Born in 1994 in Melbourne, Australia, my early life was split between Australia, Kenya, and the Czech Republic. These early experiences shaped how I see the world. I'm a 90s kid through and through: Banjo Kazooie on Nintendo, mornings spent watching Pokemon, reading MAD magazine on roadtrips and visiting public libraries to access the internet. I remember using Google for the first time to search for games at my mum's university in 1999 and discovering Neopets!
When I started school in Australia in 2000, Macintoshes had just been introduced into the classroom. We learned how to touch type, discovered Word Art, and got hooked on anything that involved a screen. By the time I was in primary school, I was using computers to compete in robotics competitions, practising chess using Chessmaster 3000 and composing music using Sibelius.
Toward the end of primary school and into early high school, is where I first encountered programming. Game Maker was my first real creative tool, where we would build little games and share them amongst our classmates. Despite this, I remember not being super interested when coding didn't involve games, so I wouldn't pick up coding again until the end of high school. If I had to guess, framing coding as a productivity tool rather than a way to have fun is not the best way to engage kids. Parents, take note.
When I finished highschool, I had no idea what I wanted to do, except travel and meet new people. I started my studies with a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies and Spanish, which took me to Spain for the last part of my studies, which is where I first experienced teaching. I truly loved teaching, language and culture, but I couldn't figure out how to make it work at that age, and instead was pulled toward technology, especially when thinking about my career. So when my undergraduate degree finished, I decided to come back to Australia and pursue further study in technology, experimenting with studying cybersecurity, computer science and eventually arriving at data science.
As I started experimenting with my post graduate studies, I tried to align a career with an interests in technology, but found it difficult in Australia. The moment it all clicked, was when I landed a role with Uber in customer service and I realised data science was my path. Since then, I've deliberately moved through relatively non-technical roles. Not because I couldn't code, but because I realised a great skill to develop is understanding how each part of a company fits together, especially in a country with a small tech market like Australia. As a result of this, I've become a bit of a chameleon code-switcher, someone who can confidently communicate with engineers, marketers, and executives in their own language while having a deep understanding of how everything fits together.
Today, I think of myself as a systems thinker. I feel like I have a good grasp on how the pieces of the world connect, and I can see where and how AI fits. Like lots of you, I'm nervous about what this change looks like. The paradigm shift is enormous and too rapid to keep up with. My belief is we are experiencing an industrial revolution driven by AI, and although I'm not confident on what comes next, I feel like I know which way to go.