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Welcome! Khoi Ngo (he/him/his) is a senior at New York University, Abu Dhabi. With a GPA of 3.9 (out of 4.o) and on a full-ride scholarship, he majors in Political Science with a minor in Philosophy. He is interested in identity politics, identity making, perceptions of diversity, and affirmative action.
Recently, Khoi has taken part in these projects:
Khoi was a Summer Researcher at Development Impact Evaluation (World Bank Group) for Summer 2022. He worked in a project tentatively titled "Assessment of World Bank Projects," where the team uses natural language processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence (AI) tools to build a knowledge graph of development economics research.
Khoi worked as a Research Assistant for Professor Adaner Usmani (Assistant Professor at Harvard Sociology) in Summer 2022 for his book project—From Plantation to Prison, which is under contract with Harvard University Press—with John Clegg (a UChicago historical sociologist).
Khoi continues working on his co-authored project with Professor J. Andrew Harris (Assistant Professor, NYU Abu Dhabi) on electoral fraud in Malawi, tentatively titled "Measuring Irregularities in Malawi’s ‘Tippex’ Election." Khoi has been mainly in charge of data quality checking, survey design (using Qualtrics), & data analysis and visualization (using R).
Khoi is conducting an Independent Study in Philosophy with Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah (Department Chair, Philosophy at NYU), titled "The Philosophy and Politics of Affirmative Action." This is Khoi's second Independent Study course with Professor Appiah, following one in Fall 2021 titled "The Ethics of Identity Switching." Under Professor Appiah's supervision and as a result of the first Independent Study, Khoi solo-authored a 30,000-word essay on the moral defensibility of race play and is refining it for journal submission.
Khoi is working on his undergraduate thesis, combining his substantive interests in diversity and affirmative action with his methodological interest in survey data.
On May 22, 2022, Khoi had his TEDx Talk debut at the Ho Chi Minh University of Science in Vietnam, where he discussed LGBTQ-targeting affirmative action: its definition, its current landscape both globally and in Vietnam, and Khoi's 02 proposals: (i) multicategorical affirmative action and (ii) counting marginalization.
You can find Khoi's CV here!
#StopAsianHate #BlackLivesMatter
Selected work
Selected work
Non-profit & Social Activism: Khoi co-founded Sex Speak Organization (SSO), an award-nominated NGO that was the first student-run organization dedicated to sex education in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. SSO—currently having 11,700+ organic followers on Facebook—has run various grassroots campaigns and hosted workshops at public and private institutions to advocate for adequate sex-ed training in Ho Chi Minh City and beyond. For his pioneering leadership at SSO, Khoi was named as part of Outstanding Young People of 2017 by Tuoi Tre News, one of Vietnam's biggest news outlets.
Research: In alphabetical order, Khoi has done research with (or assisted the projects of) Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah (NYU Philosophy), Professor Kanchan Chandra (NYU Politics), Professor J. Andrew Harris (NYUAD Politics), Professor Adaner Usmani (Harvard Sociology), the Center for Education Promotion & Empowerment of Women (Vietnam), the Governance Lab (New York, USA), and the People’s Participation Working Group (Vietnam).
Institutional Administration: Khoi worked with NYU Abu Dhabi's Office of Inclusion and Equity in Spring 2021 as an inaugural Inclusion, Diversity, Belonging, and Equity Fellow, running its newsletter project and a survey project for the institution's first-ever campus-wide climate survey.
Personal: As a first-generation & low-income student, Khoi has taken on multiple jobs to save money. In late 2020, while in college full-time (taking 20 credits per semester), Khoi retired his parents from their manual labor jobs by opening a small restaurant for them. It's called Co Chin, selling Binh Dinh's local cuisines, in Phan Thiet City, Vietnam. Khoi is proud to be working-class, and his scholarship is constantly informed by this identity dimension.
The small restaurant Khoi opened for his parents so they could retire from their manual labor jobs.
Picture taken in June 2022.
