I was asked to do my first public speaking event by Pauli Sosa from MUV Talks. Here is the transcript of my speech and video below.
My MUV Talks Speech:
Although this talk is about ‘Ladies shaking up Tech’ I just wanted to give you guys a heads up that I sadly won’t be twerking tonight, I know, I know, I’m sorry, I hate to disappoint you, especially you ((look at someone and point)), I just don’t know how to. But if anyone wants to show me later on at the meet and greet I’ll definitely give it a go, I’m all about trying new things... you have to go first though.
So.. I was fourteen when I built my first website in high school it felt like something just clicked and this bit of magic was for me.
As someone with dyslexia I have always struggled in school. So to find a subject that I could actually do, enjoy and be good at, meant a lot to me at the time. Along with Art, Design and Photography; Web Design became another hour of my day that didn’t completely suck.
Cut to University, I’m learning web design whilst completing my Bachelor in Graphic Design at AUT and then cut to again I’m in my first job, a real-life miracle after the financial crisis and I’m building an online candy shop, life is sweet. There really is no faster and better way to learn something on the job. Firstly you are getting paid to do it and secondly you don’t need more reasons.
I feel very grateful and lucky to have meet my mentor David Vaassen working at Brandkit, we’ve worked together on and off for almost a decade now. Wow! That’s a very long time isn’t it. He has challenged, guided and believed in me throughout this time. And I’ve always enjoyed our insightful debates about philosophy whilst grabbing coffee or taking a lunch break.
I was self-employed for four years, it taught me alot about hustling, building relationships with amazing clients. I really wanted to focus on working with not-for-profits as I’m a big fan of warm fuzzies, I then two years ago I came across Girl Code, a sixteen hour beginners coding course for young women, spread over eight weeks. After meeting with Matthew and Alice somehow managed to land a role as a teacher.
I think I really didn’t know any other female web designers at this time and I was very interested in helping out in anyway possible. I wanted to get more women into Tech because I found it to be such a fantastic career for myself and could tell it was lacking diversity. I really looked up to what Alice and Matthew were doing, and they had created a fantastic and challenging course at GridAKL. What I love about Girl Code is that we a using real world tools, and replicating the atmosphere of being a programmer, which requires excellent communication skills, collaboration and teamwork, plus we eat biscuits.
I really appreciate how connected I feel in the tech community through working at Girl Code, Women In Tech and attending events like this one, thank you so much to the organisers tonight.
Since the explosion of technology the way businesses and countries operate has changed, irreversibly. Therefore this has created a huge number of jobs, ones my careers advisor in high school couldn’t tell me about as they didn’t even exist. So the potential is huge.
I know my journey into tech has been somewhat simple and straightforward, I almost fell into it. But, maybe you didn’t, and now it’s something you would like to try. There are many different pathways to get into tech, online courses, degrees, classroom courses like Girl Code, even building a site for your own or a project for a friend. Com’on, give it a go already!
What I enjoy most about coding is the problem solving. You are constantly being challenged, you are constantly failing, learning and cracking a difficult problem feels amazing. Also In tech things are always evolving, so it never gets boring!
I think that we all benefit from a diversity of viewpoints from the people making our technology.
For example when Apple released their new so called ‘all encompassing’ Health app in 2014, they managed to forget half of their users by leaving out a period tracker which they corrected later that year.
Another example, the problematic electronic soap dispenser that couldn’t identify hands of people of color, only giving soap to only those with lighter skin tones.
By having more diversity in the techspace and in testing these lapses in inclusion could have been avoided.
As tech is now so intertwined in our lives, ethics and philosophy is becoming vitally important. As any Black Mirror fan knows, the future of technology can have some pretty bleak possibilities. Businesses and countries gathering massive amounts of data on their customers and citizens, algorithms that know us better than our closest friends and which predict our behaviours, giving these entities the power to sway elections, grow extremism and device addiction.
With thanks to the GDPR we have a movement and most important change in data privacy regulation in 20 years so we are seeing positive change empowering people to take ownership of their data.
Putting users safety first should be at the core of these companies for example the recent ordeal with the Lime scooters brakes locking up. Someone commented on a news article about scooters malfunctioning “It's NOT a software glitch, a human wrote that software, therefore it's a Human Error.” But of course their programmers never intended to hurt anyone, people do make mistakes, therefore the technology won’t be perfect.
There’s talk of programmers taking an oath, the same way doctors take hippocratic oath as their work is affecting perhaps millions of people's well being.
I feel incredibly fulfilled to be working towards making ethical technology. I’m now working at Sylo as a UX/UI Designer. Sylo is about creating a decentralized messaging app. With an emphasis on encryption and security. In a world of mindless browsing and intrusive advertising, Sylo puts you back in control of your own digital world.
It’s great to be working with like-mind people. I’ve proposed we could get a code of ethics that all developers and employees of Sylo will adhere by. Something that I’m excited that we are working on now at implementing in the future.
Saturday it is my one year anniversary of deleting Facebook and Instagram. I feel I have more control of my free time, cutting back on mindless scrolling through a newsfeeds of brunch pics. There are teams of incredibly intelligent people whose entire job it is is to keep you scrolling as long as possible and I don’t have the willpower or awareness to not fall into these perfectly tailored honey-traps.
I think people are now demanding more transparency from the digital products, and I hope this will open doors in the next wave in new jobs in tech industry so they may also include roles in ethics and philosophy.
Thank you