Muse and Metrics S5EP2 — Power of Community with Madona Wambua [Guest Bio, Summary, Audio and Transcript]

Guest Bio

Madona S. Wambua — A Pioneering Technologist and Visionary Leader

Madona S. Wambua stands at the forefront of technological innovation and empowerment in the AI/ML and Android development sectors. As the Founder and CTO of Jibu Labs, she has established herself as a key player in the digital creative space. Her company, Jibu Labs, is renowned for its commitment to multidisciplinary digital creativity, focusing on innovation, emerging technologies, and crafting solutions that address complex challenges in novel ways.

In addition to her leadership role at Jibu Labs, Madona’s contributions to the tech community extend to her work as an author. Her book, “Modern Android 13 Development Cookbook: Over 70 recipes to solve Android development issues and create better apps with Kotlin and Jetpack Compose,” is a testament to her expertise and dedication to advancing the field. This work offers a treasure trove of knowledge for developers, providing practical insights into creating more efficient and effective Android applications.

As a Google Developer Expert for Android, Madona’s proficiency in the realm of Android application development is undeniable. Her deep understanding of Kotlin and Jetpack Compose reflects in her innovative approaches to modern app development.

Beyond her technical achievements, Madona is a committed advocate for women in technology. Her roles as a Google Women Techmakers Ambassador and a co-chair for AnitaB.org highlight her dedication to fostering inclusive and empowering spaces in the tech industry.

Madona S. Wambua’s journey is a blend of technical mastery, innovative leadership, and community engagement, making her a true inspiration in the tech world. Her contributions through Jibu Labs and her authoritative publication on Android development continue to shape the landscape of technology, emphasizing creativity, innovation, and inclusivity.

Summary

Key Highlights:

1. Madona Wambua’s Background and Achievements:

• Renowned as a Woman Techmakers Ambassador and Google Developer Expert for Android.
• Serves as a co-chair for AnitaB.org, advocating for women in STEM.
• Founder of Jubilance, a company specializing in consulting and product development.
• Author of “Modern Android 13 Development Cookbook,” focusing on making tech more accessible to women.

2. The Book’s Innovative Approach:

• Presents coding concepts in a unique cookbook format, offering easy-to-follow “recipes” for Android app development.
• Designed to simplify the learning process for beginners in Android development.

3. Addressing Gender Disparity in Tech:

• Discusses the challenges women face in the tech industry, emphasizing the need for greater support and encouragement.
• Highlights the transformative role of mentorship and community in fostering success in tech careers.
• Shares personal stories to illustrate the impact of early encouragement and interests in technology.

4. The Power of Community and Networking:

• Emphasizes the significant impact of tech communities like LinkedIn and Women Who Code in professional growth.
• Shares her own experiences of learning and growing through active engagement in tech communities.

5. Madona as a Mentor and Women in Tech Advocate:

• Reflects on her role in mentoring young professionals and serving as a role model.
• Discusses the importance of visibility and representation for women in tech conferences and events.

6. Guidance for Aspiring Tech Enthusiasts:

• Advises pursuing one’s passion within the tech field, exploring various areas to find the best fit.
• Recommends engaging in communities, seeking mentors, and using structured resources to navigate the tech landscape effectively.

7. Personal Insights and Career Wisdom:

• Stresses the importance of risk-taking, adaptability, and ongoing learning in one’s career.
• Highlights her book as a valuable starting point for those new to Android development.

Conclusion: This episode with Madona Wambua illuminates her journey and contributions in the technology sector, underscoring the critical roles of community, mentorship, and active participation of women in tech. Her insights as an experienced tech professional, author, and mentor offer invaluable guidance and inspiration to those navigating or aspiring to succeed in the tech industry.

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Transcript

(This is a raw transcript — there may be errors)

00;00;08;20–00;00;30;11
Madona Wambua
Hello. My name is Madona Wambua and I am a Woman Techmakers Ambassador. I’m also an expert that is a Google Developer Expert for Android. And apart from that I am also is this co-chair for AnitaB.org which is a big innovation that brings women in the STEM fields together for conference every year.

00;00;30;14–00;00;54;24
Madona Wambua
And I also just recently founded my own company called Jubilance where I’m doing consulting work and also building a flagship product that I’m pretty proud of. And then to sum it up, I am the author of the new book called More Than 13 Development Cookbooks, a book that I’m seeking to bring more women in tech just through them reading and following simple recipes to make food.

00;00;54;24–00;00;57;26
Madona Wambua
And I kept out my kids actually asked me, Why.

00;00;57;26–00;00;59;00
Speaker 2
Did you go with a cookbook?

00;00;59;00–00;01;06;13
Madona Wambua
And this answered them. I mean, it’s simple recipes, simple recipes that you can follow. So why not make it fun?

00;01;06;16–00;01;07;29
Speaker 2
So that is who I am and.

00;01;07;29–00;01;11;22
Madona Wambua
There’s more to it, but those are the ones.

00;01;11;25–00;01;12;06
Speaker 2
You know.

00;01;12;10–00;01;21;18
Philippa Burgess
So as someone who’s new to coding, they can get this book and the recipes are there and now they can create and be on the path to creating their own Android apps.

00;01;21;21–00;01;38;20
Madona Wambua
Yeah, yes, that is the idea. So the idea of the cookbook is for people to follow simple recipes, which would lead to building two simple building blocks where you can build a cooking club. So what I did was I went with the major component in a phone, for instance, there will be a button, there will be a text, there will be an edit, edit, text.

00;01;38;27–00;01;59;17
Madona Wambua
And I know many people might not know what these are, but in every phone that I use, you will see a bottom. So those so what I’m teaching in this particular cookbook in recipes is how do you make that button? How do you actually make that edit sense? How is that circle drawn? So the pretty small recipes actually not small 70 select.

00;01;59;19–00;02;07;10
Madona Wambua
So it’s like a lot of meals that we’re going to cook, which is a very exciting and cool.

00;02;07;13–00;02;09;29
Philippa Burgess
Making it very accessible.

00;02;10;01–00;02;11;19
Madona Wambua
Yes, that’s the key.

00;02;11;21–00;02;41;25
Philippa Burgess
So if you’ve never been in the Android kitchen before, you’re okay. You tell us what we need to to buy at the grocery store and how to get into the kitchen and how to just start so we can actually have a on our way to app development and software development and becoming engineers, which is something that my dad’s an engineer and also an accountant, and yet he very much gave me a strong foundation in math and science, which I think served me.

00;02;41;25–00;03;09;06
Philippa Burgess
But I noticed that within my academic career, none of those things were encouraged. None of those things were embraced. And really when I started college because I went on an art track, it was never revisited again. And I feel that within things I’ve seen within the American culture especially, I worked a lot in media and entertainment. How much we denigrate an affinity for math.

00;03;09;09–00;03;35;03
Philippa Burgess
Those are the kids that are mad enough and we don’t embrace. And I’ve had so many interviews here with people of South Asian descent and their math heroes, and we’re math zeros. It’s like I mean, especially with women. I just don’t feel that we’re encouraged. And now that I’m in a master’s of science degree, I just finished a geographic information technology certificate.

00;03;35;06–00;03;57;18
Philippa Burgess
I’m revisiting all my math. And I love math. And I see great application for math. And I feel like what you’re doing as far as encouraging women who code and just being a leader in this space is so important because I always felt not only was I not encouraged in those fields, I also felt there were people who did know that there I created a very us versus them.

00;03;57;18–00;04;22;12
Philippa Burgess
For me, I they didn’t I never felt like they said, come over here and learn this. It’s really good and there’s use for it and you’re going to find that you’ll excel, you’ll thrive, you’ll have more opportunities. And more recently, now that I’ve come to the other side and embracing being a woman at Tech, a woman in STEM, several of the books I’m reading or people have heard speak at conferences say, You really want to know statistics, you really want to know calculus.

