Rebecca Duldig: Good morning. On behalf of iAccelerate and the University of Wollongong Alumni team, it is an absolute pleasure to welcome you all here this morning for our first Entrepreneurial Women's Breakfast for 2024. My name is Rebecca Duldig. I'm the Business Development and Initiatives manager here at iAccelerate, previous alumni and participant in the iAccelerate program. I'm honoured to be your MC and host this morning. I'd like to begin by acknowledging that country for Aboriginal people is an interconnected set of ancient and sophisticated relationships. The University of Wollongong spreads across many interrelated Aboriginal countries that are bound by sacred landscapes and intimate relationship with that landscape since creation. From Sydney to the Southern Highlands to the South Coast, from fresh water to bitter water, to salt, from city, rural, urban. The University of Wollongong acknowledges the custodianship of the Aboriginal people of this place and space that has kept alive the relationships between all living things. The University acknowledges the devastating impact of colonisation on our campuses footprint and commit ourselves to the truth telling, healing and education. We acknowledge our First Nations people as the original entrepreneurs of this land. I'd like to extend a warm welcome to our special guests who are here today, including Professor Trish Davidson, our UOW Vice Chancellor and President, representatives of UOW council, and senior executives. Our inspiring panel members, Suzanne Zhang, Doctor Sheridan Go, and Christine Higgins, who I will introduce properly very shortly. A very warm welcome to you all, the UOW alumni, iAccelerate residents, staff, students, community members, who've all woken up very early and braved the cold and rain to be here. I hope this will be an inspiring and eye opening discussion on entrepreneurship and technology. UOW and iAccelerate launched the Entrepreneurial Women's Breakfast Series in 2016, to share insights and stories of successful entrepreneurial women. Through this series, we want to create a safe space and community where we can celebrate the wins and tackle challenges that women have encountered during their entrepreneurial journeys. We hope to share the lessons of others, so that we may inspire the next wave of generation of entrepreneurs to take their first step. To speak more on this, I'm pleased to introduce our fearless leader here at iAccelerate Doctor Tamantha Stutchbury.
Tamantha Stutchbury: Wow, look at this room. This event is always amazingly quick to sell out, like within a day. Welcome to today's entrepreneurial breakfast. I would also like to acknowledge that today we've made on Dharawal Country and pay my respects to elders past, present, and any indigenous people here in the room today. As the Director of iAccelerate, I can honestly say, as you can probably tell, that these events are the highlight of my year. I just love them. These events aren't exclusively for women, but they do exclusively have women panellists. The establishment of these events that iAccelerate at its inception in 2016, and our commitment to continue them to the day, is a very public statement about how important it is to attract and support an equitable and inclusive entrepreneurial community at iAccelerate. As a woman in STEM myself, who has seen many changes across my career, I'm still frustrated by the statistics from the STEM and tech sector about women participation. I did some googling last night, so here are some 2024 stats just to set the scene as to why today's event is so important. Women make up more than half of the graduates from Australian universities. Yet only one fifth of those graduates were on IT courses. If you're working in a tech firm, for every one woman, there is three men. 50% of the women in tech leave their job before the age of 35, and if at 35 they are still there, 30% of women are in junior roles, while only 5% of men at the same age are in junior roles. Women who turn up earn 87% of the man sitting beside them doing the same job. And worldwide, the increase of female software engineers has risen just 2% in the last 21 years. I feel numb when I read out these statistics. I was hoping when I googled last night for a bit more positivity. But I'm incredibly proud of the fact that it iAccelerate 53% of our companies have one active female founder. But I'm still not satisfied. And I want to encourage everyone in the room today that you have all you need to build your own entrepreneurial journey, whether that's in tech or in a non-tech Start-Up. iAccelerate is here to support you. Please reach out and connect with our team. A lot of us have iAccelerate shirts on, but, we'll make sure that you know who we are. We have female scholarships and lots of other things to help you start on your entrepreneurial journey. I also wanted to give a call out to Hysata, and I know Leanne's in the room today. A Wollongong start-up that just announced $172 million raise. We're incredibly proud that the IP in Hysata happened to have been created over the road here at the University of Wollongong. I also want to give a shout out to this book, if nobody has read this book. It's an amazing book called Invisible Women, and it talks about how tech and IT and AI and nearly everything in our world was designed not taking women into account. It is an amazing read. It's on audible, if you like audible books, I'll leave a copy here so you can take photos of it. Go and read it. It will just change the way you see and think about the world. Now I'm standing between you and an amazing group of panellists. So welcome and I'll hand you over to big to introduce our panellists.
