Interview with Evelyn Nomayo| CEO & Founder of Phase Innovate

DataSoc Committee members Molly and Jenny interviewed Evelyn Nomayo who is the founder of Phase Innovate, a non-profit organisation dedicated to helping the underrepresented in STEM fields. She mentored the winning team of the Global Technnovation Girls’ Competition 2020. She currently holds a BSc. and MSc., in Computer Science and is completing her Ph.D. in Advanced Networks for Sustainable Societies.

This interview gave us an insight into her experience of being a mentor of six teams in the Global Technnovation Girls’ Competition 2020 and the challenges she faced as a woman when completing her studies in computer science.

Interview Questions and Answers

Q. Tell me a bit about yourself?

A. Evelyn is a full stack developer, data scientist, educationist and IT consultant. She is also a Women in Technology Evangelist, encouraging girls to get into STEM. She started out her career as a banker and then worked as a software developer in seven different SMEs.

Q. Tell us more about the Global Technovation Girl’s Competitions?

“Go out to your community, look for a social problem and use an app to solve that social problem.”

A. From her experience of being the only woman completing the Masters in Computer Science at UCD, she realised that she needed to encourage more girls to join the STEM fields. She decided to set up her own mentorship programme for a group of girls. She expected 20 girls to apply but 50 actually applied. This made her consider setting up a structured organisation that led to the beginning of Phase Innovate.

She saw a group of girls who won Technovation 2018 and this inspired her to research further about this global competition. Since she was passionate about solving social problems using technology, she decided to become the Technovation regional ambassador in Ireland. The four out of the six teams she mentored got through the semi-finals. At first, the team who won Technovation 2020 wasn’t selected by local judges because their idea was not much of a social concern in Ireland. Their idea was based on the inspiration she got which was her mum who died from dementia. Due to Covid-19, the teams’ pitches were sent abroad so their idea was assessed globally. As a result, their idea got through further rounds and won the Global Technovation Girls’ competition.

Q. What is your undergraduate experience like?

“Do not look left or right, just go for it.”

A. Evelyn completed her undergraduate degree in Economics and Statistics in Nigeria. However, she wanted to do something IT-related for her masters since she was so fascinated by IT professionals. She went to do her Masters in Computer Science which she found difficult as she did not do her undergraduate degree in computer science. She decided to go back to college and do her undergraduate degree in computer science. Through this course, she felt that she gained more knowledge about IT than in her previous masters.

She experienced several circumstances of being judged by men in her class on not having enough IT knowledge. However, she managed to shock her professor that she developed an app by herself.

She focused on her dream of being an IT professional and ignored all the distractions coming towards her. Her advice to students is not to let the way people judge them to underestimate their abilities and deter them from their dreams.

Q. What soft skills are required to be a good leader?

“Let people elevate you before you elevate yourself .“

A. According to Evelyn, a good leader needs to be a peoples’ person and observant to their subordinates. He/she need to make their subordinates feel comfortable working with him/her, being able to talk to him/her and ask questions without judgment. She thinks that a good leader should be a servant before a leader. If one knows exactly what he/she is doing, then he/she will know what his/her followers are doing. She prefers working in an environment where everyone is on the same open space, technically everyone being on the same level and knows what is going on in the business.

We thank Evelyn for her time and for giving us interesting insights on her successful career as a Women in Technology Evangelist

Key Takeaways

• Do not let the way people judge you, deterring you from your dreams. Focus on the end goal and ignore the distractions.
• A leader should also know how to be a servant; being of service to your subordinates is important for them to respect you.
• The soft skills of a good leader are being a people person, approachable, observant and understanding the role of a servant.

If you have any further questions, leave them in the comments below!

Watch the full interview here 👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SdAcj8t83Q

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