00;04;22;12–00;04;46;26
Philippa Burgess
These will help you in your journey. You want to know linear algebra, but don’t worry about it. If you don’t, you can still start. And then as you go, you’ll see where having these can help you. And they’re easily learned through things like Khan Academy. So you can get low cost, no cost access to this education. And there’s so many books and resources, audio books and videos.

00;04;46;28–00;05;00;03
Philippa Burgess
So yeah, Can you sort of speak to that journey that you see because you talk to so many people, but women, especially as far as our relationship to math?

00;05;00;05–00;05;20;07
Madona Wambua
Yeah, you bring up such a great point and it made me just go back to my childhood when I was young. I was very curious. First of all, I wanted to become an electrical engineer because I loved just how the planes were flying, and I was like, Wow, who made that thing that’s flying into the people? Because my mom told me, You know, when you’re young, you don’t know what that thing you were told.

00;05;20;12–00;05;42;27
Madona Wambua
It’s an airplane. And I’m like, Wow, I’ve never been in one. How is it working? So it really made me be very curious. And just one year, join that field. What’s something that’s pretty also recent to me that I noticed is that during my childhood I never heard my parents tell me that you could be an engineer and engineer and mean like a computer science.

00;05;43;00–00;05;58;19
Madona Wambua
However, there are going to be are in fields that were definitely there, that definitely were pushed towards me, like, Hey, you can actually be an engineer. As one engineer with no money was kind of like the kind of engineering that you’d be pushed out. Or you can be a lawyer, you can be a doctor, you can be a business person.

00;05;58;26–00;06;22;03
Madona Wambua
And nobody ever told me like that. And moms and dads and uncles, nobody told me that you can be like a software engineer. So to me it were like, There’s that disconnect. And I don’t blame our parents because definitely we didn’t know because technology is pretty new. As you can see, it’s pretty new to me. I think oxygen is it it’s not millennial the previous generation.

00;06;22;03–00;06;46;06
Philippa Burgess
I’m I’m Gen X and I refer to someone I am officially someone who’s completely analog and totally digital, which is why the embracing my identity as a woman in tech is even if I wasn’t designing the software, I was using the software. I remember being a freshman in college learning how to HTML because I was like, this is possible.

00;06;46;06–00;07;13;05
Philippa Burgess
I can put up a website. I remember thinking, we should have like an online magazine, and this is 1992. So I always have felt like I’ve been an early adopter to all things technology and now coming into owning my identity, now that I can create and just being part of a Google IO extended audience summit that I just did because I did have the opportunity, we were invited, but I wasn’t able to actually attend the event.

00;07;13;07–00;07;37;00
Philippa Burgess
Going in and spending time with those sessions and hearing the keynotes about Palm two and Gemini and what’s coming and the fact that they’re like, Hey, developers run with this, go build your apps, and I’m listening to this thing like I can build an app like how amazing I can. And I know that, you know, the instruction, the cookbooks are out there, the technology and the APIs and the plug ins to say, Go play is out there.

00;07;37;00–00;07;39;17
Philippa Burgess
And that phenomenal.

00;07;39;20–00;08;02;08
Madona Wambua
It is phenomenal. And like I was telling you, I mean, I come from a country in Kenya. I mean, I come from Kenya in a country in Africa. And we don’t we didn’t I mean, I don’t believe my mom. She knew what technology because technology just existed, just not so many years as compared to the United States. I mean, United Way advanced.

00;08;02;10–00;08;23;09
Madona Wambua
But that said, I feel like still here, too. I’ve noticed that problem where not so many parents know about fields like computer science, where they can push their kids to it. So to me, one thing that I’ve been really hoping to do as a woman, technique as a master is spread the word that, hey, actually there is a field called computer science, but you can actually tell the kids to try.

00;08;23;12–00;08;47;15
Madona Wambua
And also right now, so many kids way now not even like so many schools already integrating computer science into the curriculum. So which means in some of these fields, I will come in the future. There are going to be technology based on what does that mean? It means technology is not going anywhere. So what I’m doing is in a woman to make it impossible, just amplifying that, making sure that people are not left behind anymore.

00;08;47;17–00;09;08;06
Madona Wambua
The fact that I didn’t know about it might not know about it because I knew about it, and I always find it interesting how I even knew about it when I was growing up, which is I got a phone too, so I didn’t end up becoming Internet tweeting as something I wanted. I ended up becoming a software engineer because after my dad gifted me a phone.

00;09;08;09–00;09;18;24
Speaker 2
I was like, okay, now look at this thing. Not even upload even a computer. I was like, Well, how do they make the computer to is making this big?

00;09;18;27–00;09;35;20
Madona Wambua
Because I come from Kenya. It was very hard to even know who the developers because I, I don’t think it’s a fact that right now they might be developing laptops and Kenyans. And before you just see a download I hate to be like well who made it like how they make it it so to me it kept falling.

00;09;35;22–00;09;37;26
Madona Wambua
Yes, a lot of people are doing.

00;09;37;29–00;09;39;12
Speaker 2
That, kept me that kept.

00;09;39;12–00;09;46;16
Madona Wambua
Pushing me until I decided to explore. And here I am chasing my dreams.

00;09;46;19–00;09;47;11
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;09;47;14–00;10;13;16
Philippa Burgess
Well, you’re not just chasing dreams. You’re inspiring dreams. And I will tell you, that moment that we met in the hallway of the International Women’s Day event in New York City at the JPMorgan Morgan Building, and it was my first Google event that I attended. It was my first event attending as a women tech maker’s ambassador. And we never know how we inspire people just by being who we are and by doing what we’re doing.

00;10;13;19–00;10;36;25
Philippa Burgess
You are the first person who ever mentioned GDC to me. I’m a Google development expert, and that landed with me. I was like, What is that? That sounds amazing and how do I become one? And now I’m on that path and I am looking at geospatial. Mine’s a bit broader because, but it aligns with what I’m studying at school is a geographic information science and technology.

00;10;36;25–00;11;00;14
Philippa Burgess
So I’m on the the maps. And how do we use maps related to human security and disaster resilience, disaster response? And that’s that’s my path. I’m not ready to apply. I’m ready to understand what software is. Do I need to know and be an expert at. So I’m just at the beginning of my learning journey of what it will take to become a Google development expert.

00;11;00;16–00;11;24;24
Philippa Burgess
And I was just at a geographic information science. It’s called Israeli Conference and Google and S3 do not connect. They run parallel, but it is a geospatial behemoth. And so it’s as right as is one of these software industry standards. So I spent two days walking that expo floor asking people, where do I find the point of connection between Ezra and Google?

00;11;24;27–00;11;51;03
Philippa Burgess
And I found the databases and I just finished a database. US Well. And so the software that I’m going to get started with is big query, and then I need to know more about Google Earth Engine and Google Earth. And then maps and Google Map APIs and then this new immersive experience. But I just want to say that breathing habits that I had with you and you just being you completely inspired that for me.

00;11;51;05–00;12;00;02
Philippa Burgess
So we never know. We’re out in the world just being who we are, how that lands with people and can help them begin an untold journey.

00;12;00;03–00;12;21;25
Madona Wambua
That is so true. I mean, and to be fair, I also didn’t know about the Jewish community until somebody mentioned it to me, too. I’ve been able to bring so many. Didn’t like you. And to me, back in the days when I heard about it, I thought it was an elite group which couldn’t get in. But I realize that’s not true.

00;12;21;25–00;12;40;10
Madona Wambua
You just have to continue doing what you’re doing and then eventually you get nominated. And of course you have need to have like five years of experience doing that particular thing. You want to be an expert in so that you can be seen as a thought leader and also speak about all these things that they’re trying to do, especially the Google product.