Rebecca Duldig: Thank you. In no particular order, I'll begin with the wonderful Susan Zhang. Susan Zhang has rapidly scaled the heights of global technology sector, established herself as a serial entrepreneur and innovator, and forged strong China-Australia links to advance business and cross-cultural relations, all in the space of ten years. From senior creative roles at Google, TikTok, Amazon, Canva, Suzanne's sharp business acumen and entrepreneurial leadership has led her to an inspirational businessperson and valued mentor for many young techpreneurs around the world. Thank you Susan, please come take a seat. Doctor Sheridan Gho, our medtech expert. Sheridan is a biomechanist, CEO and co-founder of Cenofex, a Wollongong based biotechnology company creating wearable medical devices to measure and manage lymphodema. Sheridan is based right here, in the iAccelerate facility. Now, in the clinical research stage of developing Cenofex devices, Sheridan is particularly interested in bridging the gap between research, innovation and developing business to deliver products that meet patient needs. Welcome, Sheridan. Christine Higgins, co-founder and software engineer of Accelo. Christine Higgins is one of Wollongong most established and respected techpreneurs. Christine is a co-founder of a tech start-up Accelo, which is a suite of software solutions to support small to medium businesses. She's seen Accelo scale from a team of just 4 to 100 staff in three continents. Christine led Accelo's engineering research and development office and is still very passionate about nurturing a world renowned technology and innovation culture right here in Wollongong. Thank you Christine. To set the scene for our panel, I met with all three of them individually previously to prepare, and the common theme that I put forward, we'd begun with the entrepreneurial mindset or the entrepreneurial spirit. In all three circumstances, we all really struggled to articulate what that is, and so I started scouring online for a very clear definition of how to describe this thing. And nothing quite rival the definition that my wonderful colleague Denny Nisbet had put together for one of our modules. I'm not sure if Danny's here today, but I'm going to start by reading that definition. Entrepreneurship is not just about starting a business. It is a mindset, a way of thinking and acting that drives individuals to identify opportunities, take calculated risk, and create value. Entrepreneurs are innovators, problem solvers, and visionaries who thrive in uncertainty and adversity. On that note, I'd like to begin by asking the group, when did you first realise you were an entrepreneur? Was this a mindset you always had?
Sheridan Gho: I'm just going to tell stories today. I'm third generation female entrepreneur. And so my grandmother owned a business. My mother owned a business. They all started their own businesses. So I don't think, the mindset was very far from who I was and what I grew up in. As to when I first realised I was an entrepreneur, I don't think I've ever made the realisation. It wasn't until somebody told me something or I got invited to an Entrepreneurial Women's Breakfast, that I thought okay, that is a label that we could use here. But I think I've always just, viewed myself, you know, as somebody that's in there getting a job done. I have a vision and a purpose and I'm working towards meeting it. So the mindset probably always there. I was very fortunate to have some really incredible role models.
Christine Higgins: So really similar. It really wasn't until, Beck called me an entrepreneur the other day that I went, Oh, yeah, I guess I am. Actually, the first thing I did was say can you give me a definition? I ask that because, as Sheridan just mentioned it's a label, and when when we hear it, you know who comes to mind? You know, in my head it's Steve Jobs, it's Elon Musk. And those are people that I haven't even aspired to be, in any way. Nor do I feel like I really identify. But when you put that definition there, well, yeah, that's me. I am a problem solver I guess, technically, you know, I started a business, and really it was just I went out and I was doing. I'm a doer. If something needs to be done, I will go do it. I don't like sitting back and waiting for that. And it was probably after we started the company, that it really sunk in, like when there's only four people, who else is going to do it? And I don't have to wait for someone to give me permission. I don't have to wait or go ask someone, can I do this? I should just go and do that.
Susan Zhang: I actually looked up Google for a definition of entrepreneurial. What does that mean? Because I always worked in different companies. And I remember one of the managers used to say, Susan, you've done everything you're supposed to do and not supposed to do in this role. And they say it's the hardest job to be Susan's manager, because every time I go to a meeting, I will say, I have an idea. He will say no, not today. And then people say, oh, you are very creative. You are pushing the boundaries. In translation, I did something pushing the boundary and would take not very calculated risk all through my career. Until sometime a go, I have co-founded company with my co-founders, and then you start to have an official name like label, right. That someone will call you an entrepreneur. I think that's how it all started. But yeah, with a different twist.
