European Women in Tech Conference 2017 Powered by eBay Classified Group

This conference inspires and motivates other women to be part and parcel of the technology industry. They also often show the way to excel through their own examples.

Study shows majority of university pass outs are women and they choose to join Science but not technology in particular.

So this Women In Tech conference definitely made a clear statement,

“Technology is moving forward and so is the role of women in it, Bigger and better”.

Machine Learning with Artificial Intelligence often is flawed due to the absence of data corresponding to women, it can only be better and more accurate by including women’s data, take the example of shopping. Diversity, Inclusion is the need of the moment, especially when the development would be data driven. Data quality is going to be key and it’s important that data comes from all sources and considers all aspects. Below image is an example of “Users based web interactions in different countries”, as an example of a diverse set of data based on countries.

I believe there would soon be an announcement of “Equality in Tech” conference.

I absolutely loved each and every moment of this conference. To begin with, what really surprised me is a very well thought out Agenda for the conference. There were four different tracks to choose from “Inspire Me”, “Technology”, “Seminars” & “Workshops”.

It was very difficult to choose as all the topics were quite cutting-edge in the present IT industry. The star topics were Machine Learning with AI & cloud computing.

“Inspire Me” track

Brent McLean — Chief Product & Technology Officer @ eBay Classifieds, Opened the floor by talking about technology from past to present and the future it holds. Emphasized that Technology more lucrative than ever before empowered with mobility, smart phones and all sorts of devices.

Technology is fast moving. The internet is connecting more and more people from diversity.

With this super powerful platform, we can now work anywhere, anytime, this is the reason why tech is so lucrative to work for.

He also touched on future with Machine learning and Artificial Intelligence. Loved his statement “To be in the business, whether blending with the crowd or stand out, you need to understand your consumer. “

Power of teams lies in working together in collaboration. It’s key to bring success and deliver faster and in a more reliable manner.

He mentioned on understanding and engaging eBay customer by Machine Learning & AI.

He touched on a few excellent points like why Machine Learning can not replace Humans instead it would be led by Humans.

“Technology” track

Claudia Vicol — Manager and Senior Software Engineer @ Marktplaats. ”Moving From Java to Scala — On the Windy Road to Greatness”, shared a great transformation story moving from PHP ->JAVA-> SCALA, to deliver continuously, fast & with the latest technology.

Emphasized on keeping Five things on track during the transformational change.

1.Train Your People

Mentioned that it’s important to retain the domain knowledge of the company and train the existing resource. In the organization, lots of trainings were conducted on Agile, TDD & Scala. It helped not only to bring the whole team on the same page but also team building.

2. Rules to Manage Change

Shared Three simple rules to manage change, 1. Proof of concept , 2. Evidence and democratic decisions 3. Clear path/ train your colleagues

3. Autonomy

Advised to let the team be self organizing & managing. During organizational change, it’s important to let them decide on how to deliver once the decision is made democratically.

4. Code Guidelines

Emphasized the importance of setting up the code guidelines by defining the common standards so that anyone can read the code at a glance.

5. Play Time

Research, Hackathons & Balance are equally important and so is the encouragement to try new stuff. It's also important to have a balance between work & personal lives of the developers. They ought to be well rested to deliver positively.

There are two more important aspects which helped greatly to this transformation.

Test Automation

Strong Test Automation with meaningful tests. So they can be executed at each level of change and can be relied upon.

Product First

You need to think about the Product First. Think how not to over engineer.

“Workshop & Seminars” track

Christin Schink — Senior Product Manager @ eBay Classifieds Group (eCG), Making a Steer with Applied Science.

She showed a practical workshop to deliver fast on New Ideas/ innovations by “Solving the right problems by building up creative reflexes” and with simple technique “Pattern to break”throughout the process i.e. From Idea conception to reaching the consumer market.

One of her simple “Pattern to break” technique example was to take “I Like” and “I wonder” approach instead of focussing on “Highlight why it won’t or can’t or didn’t work”. This changes the perspective and brings a positive change.

“Believe it or not, we as humans don’t like criticism, the moment someone gives feedback with NO or BUT, the following words doesn’t go in our head even though they might be stronger than the actual feedback without “No” or “But”. “

There were other pattern to break like “Commitment without exploring” & “Waste time in planning the perfect solution”

A thought

Recently, A robot named Sophia got developed by David Hanson using Machine learning & Artificial Intelligence. I wonder about how many women were involved to develop Sophia? As including women and using diverse data is the key to develop a holistic perspective or the intelligence of a female robot. If data from all perspectives was not included, there would be gaps.In that case, How far Sophia’s intelligence can last up to if the data from all perspective isn’t included?

Conclusion

So to summarize, there is a need to involve people now from diverse background, especially women in technology compared to before. So few learnings I could receive from the conference are:

• There is a place for everyone in technology (especially Women).
• Important to find your passion and use technology accordingly.
• Have fun & love what you do.

A Gift, To get started with Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• Enrol free of cost here https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/ai/