00;12;40;12–00;13;00;23
Madona Wambua
And to me, being so accessible and around the world, I decided to go with it like this is amazing. And also the fact that I’ve never changed from Android. I’ve always been another developer and I feel like having a niche is very important for you because it makes an expert in that particular field. So to me I went with it and I decided to just become an expert in it.

00;13;00;25–00;13;25;11
Madona Wambua
And now that I feel like I’ve been able to achieve what I wanted to achieve, that’s when I started doing my own thing. And I have a company. I’m the CTO, a mining developer. We actually did today of what I call in the podcast. We launched a very major project that I’m very proud of, seeing all the places that our clients are saying, and I’m like, Wow, I’m so proud.

00;13;25;13–00;13;42;13
Philippa Burgess
So I love that. And I think part of the skill is also in development and I think skills that I very much relate to because I’ve also had these conversations with my father about he’s like, Are you strategic or are you operational? And I gear more towards operational looks. I love getting things done, but are very good at strategic.

00;13;42;15–00;14;04;22
Philippa Burgess
And I think that this leadership course I just finished was reminding us that you can have both of those things in one person. You can have both of those things in an organization. You need both. And it sounds like you have both definitely as a strategic thinker because you see the big picture. You’ve known how to put yourself in that niche, but very operational as well because you’re you’re into the detail.

00;14;04;22–00;14;26;02
Philippa Burgess
Your apps work really well and your clients are very happy. The end user is excited about what they’re getting. And so that part of it and then coming into Google, women tech makers, I feel that we are all together collectively growing ourselves as thought leaders, which you clearly are. And bridge building ambassadors.

00;14;26;04–00;14;51;20
Madona Wambua
Yes. Without them, I would want to 100% agree on that because I feel like to me, if I did have a community like LinkedIn because three women who code, I don’t think it will be where I am. Like my biggest cheerleader would be women as models and women who code because every time I wanted to, even when instead of giving my talks way back in the days, I would give them like local women code mediums.

00;14;51;22–00;15;04;08
Madona Wambua
I never went big until later. I was so comfortable and said, You know what? I’m going to try to submit a talk to this big conference and see what happens. And then I got accepted. I was like, Wow, okay.

00;15;04;08–00;15;06;07
Speaker 2
They believe in me.

00;15;06;09–00;15;38;26
Madona Wambua
So I started looking into how can I be sure that my talk actually touches the audience or makes sense? Because this kind of talk, I’m giving more technical talks, I’ll give you more technical talk as compared to, let’s say, career or community based jobs. So to me, with that in mind, I found my cheerleaders to be women. So every time I went to a conference where, however, it’s very sad that in the world, despite the fact that I’m really is used by people, 6 billion users around the world, there are so many developers that are women.

00;15;38;28–00;16;04;27
Madona Wambua
So every time I’ve traveled the world, like, let’s see, just recently, 11 billion giving a talk, I was also in San Francisco and I noticed that my room gets people coming in, so many people, but many of the people are men, which is amazing because they’re coming to listen to me. It’s amazing what I would like to see that changed over the years, where these more people, more women are coming in, more women are learning this, more women are even doing it.

00;16;04;29–00;16;22;05
Madona Wambua
So to me, that still breaks my heart that the cheerleaders that I know, the people, they’re actually going to feel like. In Berlin, I had like three women. That was this amazing with you follows me on Twitter. And she’s from Africa. And she told me she traveled to Berlin to come see my dog.

00;16;22;05–00;16;25;20
Speaker 2
I was like, No way, you didn’t do that. Yes.

00;16;25;22–00;16;43;03
Madona Wambua
What on? So I had like 3 to 4 women attend my talk. So it’s pretty awkward. However, I feel like I always like to see the bigger picture and the light at the end of the tunnel. Close the future, even here on this date. And I didn’t go, I believe, mobile.

00;16;43;08–00;17;18;01
Philippa Burgess
Absolutely. I know the women tech makers is such a positive, powerful initiative by Google. I totally support it. And I know that to get into the program you have to be at a certain level and doing certain things. But once you’re in the program, it takes you to other levels and the support and the mentorship and the guidance and just the affirmation that you’re on the right track, the support to empower our communities and help them feel included, help them find the path, help them find the way forward.

00;17;18;03–00;17;21;20
Philippa Burgess
Did you become a women tech makers ambassador?

00;17;21;23–00;17;41;01
Madona Wambua
So it was it was during the pandemic around 2020, 20, one of them not forgetting that. But for the longest, how was globally for women to code mobile and that’s from 2019 before that, however, I was just the developer who was of not knowing the press.

00;17;41;04–00;17;42;14
Speaker 2
So I was kind of like.

00;17;42;17–00;18;06;19
Madona Wambua
Building on my own and just then working for the company and not even engaging the community. So I was a developer who believed in being an individualist. I mean, I see nothing wrong with being an individualist, but I learned that I didn’t progress as much as an individual because I realize the tech industry definitely does need you to be in the community because the community building up pretty fast.

00;18;06;19–00;18;26;11
Madona Wambua
When I joined with us community women who could, I mean, in my career skyrocketed, to be fair, because I was given all these opportunities to run to do webinars. I was able to organize women. And every time I had a problem at work because I know that we the American system, it’s pretty interesting. Coming from Kenya, I found it to be pretty interesting.

00;18;26;13–00;18;43;03
Madona Wambua
And this is in the in the fact that people like to be heads down and just doing their own work. You know, like we it’s corporate. We need to work. We need to work, work, work. So I didn’t have been a mentor at work for most of the places I work. I mean, right now I’m very comfortable where I am.

00;18;43;05–00;19;10;09
Madona Wambua
But I learned that it’s pretty interesting when people are heads down, and that’s something that I don’t like to do anymore. I always reach out to younger developers just to check on them like, Are you struggling? Do you need help? Because I realize if you don’t ask that, people struggle. So what the community gave me is I would rephrase the questions that I was experiencing and then just ask individually, like how do you actually solve a particular problem in Android?

00;19;10;15–00;19;30;26
Madona Wambua
And then I would get an answer and I was like, Wow, Finally, I could have done this from the beginning. So I would highly recommend if somebody is new in this tech world, kind of mentor early, it will help you stay in tech. Otherwise it becomes so difficult because you end up being consumed by Texas Tech is very consuming because the problems is solving.

00;19;30;26–00;19;52;15
Madona Wambua
They’re not easy. It’s okay. We have StackOverflow, but StackOverflow will not solve your problem the same. We have to Djibouti. You can Google all these questions, but you have to implement those solutions to future need. And sometimes there’s a lot of learning involved in this, but having somebody that can walk you through maybe something they’ve experienced or they’ve built or done, it’s really helpful.

00;19;52;17–00;20;13;02
Madona Wambua
So I’ll say, don’t be an individual. It’s like me. The community has power and the community has helped me so much. I mean, look at where I am right now when we before we even begun talking. You’ve you’ve mentioned so many things about me. And I was like, wow. And not even thought about that about myself until you mentioned it, because I realized, wow, it is true.

00;20;13;04–00;20;15;05
Madona Wambua
I am actually a superwoman. I mean.

00;20;15;07–00;20;18;25
Speaker 2
Know about doing all these things.

00;20;18;28–00;20;42;18
Madona Wambua
Really, Even if I was still in my nature of being an individual, I wouldn’t be where I am right now. Right. But the community cheerlead for me told me, Madonna, you’re doing great. I like what you’re doing. I like your teachings. I like your teaching strategy. I like how you explain this concept. And it gave me that power to keep doing this things more like just be out there serving others and teaching others.

