Grow Right Digital was happy to sponsor a couple of The Australian National University students to attend the latest WIC Women in ICT ‘s breakfasts. The latest breakfast had the superbly brilliant Michelle Price, partner with EY, as the guest speaker.

We caught up with our students, Mengfan and Yi Lin (Denny), after breakfast to get some feedback. Here is what they said…

How did you find the presentation?

The presentation was extremely inspiring and informative. In the presentation, Michelle firstly introduced her parent’s working experience as food technology researcher. During this period, she told us the story of how her father’s academic research has contributed to an outstanding reform of the ice cream industry. She was deeply moved by her father’s experience and gradually established her world view: “everyone has the chance to work hard and contribute to the society and made up her mind to build up her own career to make the world better. “

Then Michelle introduced her diverse educational background: during her undergraduate years her main research areas were economics and law, and also got another degree of visual communication. Later she found her interest in the cyber industry and dived into it, Michelle used her own experience to encourage us: “There are no limits to starting a new direction in life, and women can also make a difference in the tech industry.”

Did you learn anything that you will use in your future career?

Denny: I learned a lot from her presentation, and her words make me reflect on my own experience:

I am also a student aiming to build a career in the IT industry with a diverse educational background. I majored in economics and finance during my undergraduate studies. I have always been fascinated by economics, and after an internship as an assistant in the investment department of a bank, I participated in the feasibility analysis of a pharmaceutical company to go public. At that time I thought my world was only economic theory and financial analysis, until I came across machine learning and artificial intelligence and realised my passion for computer technology. So I chose to participate in the master of computing study program of ANU.

 “Never too late to start a new direction of life”, I hoped I could hear these words early from the others, but I did say that to myself constantly these years. It was not an easy road, but I am so proud of myself to come to this, and I am very grateful for the opportunity from the Grow Right Techlauncher project to make the algorithm technology I have learned in the past few years into practice. And I wish my work in our job recommendation platform development can contribute to the world in the future, just like Michelle and her father and thousands and millions of women in the tech industry are doing nowadays.

 How did you find the people at the table? Did you get a chance to talk with them and share your experiences?

Yes, two things leave us with deep impression:

When we first sat at the table, I was extremely nervous as the others were all talking like they have known each other for a long time. So I tried my best to calm down and started to introduce our Grow Right project to the lady sitting next to me (as I practiced my elevator pitch in the tutorial), and she showed a huge interest and patience in my talk. After listening, she relayed my words to more people at the table in a louder voice, and received a lot of kind words and encouragement which built me a lot more confidence.

After the event, on the way back to ANU, I was called by another lady from my table. She said her daughter is only 12 years old but has already become interested in programming, and she says she is so happy to see young girls in the IT industry firsthand, which has made her more confident in her daughter’s dreams. and encourage me to bravely chase for my career in the IT industry in Canberra.

Thank you both for the feedback!

Hope our feedback can provide some inspiration for others! Thank you again for inviting us to this wonderful event. I am still thinking about what happened yesterday at breakfast. Guess this will be an unforgettable memory for my life.