Hey Girlfriend!: Where are they now?
I started my Hey Girlfriend! series in 2017 – focussing on interviewing and telling the stories of women working in the technology industry. As many of you know, I work in tech myself, and I wanted to fill a gap where I believed women should shine. I found and got to know amazing women both inside and outside of my friend circles, whose stories were inspiring, unique, and that needed to be heard.
Since I started the series, I have interviewed 19 amazing women. This year I have some more interviews lined up. While I have focused on women in tech, specifically, I want to branch out a little – so I’m pleased to announce that you will be seeing more interviews from content creators and independent artists! 💙 Last year I had the pleasure of getting to know and see the works of women who follow their passion to create remarkable products, artwork, and other merchandise. Being a content creator of sorts myself (blogging is really about it 😄), I have an interest in this space as well.
I took a short break at the end of 2019 (researching and interviewing can be time consuming!) and decided to something special to welcome the series back. This is a “Where are they now?” edition of Hey Girlfriend!, where I see what some of the women I interviewed in 2017 are up to now.
Seren Davies
Seren was my first interviewee! When I interviewed her in 2017, her talk “Death to Icon Fonts” had greatly increased accessibility awareness in the community. She has some inspiring goals for 2019 😊
What have you gotten up to today?
Today was a fairly standard day for me. I went to work and got to work on implementing our new font face across our global checkout. I also spent the day investigating using Vue JS to build some new features and I am looking at some of the approaches we could use.
In the evening I managed to run over 5K for the first time! Which is pretty exciting for me. Last time I started running I got to 5k and gave up. This year I want to get into looking after me more and I find running is really good for that.
What is one of your proudest achievements since I shared your interview?
I think one of my proudest achievements since my interview would be winning the Rising Star Awards for Technology. A friend from the Oxford tech community nominated me for the awards which was flattering itself. It was lovely someone thought I was worth nominating and that what I do makes an impact. The winner was decided through a panel of judges along with a public vote. It was amazing that people thought I was worthy of this award and voted for me to win it. It was awesome to be nominated for an award in Technology.
What is something you have been looking forward to?
Something I am really looking forward to this year is actually not related to tech at all! I have booked myself in for a snowboarding lesson at our local our local indoor snow centre. Snowboarding is something I have always thought was really cool and that I’d love to learn but not something I had really every thought about more than that. One of my friends convinced me to go and try it out. I am super excited now and cannot wait!
What is one of your goals for 2019?
One of my goals for 2019 is to get more confident with writing actually. I get a lot of ideas about topics I would like to talk more about. Things that may not be suited to a whole talk but would be perfect for short blog post.
With my Dyslexia I am not the most confident with writing as I know my spelling and sentence structure is not the best. But it’s also something I know will only ever get better with practise so this year I want to push myself to write more. So hopefully this following year you will see some more blog posts from me!
Monica Regalado
Monica is one of my closest friends. Since her interview I got married and she was a bridesmaid at my wedding – yay! What has she been up to since then?
What is one of your proudest achievements since I shared your interview?
Two that I am very happy about:
- Working on interesting problems at work and outside work. Right now I am learning about how people explore and navigate the world.
- Going overseas for the first time since 2002 thanks to a scholarship I got for DesignOps Summit 2018.
What is something you have been looking forward to?
I am really looking forward to reading a lot this year. I want to spend a lot of time reading outside of tech and product design about other things like psychology, anthropology, or even just fiction. I am also excited to see Ross From Friends [the music producer] for the third time ever when he plays in Australia in a few months!
What is one of your goals for 2019?
This year I want to do more things for ME! I have been working really hard professionally and academically for the past few years – I think I want to take off some time just to chill and breathe.
Camille Eddy
When I interviewed Cami in 2017, we spoke about her upcoming robotics internship and her talk about cultural bias in AI. She’s been the keynote speaker at many events since then!
What have you gotten up to today?
Today I worked on a drafting assignment to get ready for my engineering class. I took some time to help a couple of students with their brands online and their personal statements. I also watched the Fyre documentary and took away a profound lesson on always being truthful about yourself and what you do.
What is one of your proudest achievements since I shared your interview?
Yes, a year has gone! I have been able to speak on half a dozen new stages as a keynote speaker. And I am happy that my experiences have been valuable for others. I continue to use my flexibility as a student to take me to new places while digging in on those technical skills that got me to where I am today.
What is something you have been looking forward to?
As of right now, I am headed to Budapest in March for my first in-person keynote outside of the United States. I feel like this is a milestone that will help me take my speaking experience to a new level. And while I am there, I will still be communicating on a topic that is important for everyone to engage. My keynote at its core asks the question, how will we experience artificial intelligence in the future, and how can take that knowledge and prevent inequality?
What is one of your goals for 2019?
I want to collaborate more with everyone around me. I don’t know everything and I need to feel more comfortable receiving knowledge from others. Whether that is my peers, mentors, or people who are more knowledgeable and experienced. One of my rules for life is to make my accomplishments visible and this year I want my accomplishments to rely on more teams of people instead of flying solo.
Holly Pryce
When I interviewed Holly, she had a few travel opportunities for work, but she has some exciting news to share!
What have you gotten up to today?
I started my day filling in my gratitude journal and reading (currently reading Roger Daltrey’s autobiography) and then I headed up to my office to do some client work. I spent the morning doing client work and then in the afternoon I finished off a blog post ready for next week. Once all of my work was out of the way I worked out, had a bath and then spent the evening chilling out, eating pizza and watching TV with my partner, Tyrone. The perfect Friday night!