00;20;42;21–00;21;12;07
Madona Wambua
And then I have this thing where kids love me out of my like I’ve never been in a situation where a kid didn’t like me, like even at train stations, even in a play, if a kid sees me, they all smile. I don’t even have a smiling face. Maybe the lesson is take it out. But to be fair, I connect a lot with people, so I feel like I realize that I should have been utilizing that power to connect to the people and just grow my network.

00;21;12;07–00;21;31;10
Madona Wambua
But I also believe there’s the right time for everything. So I don’t just like, beat myself down for what I didn’t do because it gave me time also to understand my craft pretty well. So I’m like, Yeah, even though I spent time doing it on my own, I did learn to understand it better. Now that I’m out there explaining it, I know what I’m talking about.

00;21;31;13–00;21;38;14
Madona Wambua
So it’s not that that at the end of the day. So I think finding a balance can be pretty good. So I would say definitely find a community and find a balance.

00;21;38;16–00;22;01;08
Philippa Burgess
I absolutely agree. I will say when I started on this gas technology path, I left my much of my old world behind. I was kind of feeling like I was, hey, I’m in a new chapter, I’m in a new space. And it was only recently going to the Ezra User conference where tens of thousands of people are there, and I realize how hard I’m working to learn their skills and be in their world.

00;22;01;10–00;22;28;13
Philippa Burgess
And they kind of looked at it and was like, I don’t see any other YouTuber podcast or bloggers here. Anybody who really has that same comfort on the stage or with media in this in this conversation, and it really kind of had me recommit to this journey that I have as both a tech learner and as well as someone who does have this background in entertainment and media.

00;22;28;16–00;22;42;03
Philippa Burgess
And coming from entertainment community is key. You don’t you’re not in the church gaming industry unless the people you know know each other. That’s how you know you’re in the industry. And I think that’s true that about any industry.

00;22;42;05–00;22;42;13
Madona Wambua
And I also.

00;22;42;14–00;23;00;13
Philippa Burgess
Want to come back to the point that you made about mentors, because I think sometimes we feel perhaps we’re being a burden on someone. Yeah, one thing nobody explained to me in high school was that I would need to go back to my teachers and say, by the way, can I get a recommendation letter? Yeah, I didn’t know that I was ever going to do that.

00;23;00;13–00;23;19;06
Philippa Burgess
I might have behaved differently in class or had a different way of interacting with the teacher. If I actually knew that I needed something from them in a way that was mutually beneficial to it. And so when I have to ask for recommendation letters, I always want to make sure that I have a light touch about it. I’m being appropriate with it.

00;23;19;14–00;23;25;13
Philippa Burgess
And you don’t want to inundate the person and you want to basically make sure they have something nice to say about you.

00;23;25;15–00;23;26;01
Madona Wambua
Yeah.

00;23;26;03–00;23;49;12
Philippa Burgess
And I think that only in my later life did I learn the power of the recommendation and the power of the letter of recommendation. And how many things in life need those endorsements. And so I think when you’re part of a community, you don’t need to kind of cling on to one person saying, Help me, help me. You can have a light touch with many people and they can all kind of answer whatever question you have in that moment.

00;23;49;15–00;24;10;14
Philippa Burgess
And then people are more likely to, I think, want to take you under their wing when they see that you’re doing all of these things of your own drive and motivation and that you are part of the community because they also want to look good in front of other people that you know and say, yeah, I’m doing good by this person that I’m helping, but other people see that I’m helping.

00;24;10;16–00;24;13;03
Philippa Burgess
And there’s this mutual accountability.

00;24;13;05–00;24;13;29
Madona Wambua
Yeah.

00;24;14;01–00;24;25;18
Philippa Burgess
And I think the true people are nicer to people when they know that they’re seen. They can’t be shady because it’s all going to be in the public forum.

00;24;25;21–00;24;27;09
Madona Wambua
That is true.

00;24;27;11–00;24;49;12
Philippa Burgess
And I think that, you know, and there is a also an Internet meme image that I saw, and it was talking about corporate communications and I was saying how simple communications are when there’s a triangle of three. And then they get more complicated when it’s four, because now there’s multiple lines of communication. And then they were showing what 14 look like and they were saying, This is really complicated and would like.

00;24;49;12–00;25;04;18
Philippa Burgess
To me it was fabric. It looked like a doily almost. And it was and I was like thinking I was like, well, no, it’s not about it’s complicated. It’s safe. When you have 14 people who know each other, you are in a very safe, protected environment.

00;25;04;20–00;25;06;06
Madona Wambua
So true.

00;25;06;08–00;25;26;27
Philippa Burgess
And so I think that there’s the mentorship where you do need to ask for help and you do need to reach out to people. But I’m also thinking, so I’d love for you to expand a little bit more on that idea of mentorship, too, because I think people don’t know how to go about asking for mentors or that it really somehow is as formal as Will you be my mentor, other type of informal, like, Can I ask you a question?

00;25;26;27–00;25;38;13
Philippa Burgess
Can I get some advice? Can we have a cup of coffee? Can we just have a chat? And it doesn’t need to be in some cases, more than one conversation every once in a while, just a chat room.

00;25;38;15–00;25;53;18
Madona Wambua
I love the way you put it because to me the kind of mentors I actually had during my early careers and actually now that I think about it, there were mentors because that’s what I would use. Like just reach out to them and ask them questions. We will not have like a continuous progress where we would check on each other.

00;25;53;21–00;26;16;07
Madona Wambua
But definitely every time I had a question I knew someone to go to and I would ask her and she was very amazing. But now that I’m jumping into their found a space, I’ve found, I’m. I got it. I got a chance to connect with an amazing woman. She is a board of three companies that what billions And then when we met it’s actually just through networking.

00;26;16;09–00;26;35;11
Madona Wambua
So again I want to seize on the past networking too, because I find it to be very amazing and community building too, because the way we met was through that and we started a call. I didn’t even know about her career because she was very humble. Like, you know that when you meet someone, you don’t even know that they’re that big and they’re doing all this stuff.

00;26;35;13–00;27;06;07
Madona Wambua
And I didn’t even know she was the CEO. She was just the person that was attending an event that I was attending. And then she thought, I like what I spoke about was good the way we talked. So she came to me and then we connected and we became friends. After becoming friends, she gave me her number and after giving me a number, we scheduled all of us, of course, all of us to call was, Hey, you’re a founder, Masonic was now she, after doing after her successful career, she decided to go back to being a founder because she wanted to build something she’s passionate, passionate about.

00;27;06;10–00;27;27;06
Madona Wambua
So when she gave me her phone number, we connected. After connecting, we had all five call. You know, first call is when. Now I got to understand more about almost talking to so we talked about just normal things. We didn’t even talk about her career. Now, after the call was done, she was amazing and great. I was like, Wow, I think she’s an amazing person.

00;27;27;06–00;27;40;02
Madona Wambua
You really need to look it up. So this is a shocker. So I decided to actually Google it because I’m like, Wow, this woman is amazing. I don’t know that much, but let me Google. When I Googled her, my mouth dropped. Like, what?

00;27;40;08–00;27;42;18
Speaker 2
I’ve been speaking to.

00;27;42;20–00;27;58;11
Madona Wambua
Somebody who’s been in this has been a CEO who’s been in big boats like these, like, wow, there’s no way. And then when we met the next time, I was like, Well, you didn’t tell me. I was like, No, I’m done. I don’t have to tell you, your very good friend that I wanted to stay in touch with.

00;27;58;13–00;28;19;09
Madona Wambua
And then I asked her that officially, I would really want you to be my mentor because I think you’ve done more and you very successful and you are actually very humble and I would like to learn from you and I would like to learn from your path. So what I’m trying to get at is that’s how sometimes you can get mentors just through that connection from an event that you’ve gone to from somebody that you met without even knowing who they were.

00;28;19;09–00;28;21;26
Speaker 2
And then you Google them later off. They just a simple.

