The last two weeks have been madness. I’ve been to several events, met some amazing people, travelled a little and had a birthday somewhere in between.
Firstly, I already mentioned the education.au conference, which has now put up all its talks and recordings, the most interesting of which include Robert Cailliau (one of the pioneers of the internet), Leigh Blackall, and Geetha Narayanan (an inspiring Indian woman talking about technology assisting disadvantaged communities). I met some great people and really enjoyed the speakers.
Then I went to the Go Girls event in Melbourne where I gave 6 talks over two days to about 2000 schoolgirls about why IT and FOSS are such great career options. There were some amazing students there who were more socially and environmentally aware than I was at that age. We had 14 yr olds challenging the Coles home shopping initiative as it might “worsen the obesity problem in Australia”, and others questioning the impact of technology on the environment. I had some delightful girls talk to me after my talks wanting to be programmers, games developers, sys admins, and more! I also got to meet some inspiring people including Jane Treadwell, the Victoria Government CIO who was very FOSS saavy and interesting 🙂 I had a great time and am planning on doing a similar event in Sydney but looking at entire schools (girls, boys, broader age brackets and teachers) and how we can help in looking at IT careers. Anyone interested in this please contact me 🙂