When did your love of STEM begin?

So my love of STEM really began I think long before I even realized it. But for me and we're going to start my journey starting was when I was 11 years old and my family got our first personal computer. I spent two entire summers just building and playing on this computer and that's how I inevitably taught myself how to code and I was building websites and building games.

I was connecting with my friends over the summers through rudimentary chat rooms that I had built. This is like pre MSN and pre-instant communicator pre ICD Q as well and so we. The way that we were connecting my friends at school and this is in Grade 6, 7, and 8. And it was a way that you didn't have to necessarily have an email or you know be connected and so we were using these these. They were like guest books I guess technically and we were creating these like rudimentary chatrooms before we would then go on and use ICD Q and M.S. and messenger.

For me having that opportunity to take what I loved building an arts and crafts on on an offline world bringing that digitally was really for me like a game changer. And those skills and having that opportunity to learn how to build technology have really stayed with me throughout my entire career. I have to give that credit for why I am here today

What did you love most about study in your field of STEM?

What I love about my job is really is really the “aha” moments that we create for people or this like look my made this you know being able to show people that they can create something. Being able to give people this this confidence. Well many people come to our programs and see technology as something that they fear, or even the broader society sees technology as something that that is controlling them. That robots or automation are going to have a negative impact on them. But being able to give people an opportunity to see how technology how they can leverage technology to create a better world for themselves and opportunities for others is really amazing. And so people leave our experiences feeling that and that is what makes my job so incredible.

What advice would you give to young women considering a career in STEM?

The advice that I would give to a young woman considering a career in STEM is to go for it. I think there's a misconception that STEM is for a certain type of people or person and that's not creative and that you can't use it to combine the things that you're interested in. But I really think it's like foundational to everything else that you want to do and so whether you want to become an engineer or a developer or president and CEO having that foundational skill set is going to help you do whatever you want to do. So I would say just go for it.