Feeling Inspired by Tech
This article was originally shared on Substack.
It's been a while. I've been working on a variety of projects, and while I have had plenty of musings I have wanted to share, I wasn't entirely sure I could maintain blogging into the void on a regular basis again until I felt clear on the purpose. We're slowly getting there with the purpose, but I'm feeling particularly inspired after a couple of months of attending industry events and things that fall under the category of professional development, so here we are.
Post-writing observation: Seems this entire post is pretty Western Australia-heavy. Unintentional, but perhaps you’ll learn some neat things about the largest state in Australia, which is home to Perth, one of the most geographically isolated capital cities in the world.
WiTWA Tech [+] Conference & Awards 2022
I had the honour of being a nominee for the Women in Tech WA Tech [+] Awards this year. Alas, I didn't win, but it was lovely to be in the company of some incredible talent in the Tech [+] space in Western Australia.
It was also my first time attending the conference, and if you haven't been before, you really should whether or not you're a woman in STEMM. The speakers shared some incredible experiences and enlightening insights on the current state of the broader field of Tech [+] and what there is to come for innovation and society as a whole. The theme for the day was Driving Sustainable Change and I'll share some of the highlights (for me) below. You can also find the full program and speaker list here and I highly recommend looking up these brilliant women in our community.
Julie Grundy and Lauren Hayes spoke about “Expanding digital access to everyone” and how we should review our attitudes towards accessibility and disability, tech in the workplace, and how we can be better at facilitating inclusion. This applies to making the arts more accessible for patrons and performers as well, a space Lauren also consults in.
Dr Catherine Ball was the fan favourite of the day seemingly spawning crushes left, right, and centre, myself included. Catherine is an engaging and charismatic speaker, and so passionate about the future, what is to come with the 5th Industrial Revolution, and how we can approach and embrace the possibilities. Catherine has also just released a book Converge, about this and more, which you can find here.
The panel “Securing Our Future” with Dr Michelle Ellis, Bex Nitert, Jasmin Brain, and Soumita Kale was also a great look into our approaches to cyber security. Tech is ubiquitous, and while digital literacy is making its way into the community, we still need a cultural change to ensure cyber and tech hygiene is part of those foundations as well.
West Tech Fest 2022
I had the pleasure of attending part of West Tech Fest this week and exploring the showcase of innovation and entrepreneurship in Western Australia. This year there was a lot of emphasis on space and agriculture, something that's ‘a bit of a thing’ around these parts12.3
Laura Clarke shared her very personal story of burnout, her road to recovery, and co-founding the Palau Pledge. So often people treat overwork and burnout as badges of honour, even if it’s to the detriment of our health and relationships. In particular, there are studies that show women are at higher risk of burnout, and Laura quoted Brené Brown who said “For women, shame is, do it all, do it perfectly and never let them see you sweat.” (TED Talk).
The QuantumTX Showcase Event panel with Dr Newton Campbell Jr, Dawn McIntosh, Prof Harvey Millar, and Dr Pru Steinerts was a great overview of space-related programs and research activities taking place locally.
One fascinating project shared by Harvey was Plants for Space creating food and medicines for space explorers. He mentioned that when they proposed the idea of plants in space, they weren’t sure if they’d be hung up on for proposing something so seemingly far-fetched. But all the panelists agreed so much of what we do, irrespective of the field, can have applications in space. If you are passionate about what you do, and about space, there could well be a place for you.
STEAM Powered
This musing would not end if I were to list every episode that's come out since my last Musing, so if you'd like to check out the guests I've spoken with since then, head on to the STEAM Powered show list.
Most recently, I spoke with Dr Parwinder Kaur, a renowned biotechnologist, entrepreneur, and diversity champion. Parwinder also was a Tech [+] Star Winner at the WiTWA awards this year which is absolutely wonderful and so well deserved. In our conversation, we speak about biotechnology and genetics for conservation and creating sustainable solutions through interdisciplinary innovation.
I'm very excited to see what is happening in genomics, and also about open data, so it's doubly exciting that Parwinder is also a Director of DNA Zoo which releases high-quality genomics resources of Australian fauna so that anyone anywhere can try their hand at finding solutions for conservation efforts for threatened and endangered species.
Quite Interesting
Weird Growth is a podcast by Ammo Marketing sharing conversations with founders about their journey and what they’ve learned along the way. I’ve been fortunate enough to attend two live recordings of this podcast, and each conversation leaves me with plenty to ponder about my own work. Even if you’re not a founder, there’s plenty to learn from here about doing better work, no matter what that might be.
Wittenoom is a former townsite in Western Australia and a declared contaminated site due to the asbestos mine. Events relating to the mine and the deaths that resulted from asbestos diseases have been marked as the Wittenoom Tragedy. While we’ve grown up well aware of the dangers of asbestos, I was not properly informed about the history of Wittenoom until I read Dustfall by Michelle Johnston, a novel inspired by these events, which motivated me to read up on this slice of local history.
RJ Andrews’ Information Graphics Visionaries book series is out now. RJ explores Emma Willard's maps of history, Florence Nightingale's mortality and health diagrams, and Étienne-Jules Marey's graphic method in three beautiful books. I’ve spoken with RJ about Florence Nightingale and read his book about her life as a nurse, and how she used data visualisation in her campaign for sanitary reform. These are gorgeous books and they provide such an in-depth look at these contributions to information graphics, and society as a whole.
Thanks for reading, and see you next time!
Stay curious,
— Michele
Footnotes
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In case you aren't aware, Western Australia is home to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope at the Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory as part of the SKA Observatory. ↩
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Related, we also have the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre. ↩
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WA is definitely about the mining and resources, and it's one of the reasons our state fared as well as it did over the tougher COVID period, but agriculture is no small part of our economy either, and space is absolutely a growth area. ↩