00;28;21;26–00;28;44;28
Madona Wambua
Conversation gather where you can get a mentor is you admire somebody that you’ve seen. I’ve seen people reach out to me, like through LinkedIn and just ask me, Hey, can I be your mentor? And then normally what I do is that if I don’t have any mentee at the moment, I would definitely look into how we can schedule for school and see where a fit and see what exactly this person wants to achieve.

00;28;45;01–00;29;01;19
Madona Wambua
But other than that, it’s like the other way you can definitely reach out to somebody is email them if you know them all fit like this person of I admire this person, but I want just a good ask, a drop, a good email, tell them what you want, what you want to learn from them, and then ask that question.

00;29;01;22–00;29;18;19
Madona Wambua
Now I always want to make it to the side because I’ve realized that’s something that we also want to do, is that as women to make as ambassador, many of us are very accomplished. So I would like to also recommend that even you’re romantic make us ambassador look into mentorship, too. I think it’s a very good thing. You never know what you learn from the mentees.

00;29;18;21–00;29;42;23
Madona Wambua
So I am actually a mentor. I joined this program back in 2011 and it was actually through an email, so I got an email from American Express about you. Tribe is a is a call is I think it’s for high school students in America and actually, I don’t know if it was globally, I forget, but normally I get students from around my area here and they asked me, would you like to be a mentor?

00;29;42;23–00;30;02;00
Madona Wambua
So I went through the background check and everything because I really thought that was a good idea, like just giving back to the community in a different way. And I filled out the form and it went through and I was accepted with the platform youth tribe. And I’m into there and I get students who ask me, Hey, can you help me with my college application?

00;30;02;02–00;30;23;11
Madona Wambua
So what I’m trying to say is that there’s different ways to give back. I have a mentor, but I also mentor, which is something that I find to be very nice because what I learned from my mentor and what I learn from my mentees is just amazing and it all humbles me to it wasn’t that I am actually because I feel like giving back is one of the best thing you can ever do as an ambassador.

00;30;23;15–00;30;28;05
Madona Wambua
A women to make is ambassador and somebody who wants positive change the world.

00;30;28;07–00;30;53;00
Philippa Burgess
Let me also ask you, you mentioned earlier the Anita the world doing Anita B, What can you tell us more about that? Tell us about that organization you’re working there because there’s these amazing women who have been the leaders that we are all standing on their shoulders who got us to these places. And and they have these foundations and these events and these opportunities.

00;30;53;03–00;30;55;28
Philippa Burgess
And you’re obviously quite involved there as well.

00;30;56;01–00;31;21;16
Madona Wambua
Yes. So what I would say is that Anita Borg is one of the best conference you can ever attend if you’re a student. Number one, if you’re a senior leader and also mid-level or leader and also a junior developer or a junior, just a junior engineer. And why do I say this? I say this because I got an opportunity to attend the conference back in 2019, and surprisingly, it was my first one.

00;31;21;16–00;31;45;20
Madona Wambua
Like just intending person was my first one, and I was amazed at the number of women. First of all, the were there. So it brings women from around the world like it sponsors women from all the parts of the world. And we had over 20,000 women come to Florida for like three or four day conference. And we would learn from big leaders.

00;31;45;25–00;32;12;27
Madona Wambua
So know they’ve had great speakers like Condoleeza Rice, like Serena Williams, Megan Rupp roping and many of the big stars. But that’s not the point. The point has been every time I’ve been to this event, I’ve met amazing women in tech because the conference is for women in STEM. And what I’ve seen is that the connection you can make there and the like, the insights you can gain, the kind of talks that are there, it’s just amazing.

00;32;12;29–00;32;29;24
Madona Wambua
I met a friend I didn’t even know, so I met a friend through like we decided to grab coffee together. Do you know when you’re in a conference you’ve stayed in a conference together and then the next morning we woke up early because it’s pretty big. You had to be in the event in your venue pretty early so that you don’t miss your talk.

00;32;29;26–00;32;47;17
Madona Wambua
And then I met this amazing lady and we’re like, Hey, let’s go grab coffee. You know, the way you’re walking. Like, Hey, what are you doing? I’m doing this, I’m listening to this. And then we decided to just go together and we got an Uber together. She gave me a number. It’s same. So I think feel like I’ve been leveraging networking a lot.

00;32;47;24–00;33;09;17
Madona Wambua
So Give gave me a number and I gave them my number. Now she’s the CEO of Capital One and I look back and we still communicate. She’s like, Don, I want to post you to come look for like, not yet. But the fact that I connected with her through that conference, it just shows the quality of I need to be content and people.

00;33;09;24–00;33;31;05
Madona Wambua
So as a culture, what I do is I help shape that content. And this year it was amazing to see the talk that the talks that we picked get elected and I was like, Wow, these are the speakers we picked. And I see that means this. I’m very happy. So as a co-chair, we have reviewers too that do the work and also we review and also just spread the word like of just I need to be, what I need to be is doing.

00;33;31;11–00;33;56;02
Madona Wambua
So I would highly recommend if you’re listening to this podcast one day, if you’ve never heard about I need a beat or I’ll go check them out, it’s pretty amazing. And I want to mention there’s always like a career fair. So the career section is where you can go and get a job immediately. Like if get a job from there, like I heard last year, like I think it was Bank of America, because this is everybody knows about this Bank of America.

00;33;56;09–00;34;01;26
Madona Wambua
If you had done an interview, Bank of America, you’re going to Disney. They took everybody.

00;34;01;26–00;34;02;24
Speaker 2
Didn’t do me.

00;34;02;27–00;34;15;26
Madona Wambua
So they’ve been pretty big. All these big companies go there to help, you know, like graduates get jobs, undergrads get jobs. So it’s amazing place to be for any woman in STEM. It’s pretty amazing.

00;34;15;29–00;34;36;15
Philippa Burgess
I love that. And the other thing is we don’t learn about these things unless someone shares that. And I always feel like our brain is like a file folder. You’ll hear something and you’ll create a folder and you’ll put it in your brain and it’s labeled, it’s there. But if there’s no hook to pull out, retrieve that file, you’ll never see that file again.

00;34;36;17–00;34;37;01
Madona Wambua
But as soon.

00;34;37;01–00;35;04;07
Philippa Burgess
As you see something else reference it, your brain pulls it out and adds more information into that file. And and it’s so I feel that this is the way movies marketed as actors. You know, you hear that the very first time you hear from them again, you’re not going to think about them again. But when you sort of especially when you start seeing it through multiple media, you see it in different places, it’s that that folder starts getting thicker and more.

00;35;04;09–00;35;22;29
Philippa Burgess
And then and then you’re able to see someone else can do something associated and then you pull out that file and say, these things connect. And it’s so it’s really important to speak about things because. So many things I see just are valuable, but they disappear unless someone else speaks of them again.

00;35;23;01–00;35;51;25
Madona Wambua
Yes. So to me, I need a bit all these pretty rattling because I’m I also made a great connection through attending a conference. So those are one of so the cons the conflict is I feel like I’ve been pretty nice to me is women who code definitely Anita beta org and then for my others for my community like what I do and in Android space and then there are so many others out there that also are amazing that I should we can definitely have a list of policies that people can attend.

00;35;51;27–00;36;02;14
Madona Wambua
And also just like just following the women to make US Ambassador channel just to see the kind of events that every ambassador is fun because they are also amazing events.

00;36;02;16–00;36;30;01
Philippa Burgess
Fantastic. And can you also take us a bit behind the scenes because learning to be an Android developer, becoming a Jedi, becoming a woman tech maker’s ambassador, being involved with Anita. Yeah, being a mom, you have all of these things going on in your life, but you still took the time to become an author and you told us a little bit about the front end of the book, which is I have an amazing book, and if you’re just starting out in development, these are the recipes.

