Last weekend, Tech Girls Movement Foundation with Rubrik and UTS, hosted a two hour workshop for local tech girls to learn how to build a chat bot. Rubrik flew their Principal Technologist, Rebecca Fitzhugh, who is based in the Silicon Valley, over to Sydney for the workshop.
Rebecca is heavily involved in getting more women and girls into STEM. Her background is extremely interesting, having started in the US Marine Corps where she specialized in cryptographic systems and eventually managed a Force level data center that provided services to the entire Pacific fleet.
The girls had a fantastic time! Here are some quotes from the event:
Sienna said “It was great, and loved learning about a chatbot. I know what it is now. It was good to meet other girls in the competition too.”
Sienna’s mum said “Great to see organisations like Rubrik getting on board and supporting young girls in STEM. UTS Women in Engineering was a perfect location. Industry tech organisations are starting to realise that the future work generation are some of these young girls, and we need to engage early. Given the opportunity to try something new, the girls rise to the challenge. My daughter didn’t know what a chatbot was before the workshop and I didn’t tell her either, she does now. It was also great to see her answering questions and going up the front to engage with people she didn’t know. Rebecca was really great with the girls and showed us how tech can be cool.”
Hugues, a parent at the event said “My daughter loved the event. When someone asked her if she liked the session she replied ‘Are you kidding? I was able to spend 2 hours on the computer doing cool stuff!”
We were also thrilled to see this post by Orla Hanby, Head of Marketing, ANZ for Rubrik, on LinkedIn:
And finally, we’d like to share Chris Wahl’s blog post, which moved us immensely, and made our eyes malfunction. Chris Wahl is Chief Technologist at Rubrik in the Silicon Valley.
A huge thank you to Rebecca, Chris, Orla, Rubrik, and UTS – you made a huge impact on our #techgirls.
