Insights and Takeaways

New Terms:

Mr. Porter mentioned a couple of terms I had never heard of before so I did some extra research on them.

  • geofencing: allow an administrator to set up triggers so when a device enters (or exits) the boundaries defined by the administrator, an alert is issued. I thought it was interested how Mr. Porter was working for a startup that would notify your phone when you were near a store with ads or deals
  • Keras and Tensorflow: machine learning frameworks, Tensorflow is used for large datasets and high performance models whereas Keras is usually used for small databases. Tensorflower helps you implement best practices for data automation, model tracking, performance monitoring, and model retraining. Keras is a high-level neural network library that runs on top of TensorFlow. Both provide high-level APIs used for easily building and training models, but Keras is more user-friendly because it’s built-in Python.
  • deep learning: In deep learning, a computer model learns to perform classification tasks directly from images, text, or sound. Deep learning models can achieve state-of-the-art accuracy, sometimes exceeding human-level performance.
  • Mrs. Beveridge mentioned how she believes data science and data analytics are the future of tech, this is interesting because I hadn’t considered those fields before but I will do more research on them.
  • laymen’s terms: to describe a complex or technical statement using words and terms that someone not specialised in a specific field can understand.

CS is for people

  • I kind of thought that CS and humanity were far off since CS is STEM, but from the talk I realized that programs and apps are all developed for people so you have to understand what people need and what will help them. All of the places that Mr. Porter and Mrs. Beveridge worked at were places who’s mission was to benefit people.

Don’t wait for things to happen!

  • Mr. Porter explained how when it was announced that Elon Musk was buying Twitter in February, he already began his job search for a new job so when half the company was laid off, he already had a job lined up.
  • I think this was a really important anecdote because it showed me how you have to always plan three steps ahead and make sure that you aren’t putting yourself at risk.

Make your own projects

  • Both speakers said the hardest part of their job was the interview portion. These days, it is especially competitive and difficult to get a high tech position. Mr. Porter explained how one girl landed an internship by creating a machine learning algorithm to create an analytics system that would allow you to know when to delete or archive repositories, which is very useful and helpful since repositories take up a lot of space.
  • This provided insight that I should start building my own projects, that way when I go to interviews, I can show them how I can be an asset and why I’m needed at their company.

Most Important Skills to Have

  • continuous learning- always learning new things, I think the reason why Mr. Porter has been able to hop around so many companies is because he is very open minded and willing to learn and try new things, new areas, new languages, etc.
  • learning how to learn
  • Be adaptive
  • Listen
  • Be able to speak tech in laymen’s terms
  • Doesn’t matter your position
  • Insights: It seems like the tech industry is always changing, so learning how to learn is super important because it will allow you to shape yourself into what multiple companies need

Overall

It was very gratifying and fulfilling to see so many people at this event, especially since I was a part of putting it together with Girls in CS, WEStem, and Mr. Mortensen. Here are some pictures while I was there!