00;36;30;01–00;36;48;12
Philippa Burgess
This will get you started. But just taking on the challenge of going from the blank page to a published book to having that book been incredibly well-received and being on the marketing journey of that book. But take us back to the blank page. Yeah, the I have an idea because that’s pretty incredible.

00;36;48;15–00;37;12;23
Madona Wambua
That’s a very good point. And I feel like one thing that I, I feel like really motivated me to write the book was my kids, like the motivator was my book, my kids, my boys, my biggest boys, eight my little one just turned seven. And every time I told them that I was writing this book, it was so excited that they wanted to know which chapter I was in.

00;37;12;26–00;37;26;01
Madona Wambua
So now you’re now there was no way I was going to feel because otherwise they would ask me, Why did you stop writing? All Because kids are like, they’re like, they want like my accountability person buddies or something. Because every time that what.

00;37;26;01–00;37;31;23
Speaker 2
Chapter you own mom, what chapter you on, how can I do that job?

00;37;31;26–00;37;53;13
Madona Wambua
So from the initial idea to just making it come to life and publishing and I would say my biggest motivators, all my kids now apart from that, the biggest are the motivators, was just wanting to help others like learn how to build apps. And I also give a lot of credit to my reviewers because writing a book is not easy.

00;37;53;16–00;38;28;13
Madona Wambua
So my review was definitely took a lot of time to redo in my book going through it. So I had three reviewers, my close friends, Ciara O’Brien and then Carlos Motta. He’s also all of them are dudes like Google Expert in Android. And then the last person I can just reference in here on my book got 20. So to me I feel like it was just based on that support team and every time I would finish a chapter and send it over for review, I would get feedback and then work on that feedback and just make sure that the book is too not to be great.

00;38;28;15–00;38;52;00
Madona Wambua
So I would say it’s not easy. Definitely when you’re doing everything that you’re doing. But one thing that I learned is that I didn’t just sit on it and I feel like this is something that I’ve now realized that it’s my superpower or my power is that I do not question it. I felt that not even only in my in my book, but I feel like in everything I’ve done in life, events set to do it.

00;38;52;02–00;39;13;28
Madona Wambua
My mind will not rest until it’s done. So I don’t have that procrastination feeling where I’m like, I’ll do it tomorrow. Now I’ll do it the next day. No, I go and do it, and then I can sit back and see what’s next. Because when I finished writing my book, I was telling my husband, Wow, I have nothing to do because it kept me so busy.

00;39;13;28–00;39;14;13
Madona Wambua
I know.

00;39;14;16–00;39;15;29
Speaker 2
Like I said, we always have.

00;39;15;29–00;39;35;18
Madona Wambua
Nothing to do because it kept me so busy that that when I finish really what is my life? What am I doing yet? I have an app definitely that I build and I have budgeting which has over $10,000. It’s a budgeting app for the people that I use because I believe in just a lot more what I was like, Wow, what am I actually doing now?

00;39;35;20–00;39;35;28
Madona Wambua
Like, I.

00;39;35;28–00;39;38;04
Speaker 2
Don’t have any book. What am I going to do?

00;39;38;06–00;39;59;01
Madona Wambua
So to me, I would say priorities matter. Like, what do you want to do matters a lot and also pick what is important. So to me, when I was writing the book, things that I know that I don’t do as much because I feel like this is a question I’ve received even yesterday, I can show you like a mess, a mistake, or a message from someone just asking me, I don’t know how you managing your time.

00;39;59;01–00;40;23;15
Madona Wambua
You just completed book your mom, You’re doing all this amazing things, but I can’t even pin down anything productive. And I asked her, You have to go back and check what is taking most of your time and why do you feel like you’re not being productive? And how are you balancing your time? Because I realized, for instance, we spend a lot of time on our phones, which is something that you don’t notice.

00;40;23;17–00;40;45;12
Madona Wambua
But I started tracking. I’ve always spent like 2 hours, 3 hours max every day on my phone. I’m not the kind of person that builds, crawls or checks Twitter for that for an entire hour. No, those are things that I realize I never because if I’m busy maybe working, that’s my time. That’s my time for working. I don’t know, work on Saturdays and Sundays.

00;40;45;14–00;41;02;14
Madona Wambua
So I have that strict policy because I don’t want to burnout because at the end of the day, you’ll end up being burnout. So what I try to do is on my time, I want to know what is a priority, what needs to be done, what can I set for another day, you know, So that really helped me.

00;41;02;17–00;41;24;15
Madona Wambua
Setting that time and tracking your time and ensuring that you’re doing what you need to do. You end up being successful. And also, I know it’s a concept that might not work for everyone because we have every different challenges in our life. So to me it worked because I believed in it and just framed my mind to do it, because I believe mostly the power lies on my mind.

00;41;24;17–00;41;41;23
Madona Wambua
Like if I believe I’m going to be good in timekeeping, I’m going to be good in timekeeping because my mind believes it and that’s me. So yeah, that’s what I did with my book. My kids are my biggest cheerleader. Like just asking me, Mom, what’s up? Tell you on. And then I would say chapter one. And then my my little boys were like, What are you doing?

00;41;41;23–00;41;42;23
Madona Wambua
Chapter two.

00;41;42;25–00;41;45;22
Speaker 2
So I just had to start doing chapter two and one.

00;41;45;22–00;41;58;05
Madona Wambua
Chapter two is done. It would be so happy. Like, Wow, how many pages are you going to have in chapter two? So the questions kept me going, and before you know it, we had a book.

00;41;58;07–00;42;11;16
Philippa Burgess
I guess is the chicken and egg question. If it’s okay for me to ask this, do you do you write the book first and then you find the publisher or did you find the publisher? You kind of pitched the idea. They said, That’s great, deliver us a book and a because obviously.

00;42;11;19–00;42;12;20
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;42;12;22–00;42;21;01
Philippa Burgess
Writing a book is definitely solo driven, but It’s a huge team effort. There’s many, many players involved.

00;42;21;04–00;42;41;07
Madona Wambua
So for my book, to be honest, this was a different thing because I’m an expert and I’ve been doing a lot of great work. So actually the publisher reached out to me and asked me if I would like to just talk about like having a book. And then they gave me the time to think about it for an idea.

00;42;41;09–00;42;55;15
Madona Wambua
And that’s how I came, came with that idea. So to me or somebody reaching out to me, but I’ve always wanted to do it. However, not a technical book because I’ve always wanted to be a fiction writer. It’s something that I feel like in my retirement road tire. I read a lot of science.

00;42;55;15–00;42;57;16
Speaker 2
Fiction books.

00;42;57;18–00;43;14;14
Madona Wambua
Because that’s my I feel like I like science fiction and it’s been my passion now for the book. Yeah, The publisher reached out to me and then they asked me, Would you like to do this? And because I was reading on in the community, I thought, why not? And then I went and did the outline, the proposal, the idea, and then I sent it for them to approve.

00;43;14;14–00;43;19;10
Madona Wambua
And then they approved the idea and that I was able to go about within.

00;43;19;13–00;43;23;25
Philippa Burgess
Fantastic. I think that just people sometimes want to understand that that mystery.

00;43;24;02–00;43;25;06
Madona Wambua
Yeah.

00;43;25;08–00;43;36;23
Philippa Burgess
Of how that all of these pieces come together. But yes, the publisher and of course establishing yourself as the expert is is, is a great foundation.

00;43;36;25–00;43;37;23
Madona Wambua
Yes.

00;43;37;26–00;43;44;11
Philippa Burgess
That’s amazing. So tell us now, because now you’re on this book tour and and you have a podcast.

00;43;44;13–00;43;45;16
Madona Wambua
Yeah.