Rebecca Duldig: Thank you. And I think it's so interesting because we've noticed here in the iAccelerate facility, we know that, men are very comfortable identifying as entrepreneurs as soon as they walk in, whereas women, they can be in here for quite some time before they say actually, yeah, I guess I am that and only after you ask them. So I think that's also part of the challenge and changing those stereotypes of what an entrepreneur looks like. Thank you. My next question is who or what was instrumental in your introduction to business and tech?
Christine Higgins: I'm happy to start with that. Once again, I did not identify with it at all. Actually, growing up, it just wasn't on my radar. I actively was saying, no. I want nothing to do with that. And I think it goes back again with it's a label. And who comes to mind when you think about people who want to work with computers, and that that wasn't me. Like, we had a Venn diagram of Chris's identity, and computers like those circles did not intersect. It wasn't until my third year at uni that I went into the computer science department, and I only took my first computer science class because I was getting my mum to stop nagging me about taking a computer science class. I wanted nothing to do with it. I went fine, I will take one for you. It was a perfect fit. My mum is always right. I should know that by now. Are there other mothers here? Happy early Mother's Day to everyone. Now I look back and go, well, if I didn't have my mum to put me on that path, to really shove me on that path, would I have ever ended up on that path? And what was it about that path that had this, big 'X' over it for me? So now I'm pretty passionate about trying to, one, be that person and show actually, women can be successful with tech. You don't have to be a techie. My iPhone, I know it's an iPhone at least. It's four years old. I have no idea what generation it is. I'm not a person who loves new gadgets or anything like that, but I am a person who, can solve problems using tech, and can be very comfortable in that space. And I want other women to to know that you don't have to be a gadgets person or a tech person in that way. But you can solve problems there and start creating those environments where everyone feels comfortable to be there and can have a voice in that space.
Sheridan Gho: So for me, it would have been probably the courses I did, as I wrapped up my PhD. And so I had submitted my thesis and I went on a holiday, down the Snowy Mountains, and I received an email from my supervisor saying, oh, there's this course on medical device commercialisation. You might be interested in it. The application closes tonight. So I think you should put something in. And I was like, oh, okay. So as you do. So, filled it out and submitted that and, and then got this opportunity to do a medical, New South Wales health run medical device commercialisation training program. And that really sort of, opened my eyes to the possibility of taking what I knew around research and the excellence in research that we did, and realising that we needed to, for people who needed it, for it to get to those people, there was this vehicle in between that was commercialisation. And so I thought, this space is where I'm really interested in operating in and seeing what impact I could have in this space. And so that really sort of kicked off of my journey. Then I was fortunate to be able to complete that course and, be awarded a fellowship in San Francisco, which took me over to San Francisco. And it's really interesting, the entrepreneurial mindset that you speak of because in SF, everyone's an entrepreneur. You're sitting at a bar and you're just having a regular conversation, and everyone in that bar is in a Start-Up, or involved in a Start-Up, or is a founder. So it's yeah, just a really interesting space where I felt like it was the exception here. It was totally the norm there. And yeah, to come back with that mindset was really good. It was good.
Susan Zhang: Who is instrumental for my business starting? Money. Are any of you international students here.
Susan Zhang: Yeah!
Susan Zhang: Did your parents spend every penny? Sell their cooking pans or sell all their things to support you here to study? Right. So that's me, packing the toilet rolls in my suitcase because my parents were worried, I don't know how to speak English and how to survive here. And so I guess the best thing I, I come here and my basic language is Chinese, C++, English in that order. Probably still in this day. So how do I make money? Chinese license. So there's a whole different people I meet, had a different network. They say, oh, I want to export. I want to open a factory in China. I need to learn business in China. So I created this course and then later on I hired more people. I helped them to set up the factory in China. Importing. I learn like, how do you do tags? How do we not get fined? How do I help them? The business drinking culture. You always drink hard. Like helping them to train them with white wine. Everything. So start small, it is part of the culture. You can't say no if you want to sign the contract on the table. This is a safe space, right? But to sign the deal, you have to do this. So I start with all these business ideas because I was desperate for money. My parents can only pay for the tuition. My goal today is to not cry. They can only pay for the tuition. Not everything else, but UOW have so many free barbecues. I was so happy. And computer science. Yes, the faculty hosts most barbecues with mystery meat and everything. Just solved my a hunger for meat for everything and empowered me to carry out my business, waste zero margin, and it just all 100% profit to start with. So I guess that's it for me.
