Afra Wang
I'm a freelance writer, researcher, podcaster, tech/crypto growth and marketing specialist, ex-news editor
Some things about me:
- Grew up in China until 17, then spent the rest of my life in California, New York City, and London
- On internet my whole life, which is my actual hometown
- A digital omnivore, I have an insatiable appetite for digital content and a knack for catching up with cultural zeitgeists
- Went to Columbia, LSE and UC Irvine to study international history and media studies
- Worked in Silicon Valley for 5 years, currently living in Mountain View, California but often travel to NYC and London
- Bilingual in English and Chinese
- Sometimes I angel invest in early startups in AI and crypto
What keeps me busy these days:
- I'm taking a career break to enhance my overall meta, focusing on writing, reading, and AI proficiency.
- I host a podcast called CyberPink (in Mandarin Chinese). It explores contemporary zeitgeists, culture, society, and includes movie reviews. With over 55+ episodes released, it's where I channel most of my creative energy.
- I am avidly reading about diverse topics recently, including: the history of AI and information technology, digital media evolution, cybernetics, counterculture movements, futurism, cultural identity, immigration, Chinese industrialization history, the interplay between modernization and colonialism. I also read literature and fiction
My previous roles and experiences:
- Growth and marketing at NEBRA Labs, a crypto SaaS company focuses on zero-knowledge infrastructure on Ethereum
- Growth marketing and operations with Mask Network focusing on next-gen internet, decentralized social networks, DIDs (decentralized identity/identifier) and public goods
- Co-founded and co-hosted Loud Murmurs Podcast, due to some personal reasons we had to shut it down. It was reported by Politico, featured by University of Toronto's course "Reading Chinese and English: China from the Inside Out", and mourned by many netizens.
- I was a Growth Content Associate at SmartNews, an AI-driven news company, where I collaborated with lead product managers and ML engineers within a 24/7 newsroom environment alongside former journalists transitioning their expertise to tech
- I served as the founding News Editor at NewsBreak right after my graduation, it is another AI-powered local news platform. In both companies,push notification engagement strategies, newsletter growth initiatives, news ranking algorithms, local content development, and election coverage features
Writing Samples:
One of the goals for this career break is to write and publish more in English. In my past life, I freelanced and interned at various media outlets, often writing in Chinese under my Chinese name (王曌). (Note: while my old work reflects earlier stages of my development, it nonetheless remains a part of my journey.) Some examples:
Media and Other Presence:
Commonplace Book:
It is both privilege and curse of the diaspora that they can treat their homeland as an academic abstraction and interrogate it without reservation.
Having lived nearly half of my life far from my birth country, I describe my Chineseness as a linguistic belonging.
Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.
All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know. So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there.
Computing and new media depend upon flesh-and-bone metabolism. Our "virtual worlds" are made possible by battalions of human beings.