In this episode, David interviews Jenn Calland whom he has known for decades and they discuss her personal journey as a woman getting into the tech field, and then how she was able to re-enter the field first after moving to England from the US, and then after being the primary care giver for her two amazing children (special needs and cancer) via Tech Up Women. Her story is inspirational and exciting and you won’t want to miss it.
We talk about how she got into tech by first off, not being scared of computers because she was exposed to one as a child. From there she worked for EDS/Seimens where she created a web application (before we even had them) to track invoices. Then moving to England and struggling breaking into the job market because of her non-traditional background, and being a foreigner. She took over running the web presence for a local business and totally upgraded their internal and physical systems before she had to take care of her kids full time.
When she was ready to return to the workforce, she found a program that was just starting up called Tech Up Women that was started by one of the pioneers of women in tech named Professor Sue Black OBE. This program, along with Tech Returners in Machester helped her get back into her career and now she is a Data Analyst at the biggest Google cloud consultancy in Europe.
- Introduction
- 00:30 – Brian isn’t here so a quick introduction of our guest.
- 01:13 – Guest Jenn Calland
- 01:26 – Where is Wiggam, UK?
- 02:50 – Where does Jenn Work (CTS) as a Data Analyst
- 06:13 – The advantages of a multi-cloud platform
- 07:41 – How did Jenn first get into tech wherein she makes modem sounds
- 17:09 – Jenn moves to England and faces new challenges revamping a local business’ online presence
- 21:43 – Jenn becomes the parent of an autistic and ADHD child, and then her second child has childhood cancer.
- 22:30 – Jenn is introducted to Tech Up Women and becomes part of their first cohort
- 24:39 – Jenn and David blank on recalling Alan Turing when Jenn mentions that the founder of Tech Up Women (Sue Black, “not the Archeologist, but the one with pink hair”) lead the restoration of Bletchly Park
- 29:42 – Jenn goes through the Tech Returners bootcamp and is discovered by CTS by doing a unique presentation that focused on softer skills
- 33:05 – First job with CTS was working for Census 2021
- 36:00 – Jenn gives some advice to people who might be returning to tech, or any career. She also gives some advice to people who want to be allies for people re-entering the workforce.
- 39:44 One Last Thing – We start out talking about the movie The Creator which is an interesting SciFi movie where humans are fighting AI, but where the AI is the victim as opposed to the oppressors. This leads into a discussion about how likely we are to actually get AI that is going to really change our lives. Jenn and I disagree on how quickly this might happen and agree to sync up again in 40 years to see who was more correct.
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