Many years ago, I arrived in Canada as a young curious student, ready to venture into university. It was my first time travelling abroad by myself. My dad, who can’t worry enough about me, arranged for a friend of his to pick me up at the airport. She showed me around the city and took me out for dinner with the rest of her family – a big multi-generation family! (Just like in the movie Turning Red)

At this family dinner, I met a bunch of kids, uncles, aunties, and also got to meet the granny of the family. I couldn’t tell exactly what her age was at the time, but I could tell she was very old. She kindly greeted me while her sons and daughters handled all the food orders.

A few months later I met her again, this time in her son’s house – she’s living with him and the rest of his family. At the time her son was handling some service on the phone for her, it was quite apparent that she spoke neither English nor French.

After years of study, I have now left Canada and landed in the UK. Sometimes, thought, I still think back about this big family who welcomed me to Canada, and the granny who spoke only a Chinese dialect.

In my first job, I worked on many home health devices as a designer – our team came up with ideas to monitor all kinds of health indicators at home, with smart brushes, smart mirrors, smart everything. While our team leader made the decision to target technology adopters, my thoughts sparked – does the granny use these shinny new gadgets? If we make these products, will people like her benefit?

This spark marked the first moment I thought about a PhD topic.

With some research into the field, I have adjusted my topic here and there (for example, focus on more basic health needs like seeing your GP), and finally I’ve reached the current topic: how does remote healthcare impact older Chinese migrants’ access to primary care?

And that was the story of how I came up with my PhD research – it’s nothing fancy and it’s not full of scientific jargon. What I want to do is quite simple: to help people I see and make their life better.