Rebecca Duldig: It's amazing. So, wanted to touch on some points that, Tam had had touched on earlier. And that's the diversity in tech. So I guess the question is, you know are tech Start-Ups a boys club? Because according to the Australian Computer Society Digital Plus report, women make up 29% of tech workforce in Australia. The same report found that women are significantly underrepresented in industry leadership roles, making up 18% of CEOs and 22% of board members in tech companies. It's not too far off from Female Founder Start-Ups, which are looking at an average of 27%, according to the Australian Start-Up muster report. Do these statistics hold true in your experience, and if so, what did it mean for your career advancement and how did you challenge these odds?
Susan Zhang: I remember when I graduated from computer science, there was only three girls. One from Africa and one from Vietnam. One is me. If we don't look happy in the class, the lecturer will know. So that's our motivation. We have to show up at programming class because we are there. And then obviously, in terms of workforce, I think from internet through like the decade before is not the main goal setting only myself as the guidance that I sometimes do, and then Chris as well, and then Google as well. I think it's, it's very boys dominated and go to London. Everyone's sitting next to me, they from Cambridge, from Oxford, they from Eton College. They ask me, UOW? What is UOW? Google it. So I think you know, they only know the top five university and they know UOW, you know I think I did that, branding is really good. But it's hard. I remember, you know, team 12 of us. I remember the manager who hired me, signature and they said by hiring me, the diversity point from that came from 0% to 14%. I hate it. So I told HR, and HR said like, you are not a diversity hire, it is blind hiring, like they don't know the profile or something because that guy's still in the company, I reported that, he's still there I constantly check, I always hold a grudge. I check the LinkedIn. Why is he still there?! This is a reality, right? But all I can do is I can report, I can do something and, I think there's a gap. Three years he didn't have anyone reporting to him. He was moved to a different team. I think he definitely had a pay cut, as a little penalty. But it's more harsh for people who said that it's that, they are also trying to maybe move me or give me a different team to lead. It's an ongoing battle. But do you come about because there's people around you also saying that and also affecting don't really encourage everyone to speak up. So that's me always battling in different fields.
Rebecca Duldig: You also had a really interesting thing you mentioned to me, in terms of your peer to peer support as well. So we'd love to hear a bit about that. You mentioned having a peer to peer support, female to female support in the workplace, was something that really helped you.
Susan Zhang: Yeah. I think it's something I mean, I think recently I was in Canva, I think it is a female founded company and they are within a similar age with myself. And we also have a young daughter. I think that empathy was there and then they said, this is not official. I think we don't want to have an official say, like women have to help women. It's like very subtle. You find someone, it's almost like marriage friendly dating. Right? The mentor has to like you. It's not like, well, this person is finding that person will never reply to you. It's like, I like this person and the mentor also likes you. And if they don't like you, well you are wasting your time because I did have someone tell me in my face, Susan you are wasting my time. To be honest, 12 years ago I probably did waste this time. But I was like, how do I say this or not say this? Not hurt that person, you know in a better way. So I was saying, it's time to learn. We have different angle, I guess.
Christine Higgins: Talking...statistics. Yeah. The statistics are definitely true. It was similar, that every class I was in, I would always stop and I would count and the ratio was always one woman to about ten men in every single class that I was in. Whether it was a class of 300 people or a class of 10 or 30 people. It was pretty close. So I kind of spent a lot of time just feeling like I didn't quite belong in the space and having to hold on to - well, I am succeeding, though, so, you know, sticking with it. And then, you know, getting into business. Well, I guess I had good role models. I had my mum, who was in computers as well and had moved up into, high director, management roles, at her company. And then my first role out of uni was actually at a medical software company, Epic Systems in the US, and that has a female founder, an amazingly strong, female founder called, named Judith Faulkner, who I learned so much from, you know, just having that, person, she had very strong values, clear mission and just really showed what could happen when people have a clear vision, clear values and clear mission in what they're doing and how that can mobilise people. So I was able to kind of bring that forward. So I just kept going and I spent many, many times where I was the only female in the room. By then you're kind of used to it after a computer science degree. Our first investors held a, like a CTO summit, and they would bring the CTO from all of their investment companies, over to New York. And I went and it was kind of I was like this oddity. It was the first time they ever had a female at the event. I was the only female at the events. And so everyone was very kind. But in some ways it was almost like they didn't quite know how to, act. Having a female there, I'm like, I just, I do what I do. I do the same things you do in your jobs. Along the way and so I kind of got used to it. And then finally later in my career, you know, I just kept being who I was and doing who I was, and then starting to learn what that meant to the other females who had joined the team and hearing some of their stories and just being blown away with, you know, going on a business meeting call and actually being told that they aren't allowed to speak because they are female, and the whatever culture they were talking