00;43;45;19–00;43;53;21
Philippa Burgess
So yeah. So the two different things. Let’s start let’s let’s actually well, let’s start with the podcast and then then let’s leave to the book tour.

00;43;53;23–00;44;21;14
Madona Wambua
Yes. So the podcast, like I mentioned earlier, after speaking in many events, I’ve spoken to 30 events now because we have an expert. The book supports us to travel everywhere. The people I travel, the people are bought in, which is amazing because we don’t get to spend a lot of money. So but they need we need to track what we do in any event, so that I’ve been able to track as well and just keep a record for myself to go to Important.

00;44;21;16–00;44;48;12
Madona Wambua
But I realized that it’s pretty interesting how it all comes together, right? Because when you think about it, when you’re like a woman in tech and you’ve been to all these conferences and you don’t see so many women like give talks or technical talks or come you come to your talks, you end up thinking of ways to bridge that gap.

00;44;48;14–00;45;08;19
Madona Wambua
So the podcast idea just came about through that. So I started thinking, how can I encourage more women to feel comfortable speaking about tech topics by making it not completely fully tech jargony, but just a comfortable conversation where we can talk about what are you working on? What does it entail? How can the people stay in this field?

00;45;08;19–00;45;29;13
Madona Wambua
How can you encourage others to do that? So that was my idea was so it’s called Tech Toxic Madonna, where we just talk about tech and I’ve been able to interview pretty amazing women that I didn’t even know I would have the privilege to. For instance, recently and I interviewed a member of the Forbes Council and I was like, Wow, this is amazing.

00;45;29;13–00;45;52;26
Madona Wambua
Like, she speaks about she’s very authoritative in business, so digital business. And I was like, Wow, this is amazing. She just she gave pretty good advice and was like, wow. It’s like that advice was just meant for me. But I always I would say their main idea was just to help retain more women in tech and also help just encourage more women to feel comfortable giving talks.

00;45;53;02–00;46;12;23
Madona Wambua
And do you know how many people just reach out to me to tell me? Madonna This episode really helped me a lot because the person speaking there had great insights and ideas and it it’s been so fulfilling just to hear them. And we are growing. We have great subscribers too. And I’m like, Wow, this is amazing. So I’m actually doing what I envisioned.

00;46;12;26–00;46;23;11
Madona Wambua
So yeah, that’s how it came to be and that that’s why I’m doing it. And I also invite a lot of women to make us ambassador because they have unique stories to tell.

00;46;23;14–00;46;35;29
Philippa Burgess
Yes, it’s a it’s an amazing group. I had the privilege of being a new ambassador doing the international Women’s Tech. Women’s Internet. International Women’s Day.

00;46;36;02–00;46;39;22
Madona Wambua
Yeah. And very relevant.

00;46;39;25–00;46;51;27
Philippa Burgess
And I interviewed eight women tech makers from around the world, and that was quite exciting to realize that we are part of this global community and what incredible stories to be shared.

00;46;51;29–00;46;53;02
Madona Wambua
Yeah.

00;46;53;05–00;47;11;10
Philippa Burgess
So what advice do you have for someone who is just starting out on their journey? They have decided that there’s something here for me in tech, but they don’t know where to start. I’m exploring what skills should they be developing courses? Should they be taking, what networks should they lean into?

00;47;11;10–00;47;39;26
Madona Wambua
You know, that’s a very good question. And after, you know, I used to give a particular answer back in the day because I’ve gotten that question a lot. However, recently I started changing that answer because I’ve been able to do that and people learn so much. And one of the thing that I like to mention these days is that, first of all, don’t get lost in the tutorial world or tech world where you start wondering which stock should I learn first, what I’ve learned to be easier.

00;47;39;27–00;47;56;28
Madona Wambua
Now, if I can advice someone is that pick one that you’re passionate about and you have to understand where that passion comes from. I like to mention that it’s okay to try on different things. It’s just like clothes, right? When you’re picking clothes for you to be satisfied, you have to try it on a couple of times, right?

00;47;56;28–00;48;18;02
Madona Wambua
Like, does this fit? Is it good? Is it the right size? Is it seems like you’re shopping for something that is going to seat you in something that you enjoy doing. So when you’re looking for that stock? Because I feel like this is where many people stumble based on the conversations I’ve had like with Suck, do I start or what do I become or what do I do?

00;48;18;06–00;48;39;12
Madona Wambua
So there’s a lot this machine learning this is data science, the cybersecurity, there’s mobile, there’s web, and so many that I’ve not mentioned. Right. So how do you know which one you’ll stick to is picking your passion about? And actually, just during my mentor sessions, I asked a particular young person if she wanted to go to college and she said she wants to do computer science.

00;48;39;12–00;49;02;19
Madona Wambua
And she was asking me how what would I want to do? And then I asked the same question, and then she told me I gravitate towards helping others endure, being in intelligence and seeing how I can help like people from crime and stuff like that. I am passionate about that. So in tech, what can I do? You know, to ensure that I’m still helping people in that aspect, but I’m also in tech.

00;49;02;21–00;49;27;24
Madona Wambua
And then she I asked her, Have you identified something that would work with that particular field? And she told me, yes, cybersecurity. And I told her, Yeah, I think you already have a passion. You already know how you help people through that particular passion that you have. So it means you go to college even though you’ll be doing whatever you’ll be doing and all the classes at the end of the day, you’ll be gravitated toward your cybersecurity, which is amazing.

00;49;27;27–00;49;50;03
Madona Wambua
So if you’re new in the tech field class, ensure that you find a community. Communities are very important. They’ll help you grow and you can learn with them. Second, I know many people I’ve had different conversation about mentors still not important. They because I’ve listened to many people so far, but to me I would say find a mentor is not a loss.

00;49;50;03–00;50;12;18
Madona Wambua
It’s good. Just find a mentor if possible. If you don’t find one, just try to see how you can stay motivated in the field. But if you can find one, a big bonus. Finally. Right now, every organization is trying to make sure that recommendations are well documented. So don’t fall into the loophole of tutorials. Slide to that. Select tutorials can really overwhelm itself.

00;50;12;18–00;50;38;16
Madona Wambua
You’re new to tech or you’re pivoting or you’re transitioning. It can be pretty tough when you start seeing There’s a way you can build that, there’s a way you can do it. So you end up feeling overwhelmed with all this material and you’re like, Which material can I pick? So I would highly recommend checking documentation and following like searches in Google you’re doing Android has great accommodation on how you can build these particular things in apps.

00;50;38;16–00;50;59;17
Madona Wambua
And also you can follow, you can learn so many things and also you can look at books, books also if you learn through books because the people that actually learn just through watching videos are those just wooden blocks and others love books. Because I love books like I can I have let me show you. I know maybe your listeners see, but I have this is on my desk, like.

00;50;59;20–00;51;02;26
Philippa Burgess
I know a huge pile of books.

00;51;02;29–00;51;04;05
Speaker 2
Yes.

00;51;04;07–00;51;07;26
Philippa Burgess
The thing that has transformed my graduate school life.

00;51;07;28–00;51;08;08
Madona Wambua
Is.

00;51;08;08–00;51;33;23
Philippa Burgess
PDFs that I can take into Microsoft Edge and say, Read it to me. I realize how much I love audio, I enjoy videos, but I it can all depending on what it is, I can definitely listen to an audiobook. A lot longer than I can watch a video and my attention span with actual reading. I can do it, but I have to do it at certain times of the day in certain light.

00;51;33;26–00;51;59;07
Philippa Burgess
And I. I love to read, but I do find that given the volume that we are given to read at university and graduate school, find that that that that read it to me feature has transformed my experience. So there is so many ways we can consume material. We don’t have to just feel like, if, if reading’s not the favorite thing, there’s other ways too.

