than $3 billion in the next decade in order to cure all diseases by the end of the century.

She and Zuckerberg launched CZI as they were having their first daughter, Max. Chan said she was in labor and Zuckerberg was asking her for her thoughts on a letter they’d written to launch.

“Honey, we’re done. The baby’s here,” Chan said she told her husband.

On the topic of Zuckerberg, during a moderated Q&A section of the session, Chan was asked whether Facebook’s issues overshadows the work of CZI. She noted that CZI and Facebook are separate organizations.

“Everyone in Silicon Valley is thinking twice about what it means to be good stewards of data and privacy,” she said.

Overall, she described the importance of just making the decision to help tackle some societal problem you face, whether it’s via tech or not. It’s a matter of using your skills and “figur[ing] out what gets you out of bed,” Chan stated.

“You have to ask yourself, if you’re not going to do it, who is?” she stated.

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