to at the time, wouldn't accept a female speaking. So she needed to tell someone else on the team and just kind of having to go with that. Other females who who joined the team, who came and at previous jobs, they were like, oh, no, we don't want to promote you because you're probably going to have a family in a few years time and so that's a risk for us. And it just blew my mind to hear the stories because gratefully, I thankfully, I didn't actually experience that growing up. But, you know, just going, okay, no actually I have opened doors for people and that means a lot to me. And very recently, you know, talking about getting women the support. I had the privilege last year in 2023 to be part of a program called Wild Women in Leadership Development, which is a program that's really trying to support women in STEM, particularly up into, board positions. It was just such an amazing experience because I went through the company directors course with all women. So we had 25 women doing this course together. And just what a different experience that was doing that with all women. And, you know, just instructor after instructor, would get to the end going your group asks so many more questions and I think it was a combination of us all having that analytical, problem finding, problem solving mindset. But also we were all finally in this environment where it was safe. It was safe for us to ask all of these questions that we had. We didn't have to be worried about, like, oh, if I ask this question, will they think I'm incompetent or use it to kind of, you know, as a stereotype, like, oh, well, of course she doesn't understand women aren't good at math. So, stuff like that. So it's it's important to get those numbers up, for all of us to just be that example, be that person. Because you just don't know. Unless they tell you that actually it made a difference for them.
Sheridan Gho: Yeah. I'm definitely aware and I've heard stories and heard experiences like Christine and Susan today and other female entrepreneurs and founders that I've spoken to, but my experience actually was quite different. I actually, my undergraduate was not, computers or computer science. It was exercise science. And so about half the cohort were women. And, you know, there was, a fair mix in the room. And then, in my second year, I was sitting in electrical biomechanics, and I was just like, wow, this is fascinating. And I was really drawn not only to the science of biomechanics, but the lecturer, was Professor Julie Steele, and she's a fantastic, women's leader and role model. And she ran the biomechanics lab and had been doing so for probably about 20 years by the time I was at uni. And, so, I ended up in her lab. And biomechanics actually is a male dominated science. And the majority of scientists in biomechanics are science. But our lab was unusual in that we had one guy and five women. And we were led by a very, strong woman female leader as well, who was internationally recognised as that. So, you know, Professor Steele went on and she was the president of the International Society of Biomechanics. She was inducted into the Hall of Fame for biomechanics. So she's an Australian medal winner. So she's, extremely, extremely well. And she was my mentor and role model. She was the one that sent me the email at like 8:00 at night to tell me to apply for this course. So then I think also moving into medical science or medical devices and particularly what we are building, the condition that we're trying to assist is lymphedema. And it's actually the majority of patients for lymphedema are female. So it's a female dominated area as well. And so, a lot of my focus has been around, and a lot of the clinicians I work with, and a lot of the researchers I work with, are female. And so that's really been a completely different experience, I guess, to being in pure tech. And when we were starting the company, my co-founder is male, and he's a mechatronic engineer, and also from UOW. And at the time I was doing science, and I needed somebody that could build a thing. And so... I'd met him, through a research commercialisation program that we'd done, and I, you know, said, hey, Mike, any chance you can build me this thing that does this thing and program it in this way? And you know, he was able to put that together. And so from there, we became really good friends. And, have been together since, and, he has been just incredibly supportive. So when we sat down to found the company, we were like, right, who's going to do what? There's two of us. What hat do you want to wear? And he said, look, I prefer talking to computers, and you're pretty good at talking to people. So how about you be the CEO and I'll be the CTO? And that's like, okay, done. And so we sort of founded it from there. So our, yeah, I guess my journey, while I do completely appreciate and understand, I guess being in a different space and being in a female dominated area with the problem that we're trying to solve and having, brilliant co-founder who's extremely supportive, my experience has actually been quite positive.
Rebecca Duldig: And that's fantastic to hear. We want to hear more stories like this. Just wanting to set the scene a little bit as well. Regarding how we could potentially be moving forward. So, Deloitte had conducted a report and they'd shown that 95% of the Australian workforce will require some reskilling, as critical technologies will significantly impact their roles. And they're calling it a tech skill revolution. Our, current projection Australia is headed for a tech labour shortage. And according to Deloitte, it'll cost the Australian economy $16 billion by 2030 in today's dollars in foregone economic activity. Increasing the share of women in technology can pay significant dividends. And that is, it could grow Australia's economy by $1.8 billion each year, on average for the next 20 years, which is why they're calling on 500,000 women in tech by 2030. So in that we can we can see very clearly how we can move out of this, and trying to bring more and more women into tech is definitely a key part of that. My question to you is, are we hiring right? How do we improve accessibility of skills and jobs, women in tech and entrepreneurship?