00;51;59;07–00;52;18;03
Philippa Burgess
There’s so much information out there. I do think it can be incredibly overwhelming where to start. I think one of the reasons I’ve enjoyed my university program is they map it out for me. They have they know what the learning transformation is. They know where where we’re going. And all I have to do is just show up and trust them.

00;52;18;06–00;52;25;13
Philippa Burgess
And they they make it so logical, even though I’ve been massively overwhelmed.

00;52;25;15–00;52;26;02
Madona Wambua
Yeah.

00;52;26;04–00;52;59;00
Philippa Burgess
With many of the things I they give me the resources to go to. I can meet for office hours and say, Hey, I need help. It is being able to just trust the process. Whereas I think when you’re just doing it on your own, there’s that second guessing and looking at the right material. Is this there’s so I do I completely agree that find that one starting point that thing that you can commit to and say I’m going to figure out this world whether it’s cybersecurity understanding that the players are.

00;52;59;02–00;53;20;24
Philippa Burgess
And then also I think we can expand on the point of flexibility. I started my master’s program in urban planning. I noticed when we did our economics and then our big data class, I lit up where others groaned. I was the one who was all about the coding and it was in the extra office hours with the professor saying, okay, I’m a little confused on this.

00;53;20;26–00;53;40;12
Philippa Burgess
And he comes back and he says, you were just supposed to hit, run, run, run, run, run. All of that was pre pre coded for you. And I was the one trying to write it from scratch and was very much understanding that I’m like, No, no, no, I don’t need that. I understand. I didn’t even understand that it was all kind of pre coded.

00;53;40;14–00;53;53;11
Philippa Burgess
I was like, I want to learn this, I want to figure this out. And even though I took the long way round, I absolutely demonstrated, yes, I want to know our studio. I want to know this data analytics. I fell in love with data visualization.

00;53;53;13–00;53;54;17
Madona Wambua
Yeah.

00;53;54;19–00;54;15;04
Philippa Burgess
Someone said grad school is like a river because urban planning said we introduce this stuff to you, we you know, it’s an important part of planning, but there’s other places you go learn this. So that’s why I signed up one year certificate program and after about two months in the program, I realized I need way more than a year on this.

00;54;15;04–00;54;32;12
Philippa Burgess
I’m going to sign up for the full like a master’s. And then I worked it out with school and like, I’ll take all the classes I need to both the certificate and the masters, because sometimes if you just switch, they’ll just absorb you into the second masters. And I’m like, No, I want both. I’m and I’m happy I did because I wouldn’t be getting both the sequel class.

00;54;32;14–00;54;32;25
Speaker 2
As.

00;54;32;28–00;54;52;07
Philippa Burgess
Well and then the Python class, which I take in the fall if I didn’t do it. So I think that sometimes it’s understanding. And even in my undergraduate, I started as an English major and I loved critical analysis. I’m with you in a retirement that includes fiction writing. I’m going to be I’m going to I’m writing Broadway lines.

00;54;52;09–00;54;53;07
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;54;53;09–00;55;00;17
Madona Wambua
Do you write? I feel like that’s very true. It’s all about what works for you. So finding what works for you, if is the key.

00;55;00;19–00;55;22;07
Philippa Burgess
Well, I switched from English to international relations because I found that English. I could do critical analysis all day long. But it when it came to writing a story, I’d write something that was more like a blog. And they’re like, That’s not a short story. And this was predates actual blogs. So I was just finding writing short stories is painful for me in a way where it was really easy for others.

00;55;22;13–00;55;30;26
Philippa Burgess
And I’m not saying don’t work for it through things that are painful for you. There are some things that are so painful that you’re like, I don’t belong here. There’s some elsewhere that I belong.

00;55;30;28–00;55;31;07
Madona Wambua
Yeah.

00;55;31;08–00;55;54;27
Philippa Burgess
And I found that I love reading. I love writing, but I preferred nonfiction. I preferred real world situations, preferred learning about global economics and politics and history and culture. And so international relations had all the same reading and writing as far as value as an English major. But it was a different it suited me more and I didn’t discover it until I was actually at college.

00;55;54;27–00;56;09;17
Philippa Burgess
It wasn’t something I would have ever known about or considered before. I started college. So I think the idea is get something that you can get your arms around the once you’re in it and you see what it is, don’t be afraid. Find a thread that leads you somewhere else.

00;56;09;19–00;56;14;02
Madona Wambua
So yeah, I totally agree with that.

00;56;14;04–00;56;39;13
Philippa Burgess
And so now I’m in Human Security and Geospatial Intelligence, which is not where I ever imagined I would be. And yet it is feeling very comfortable for me. And yet at the same time realizing a big missing in government agencies is great communications, great video, great engagement, great storytellers. And so I’m like, you know, I think I can actually be exactly who I am in this space.

00;56;39;15–00;56;58;19
Philippa Burgess
And that’s where graduate school was just such an obvious choice to say, okay, it’s time to start over again, where we begin. And I started with urban planning and there’s a lot of love about planning, but I’m very much into equity environment and some of the real estate groups I found in the early days were so about the monetization part of real estate.

00;56;58;21–00;57;19;18
Philippa Burgess
Yeah, how do we just make money and it cost to society and people and the environment and equity and all sorts of other things And I’m like, I don’t really belong here. This is not feeling my community. But then when I started learning about digital twins and just the power of GIFs and the power of mapmaking and data science for storytelling.

00;57;19;21–00;57;44;11
Philippa Burgess
And one of the things about my particular area is that I’m intersectional, so I have to take pieces from computer science and from data science and from GIs and from because there is no one program that puts together exactly what I see myself wanting to do. And so I’m having to not go down too many rabbit holes because I don’t need all of computer science, I don’t need all of that.

00;57;44;11–00;57;48;00
Philippa Burgess
I need exactly the amount that’s going to get me where I want to go.

00;57;48;02–00;58;05;27
Madona Wambua
So I love that. You know, what I like about that is the fact that I am identifying you as a risk taker. Because from where you came from to where you are right now, you took a risk, which is amazing. So sometimes I feel like this is something that we sometimes do where we’re very comfortable and don’t take risks.

00;58;06;03–00;58;29;16
Madona Wambua
So I would highly also recommend if somebody is listening out there, take them, take the risk on your career and see where it takes you. I know sometimes might not pan out as you plan, but most of the time it and if you’re pushing hard, it ends up where you want to be. I would definitely say if you’re listening and you want to take a moment to make this ambassador, applications always roll out throughout the year.

00;58;29;19–00;58;35;28
Madona Wambua
So please check out the website and follow us there because I feel like it will.

00;58;35;28–00;59;05;02
Philippa Burgess
Some of the risk is also being flexible. I look at my entire career as writing waves and you catch a wave sometimes it ends gracefully. Sometimes it’s an epic wipeout. But you have to get up on the back, on the board, swim out and find the next wave. And in someone who’s been an early adopter to technology I’m very interested in site based and what are people are talking about and where is the attention and how to communicate and communicating things that we’re all thinking about, that our.

00;59;05;08–00;59;10;21
Madona Wambua
Community that you should definitely join. And I’ve seen it all the time. Look, sorry, go ahead.

00;59;10;27–00;59;42;11
Philippa Burgess
I was gonna say, it only takes an email to register your interest so that you’ll know when those applications roll out. And if you don’t feel like you’re ready to be an ambassador, you can still you can be a member and then join and participate in these many learning opportunities, mentorship opportunities, these things. Because women talk maker ambassadors are out there creating, sharing, mentoring, and so just being part of the conversation and in that learning until you yourself are ready to become an ambassador or recommend someone else, you know, to become an ambassador.

00;59;42;14–00;59;52;07
Madona Wambua
Yep. And then finally you can grab my book more if you want to look into Android. More than 13 cookbooks, The Woman Cookbook. And yet, let’s.