#Monday Motivation — Tech rockstar Dr Sue Black OBE, TechMums and Saving Bletchley Park
Not having a traditional tech background, at the age of 25 Dr Sue Black was a single mum of three kids living on a council estate, but she decided to turn her life around and started her academic journey. In 2015, Sue was named as one of the Top 250 Influential Women in the World and Top 50 Women in Tech in Europe. The British Queen’s New Year’s Honours list 2016 has awarded Techmums founder Dr Sue Black an OBE for her services to technology.
If I can do it so can you
Sue wowed the Inspirefest 2015 audience and literally got them on their feet shouting — “I am completely awesome, I’m going to change the world.”
Looking back on her life, Sue recalls that at an early age she had an interest in maths and was always a geek at heart.
Sue explains that at the age of 12 her mother passed away, her father remarried a year later and this sent her family into turmoil. Leaving home and school at 16, Sue didn’t exactly have a typical tech-star upbringing, but she turned this all around — because she’s awesome!
At the age of 25, Sue was a single mum with three kids living on a council estate. Wondering how she could give her kids the life she wanted to give them, she went to college, earned a degree in computing and a PhD in software engineering and kickstarted her academic career, which now spans more than 20 years.
Techmums
Sue wanted to give mums like her younger self an avenue to achieve and empower themselves, so, adding social entrepreneurship to her string of achievements, Sue set up Techmums. Techmums provides computer skills training to mums to help with their confidence, to understand the digital world and help their relationships with their kids.
TechMums has since branched out to Ireland and just last Friday (11 December) Sue was in Dublin to celebrate the first graduates of Techmums in The Digital Hub in Dublin 8.
Saving Bletchley Park
In 2008, Sue began a campaign to save Bletchley Park. Bletchley Park was the central site for Britain’s codebreakers during World War II. The work done there is estimated to have shortened the war by two years, potentially saving more than 20 million lives. Remarkably, more than half of the people that worked at Bletchley Park were women and, because the work they were doing was top secret, they had almost been completely erased from history. Sue found out Bletchley Park was going to be shut down and began her campaign to save it.
In 2009, a tweet from Stephen Fry ignited the initiative and their efforts were successful. Today, Bletchley Park is a unique heritage site and vibrant tourist attraction.
Adding author to her extremely impressive biography, Sue has a crowdfunded book about the experience called Saving Bletchley Park.
The book is currently available on the Unbound website and costs £10 for the e-book and £20 for a hard copy.
Inspirefest | Change Makers — Dr Sue Black, TechMums
Inspirefest returns to Dublin from 30 June to 2 July 2016. Keep an eye on this page for some behind-the-scenes insights into Inspirefest and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram & Google
Visit our website to buy tickets while the Super Early Bird offer lasts.