Christine Higgins: Yeah, the hiring, was a challenge. Particularly I think, for companies who don't have women or other, diverse members of the team in those positions to give input. When hiring, if you can be patient and wait to get more because there's two sides of it, in some ways we often sort of gave up because, well, there just weren't the applicants. If you don't get any applications, how can we hire a female into that position? So you you need to be strategic on how you get the word out there and how you promote these positions, and how you talk to people. And then you have to be careful about, you know, what are those qualities that you're looking for in people and how you identify them. At one point, we were starting to grow the company, and we were talking about, you know, what qualities we were looking for off. We want people who are passionate about what they do about, developing and things like that. And we had this whole discussion like, okay, well, how do we identify it? And I remember leaving that room, just not feeling right about it. It didn't feel right at all. And like, of course we want people who are passionate. And I stopped and reflected and I finally identified what they described for how they would identify it. I didn't tick any of the boxes. If I was on that list. You know, if they were evaluating me at the very beginning, they wouldn't picked me because I wouldn't have come across as passionate. But my passion for it, they would never deny that I wasn't passionate about what I do. It just manifested in different ways. So you need to make sure that you're getting different inputs, into what those job descriptions are and what you're looking for and what qualities you're looking for. And make sure you are putting forward something that isn't just going to be a clone of the people who are already in charge. Unless that team is already very diverse, to begin with.
Sheridan Gho: I think there's probably two parts, well there is probably many parts, but two that I can identify and chat about. So there is the upskilling of women. So it's like, how do we encourage women to stay in tech, to enter into tech and stay into it? The statistic is that in year 9 and 10, there's a ratio of 1 to 1, one girl to one boy in science and STEM. By year 12 it's, it's one girl to two boys. And really by university you're looking at, the low 14% of graduates are actually women in STEM. So there has to be some sort of early, I suppose, not so much intervention, but awareness created, some excitement, you know, some energy created early and that momentum carried through. And then there has to be an upskilling of women in this spaces. So the encouragement of of women in STEM, in university courses, the encouragement of women in STEM in other spaces as well. But I think the other side to it, is actually technology and the technology space has, as Tam mentioned before, been designed by men for men. And that is a massive cultural shift that has to occur, to actually create a space in which women's natural strengths of creativity, teamwork and empathy can come into play in a space that has been traditionally very, I suppose male dominated with, with sort of male characteristics, if you like. I think that if we start to think about, rather than only upskilling women and encouraging them into STEM, which is very, very important, how do we start challenging technology spaces themselves and saying, look, this space is not made for women. That needs to change. And that's a massive cultural shift. That starts with some sort of groundswell movement. It starts with education. It starts with us asking the questions and poking people until they answer us around, hey, why is this different? And, you know, it resonates completely with what Christine was saying, is the way that you described passion and the way that you manifest passion is completely different from person to person, let alone male to female. So really stepping back I guess and thinking about how we frame what we're doing so that we are drawing women into STEM, probably is a big part of that equation. So I think that's probably part of it too.
Susan Zhang: I don't know if there's any parents here that do school tours and see what is my daughter or son going to see, and they will show you around dancing class. And then they do have the STEM room, or the gaming room, and then they have the robot set up. You can see like the girls in the group, they are building the robot or building the Legos. I'm like, oh that's great, I never had that, when I was in China or when I grew up. So I feel like, oh, that's very promising. And I'd say talk to some of the girls, they are genuinely interested in it. So I like, where we start, like they have to, like it, be passionate about it. And then I think for me, I'm very realistic. I'm looking at the pay the guys have. For example, my husband is a software engineer at Google. They did have really high pay. In our household we are very transparent of our salary. So I'm like, I do want to have that high salary. So that's kind of the motivation. If I want to have it, I need to have a very entrepreneurial mindset. How do I tweak my skillset to fit into it? I studied computer science. I didn't study, creative technology, which later I did at Google. I didn't study global public policy, which I did at TikTok, and learned all in a very hard way, you have to have the mindset I want to be under that role and have that impact and lead the team to where the company want to go. How do I get there? And then I fill that gap for for that technology, or the learning I did want to learn. So that's kind of the drive, to do it. And then after a decade in technology firm, I feel like, for example, TikTok is all over the news about the policy issues in the US. And then I'm thinking, I can always work in the tech company. But who makes a policy? Government. So how about I go to the government? I joined the UK government and from this year, when we do the interview and the recruiting, we changed the policy with our department itself to do all the blind interview so we no longer see any of the traits. So it's a fair game. So I think that's also very helpful because you see the name, you see the heritage. You have different assumptions. Right. And then remove all of that. And I think the the talent pool coming through are more balance in that way. So change to government. How do we make better policy, start from small. And then how do we influence a digital policy for the free trade agreement? This is all I learned in one month. But I think that's where it helps a company and the talents in the long run.