Deck
Apple Auto Slide Deck (May 2021)
Final Project, Case Analysis, Professor Monica Stallings, NYU Stern School of Business
Content: Khoi's team conducted market research, competitor analysis, and Apple's SWOT analysis. Then, they proposed a strategic partnership between Apple and Lexus to tap into the potential but overlooked market for Hydrogen fuel cell tech. The team hypothesized that the synergy between Apple (with its service integration and distinguishable design) and Lexus (with hydrogen fuel expertise and quality assurance) would leverage hydrogen fuel tech. Sample exhibits (3D modelling and design trials of an Apple hydrogen car), marketing and showroom products, financial projection, and a ten-year implementation timeline are included.
Tool: Canva
Honors
Africa House / CTED Fellowship
In April 2021, Khoi was awarded the prestigious Africa House's Development Impact Fellowship, in the amount of $1,500, to support his co-authored project to understand the nature of electoral fraud using evidence from Malawi's 2019 presidential election. The Fellowship was created to support NYU students whose Africa-focused research has the potential for substantial impact to enrich people's lives and improve institutions in the developing world. Among the awardees, there were two undergraduates (including Khoi), one Master's student, and one PhD Candidate.
In the process of applying for this fellowship, Khoi received recommendation letters from Professor J. Andrew Harris and Professor Peter van der Windt (NYU Abu Dhabi).
Press
Interviewed by Ai Le for Kenh14, the media outlet with the second-largest tractions in Vietnam. The article was titled "A Vietnamese 99er received a generous scholarship with essays discussing pornography [and sex education]," was crowned Top Daily News on Kenh14 in July 2017, and went viral on Facebook.
Interviewed on VTC14 (a TV channel in Vietnam), discussing the UWC scholarship, essays on pornography, and founding work at Sex Speak Organization. As of July 5, 2021, the interview has 144,798 views on Youtube.
Classic Creamery Slide Deck (April 2021)
Case Competition (Nielsen, 2018), Case Analysis, Professor Monica Stallings, NYU Stern School of Business
Case: Classic Creamery—a market leader in the super premium packaged ice cream category in the US—is concerned with rising consumer trends that work against the company's market positionality. Classic Creamery is also facing a new entrant, DeLightful Dairy, which is disrupting the market. How should Classic Creamery respond, if at all, to the threat posed by DeLightful Dairy? How should Classic Creamery adapt, if at all, to the health and wellness and small brand trends?
Content: After conducting Classic Creamery's SWOT analysis, competitor analysis, and market research, Khoi's team suggested that acquiring DeLightful would come with extremely high risks and price promotions (solely based on existing products) with high risks. Instead, Classic Creamery should launch Bliss as a standalone brand to directly compete with Delightful Dairy. The project comes with a SWOT analysis specifically for Bliss, rebranding strategy (product and promotion), and a five-year implementation timeline.
Tool: Canva
Sex Speak Organization (SSO), an NGO Khoi co-founded in May 2016, received an official nomination from ICS Center (host) for Organization of the Year at the 5th Annual Vietnam LGBTIQ+ Appreciation Award in 2018.
At age 17, Khoi was the youngest person to be invited to Vietnam's LGBTIQ Vietnam National Workshop in May 2017. There, he held a talk about identity and freedom of expression, in collaboration with trans activist Dung Huynh.
UAE Sweetgreen Slide Deck (December 2020)
Final Presentation, Introduction to Marketing, Professor Yasmin Khan, NYU London
Content: Khoi's team provided a marketing mix for Sweetgreen to enter the vibrant UAE market. The presentation includes a PEST analysis, competitor analysis, targeting plan (based on a self-run survey project), pricing strategy, omnichannel distribution strategy, and promotion plan.
Tool: Google Slides
Khoi was selected to be one of the Outstanding Young People in 2017 by Tuoi Tre, one of the biggest newspapers in Vietnam. He was honored for his leadership in and contribution to the country's non-profit ecosystem.
Khoi was invited to be a panel speaker at a conference on how the feminist movement is intertwined with the LGBTIQ+ movement, as part of Viet Pride 2016. At age 16, Khoi—as then President of Sex Speak Organization—sat alongside with Dr. Hong Khuat (Founder and Director of Institute for Social Development Studies) and other social activists, discussing the topic and answering questions from 100+ attendees.
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