What is one of your proudest achievements since I shared your interview?
Since the interview, I’ve quit myself time job and I’ve started working for myself. I’ve always been such a sensible person so quitting my job was a big leap for me, but I’m happy to say it’s been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
I love being self-employed. It comes with so many challenges but it pushes me out of my comfort zone and I feel like I’ve learned so much in the past year. I honestly feel like a completely different person to who I was 12 months ago.
What is something you have been looking forward to?
I’m off to Barcelona for a few days in February which I’m super excited about. I’m going with my partner Tyrone to watch the Formula 1 pre-season testing, but I’m sure we will find some time to do some sightseeing. I’m also looking forward to seeing Mark Knopfler live in May.
What is one of your goals for 2019?
One of my goals for 2019 is to launch an online store selling pre-made WordPress themes. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for years and I finally feel confident enough in my coding skills to push ahead with it. Also, I have an incredible web designer who wants to work with me on the project which makes it even more exciting!
Amy Wibowo
I actually got to meet Amy for the first time when I was visiting San Francisco, about a year after I interviewed her on my blog! I pre-ordered one of her Electrocuties bomber jackets last year and I’m super excited because they will be on their way to their owners soon! 💙
What have you gotten up to today?
I went cute stationary shopping with a friend for props to shoot flatlay photos of a recently re-printed Bubblesort Zine!
What is one of your proudest achievements since I shared your interview?
Launching Bubblesort apparel so that feminine folks in tech can have more options for cute tech themed clothing!
What is something you have been looking forward to?
Launching Bubblesort hardware kits, that contain custom manufactured pastel tools for learning electrical engineering hands on! They’re coming later this spring!
What is one of your goals for 2019?
To learn to get better at rollerskating!
Mandy Michael
When I interviewed Mandy, she was getting a lot of worldwide attention for her work on text effects with CSS. She has been invited to speak at a handful of international events since then. 👏
What have you gotten up to today?
Today I finished climbing down Aoraki in New Zealand, it was beautiful! Would recommend 🏔️
What is one of your proudest achievements since I shared your interview?
Climbing the mountain was a pretty cool achievement, but as far as technical achievements go I’d have to say having the opportunity to present at a bunch of conferences. It was awesome to get to share my knowledge, meet new people and learn a bunch at the same time! Oh! I was also named one of the Top 20 Women in Tech in Western Australia over 20 years, that was amazing! I was very honoured!
What is something you have been looking forward to?
At this very moment I am really looking forward to getting some sleep in a comfy bed after the mountain climb. 😂
What is one of your goals for 2019?
One of my goals for 2019 is to speak somewhere in the USA! I haven’t presented there yet so I’d really like to do that. Or maybe write articles for some publications, that would be a fun experience.
I know you said one, but I’d also also love to finish just one of my side projects, they are kind of piling up.
Pauline Narvas
Pauline and I are planning to meet up in real life this year while we are travelling – I’m very emotional. 😭 We’ve known each other online for so long.
At the time I interviewed Pauline, she was studying for a degree in biomedical sciences and doing a lot of community work around helping other women learn how to code.
What have you gotten up to today?
So far, I’ve had a very productive day which is always fantastic for a Monday! I’ve gone to the gym for one of my favourite days of the week (powerlifting!!), published a blog post, organised my prioritises for the week and have been working through my backlog.
What is one of your proudest achievements since I shared your interview?
So much has happened since my interview!
I graduated from the University of Sheffield with a BSc degree in Biomedical Sciences with Employment Experience and I secured a position in a graduate training programme with BT where I work in the Digital Engineering Teams in the BT Consumer division. Throughout the year, I was also recognised for my community work and online contributions in the technology space including listed as one of the top women under 30 in technology and entrepreneurship with Code First: Girls, 5th most influential female student with JP Morgan and the Tab, one of the tech trailblazers of the year with Business Cloud and more! It’s been such an incredible honour, I am so grateful for all the support – truly humbling.
Other achievements include hitting my goals in the online world including hitting an all-time high of 1,500 unique visitors on my blog in one month and getting paid for speaking at an event!
What is something you have been looking forward to?
After such a productive 2018, something I’m looking forward to this year is to spend more time away from the day-to-day hustle, enjoying more of life, recharging and finding inspiration from travelling (and meeting you in the process!)
What is one of your goals for 2019?
One of my main goals for 2019 is to breathe a little more and slow down.
By the end of last year, I was feeling incredibly burn out from working almost 8am-10pm every day (this includes my full time job, community and extra activities) Similar to muscle recovery (I’ve been reading way too much health and fitness books and articles recently), I learned that constantly grinding can do more harm than good and that rest is just as important as work i.e. the heavy lifting days.
I’m hoping to fully recharge this year by regularly reviewing my capacity and taking a quality versus quantity approach with everything.
Thank you to these women for participating in this catch-up! ✨ I look forward to sharing more interviews with you all this year… interviews are posted on the last Tuesday of every month. You can also read up on previous interviews.
Comments on this post
Joy
This is probably one of my favorite series on your blog! I loved how you helped give women in tech a voice and chance to be under a spotlight. I know how important it is that women have a support system in the industry because I could have benefited in my search for a tech job after college. Thank you for this!