Rebecca Duldig: We are getting closer to a close. So, although there's so many questions to to unpack because these three have such an amazing story, I want to put it to the room and, begin our Q&A session. Do we have any takers?
Audience Quesiton 1: My name's Leanne Smith. I actually worked for Department of Regional for the New South Wales Government. And actually going to a careers expo the other day and trying to encourage students into different careers. And that as well, and especially females into non-traditional trades and that as well. What would you say, if you had a crystal ball - how can we encourage more females from, you know, from childcare right up to, you know, high school and that, how can we encourage them more into STEM?
Christine Higgins: I think we have to look at how we approach it. So I'll probably talk more from the tech perspective. You know, I wasn't necessarily into gadgets, which I think is what people kind of think about when they think tech, or computer games or all of that stuff. I had problems. I'm a problem solver. And trying to figure out how we can promote that, as tech be more of a tool instead of the end goal, I guess, and that this can be another skill, another way of achieving something else. For women, that they can make a difference that way. That would probably be my approach, like how we kind of shift, how we portray what tech is.
Sheridan Gho: Yeah, I think like what I mentioned before, encouraging women to use their creativity, and the empathy. So things like design thinking and teamwork. So things like design thinking frameworks, actually they help to frame problem solving. Right. And then the tech is the end goal. You know the tech might be the vehicle in which you then solve the problem, and then suddenly you're in tech and suddenly you're a leader in tech. So it's not, I guess, saying, oh, let's get as many women into tech. Let's instead focus on what it is about women that make them such a great asset for tech. You know, what is it about women that when they come into tech, that diversity strengthens the area and then encourage that, you know, like bring that out in girls, I think would be a really great start.
Susan Zhang: My daughter's name, Ada. Guess who's named after, Ada Lovelace, the first female programmer in the world. And also in programming, right. The first program you learn in C + class, if you don't want to fail, like you have to do the, how do you call the paradigm like ABBA ABCBA that you have to do that sequence programming. Right. So Ada likes that. The baby books we have - Baby Python, you have your first coding book. This is under two years old. As an Asian tiger mom, you don't have a choice. You have to learn this. So we are ahead of the game. I like the fundamental same problem solving. So, like, even the book is quite smart. I thought if I am learning programming that way, I won't be that painful and sleeping in buildings, which is forbidden, I no longer do that. But tell them what is interesting. They are moving the block around. They are trying to solve a problem. They're trying to get to the candy the next day, 5 a.m., when they wake up. So I think gets them interested. And I think we used to go to an event in Sydney called Geek Ghost Dinner. That's where I met her Google recruiter and met other inspirational women. I think they are still running that. You know, in Atlassian, in Google, in Canva in different space. So guys, talk to your peers, share their story. I think they, you know, they always listen to their peers. TikTok generation that are rising and not listening to your parents. Something like that I think problem solving, creative mindset and get them interested in an early age, make it fun, interesting and let them to see the future. But I think AI is also taking over. Like you can ask AI to do a programming for you. So if they become a programmer, will they be having a career 20 years later? So I also don't want her to be stuck with that. So she have to do medicine, lawyer. Right. Traditional things like you have to. We never know. So maybe this generation, after these 20 years, things will change again. So problem solving, creative pack is just a meal and the tool. So not to dwell on that, I think is also very important.
Audience Question 2: Thank you so much. This has been fascinating. I have a humanities background. I'm completing a PhD in psychology. I'm also a research and development co-ordinator at the University of Wollongong. And my question is, for those of us who tech, seems to be quite an intimidating topic. What sort of things can we be doing to step into that world and to, I guess, gain enough confidence to start working in tech or for PhD candidates to go, yeah, that is something that that's a career that I can explore that perhaps I didn't consider ever before. Do you have any suggestions on you know, perhaps not an undergraduate degree in computer science, but something that can help us feel more confident getting into this tech space?
Sheridan Gho: So I guess, I might be an example of someone that didn't do computer science and am now in a tech space, a med tech space, and I guess, coming back to what I was saying before about framing it around the problem solving and, things that you could do to encourage, is actually to frame, so a lot of tech is that vehicle to answering a question. Right. And so framing the, how do you discover the problem a bit better? How do you apply empathy and creativity to the problem a bit better? And then sometimes when you're just looking at the problems and you apply creativity to it, you realise, oh, to do this, I might need to build something different, or I might need to create something different. And then from there, you don't have to be the person that builds that thing. That's where you can go and find an engineer. Honestly, the other day I caught up with Chris for coffee and at the same time, we were trying to, this is the first time I ever met Chris, by the way, and we were trying to get some firmware onto one of our devices so I could download some data, and I said, oh, what are you doing after this? Because I have a problem that I can't solve. I don't know nothing about computer programming. Any chance you want to come up and, you know, have a hack at my computer for me to help me? And she did. She came up and helped me out, so. Well, I guess what I'm trying to say is that it doesn't have to be an intimidating space. Sometimes you just focus on your strengths and the things that you're really good at, and then find people that can plug in for the really technical pieces. And there are people out there that can do that for you. And then as you do that, you learn. So now I know at least one line of code that I have to write to pull up this piece of software, whereas I know nothing about coding otherwise. So I think, yeah, honestly, baby steps like how do you learn anything? How do you learn how to ride a bike? You just you just get on. You give it a go, you fall off a few times, you get on, you give it another go until you're confident enough to keep going.
Christine Higgins: And bring a curious mindset to it. It's not about knowing the answer or knowing what to do. Most of it is going, what happens if I press that button? Oh, that didn't do what I expected. All right. How about this? What about this combination? I mean, I know it's just your thing. We just kept going. Well, let's try this. Okay, let's try this. That works. All right. Well, what happens next? I mean, most of it is just kind of when it doesn't go right - I think the difference between succeeding and not succeeding is if it doesn't go right, do you try something else or do you stop? And so not getting upset if it didn't work. Most of the time we spend our time debugging things like something's going wrong. What is it? Figuring out how to diagnose that and then trying something else. And that's where that creativity comes in. And perseverance.
Susan Zhang: I remember Jeff hired me, and as an intern software, I deleted the full company's mailbox. So, like, no longer receiving. Like I deleted everything. So I walk over and tell Jeff and Jeff's like, hey, we have a backup. When I start to, like, type, I'm like, oh, you have a back up. Then you also have a password understanding. So I feel like safe and trial error, I try different things. And, I think that's what I learned from different managers and different mentors. You always want to find someone who can support you, teaching you along the way. At the same time, you know, gets not too upset about things and gives you opportunity, finding that people along the journey - come to our iAccelerate during events and find your co-founders along the way and find someone to refer you. My first referral letter is from my university professor who's no longer working at UOW, but he wrote the reference letter to Jeff, and then Jeff's like, come first hire as international students, do it on the student visa. So you can do that without the PR. You can do that without the citizen. You can always push the boundary, try it, demonstrate and show that and be confident in a way, even though you make a mistake, you'll be fine.
Sheridan Gho: Can I just add. So one of my big mottos that's sort of kept me in good stead, has been do it afraid, and I don't think I've ever stepped into something with entirely all the confidence I need to succeed in those role. Just do it afraid sometimes, you know? And, you don't need to wait until you feel like you're going to be the expert in the field or, or even an expert in that subject. Before you give it a go, I would probably encourage people.
Rebecca Duldig: You basically answered my final question as well. So I was going to ask for anyone in the room who may be sure about taking the first step into into a tech Start-Up. What would you say to them? But I think you've put that really, really eloquently already. I know we're coming to time. I just want to say that, you know, Christine here has done an exit with Accelo in February this year, $30 million sale. Phenomenal. With Sheridan Gho, here who's got a phenomenal story in terms of raising funds and really interesting experience in that regard as well. Please in the networking events, go find our panellists, unpack more of their stories. We've barely scratched the surface. But we really hope that this has really been a step forward for anyone in the room who's potentially considered, tech or entrepreneurship. We're a very open and welcome space here. So if there is anyone who's got any further inquiries and would like to see more, or find out more about how they can get to this space, please find John downstairs for a tour. He'll take you around and we'll continue to hold your support here. So without further ado, please help me in thanking this amazing panel.
