GIRL
GEEKS
ARE
GREAT!
We want to raise the profile of women in technology and encourage more of you to speak, teach and be visible to the women on their way up. We need more role models and yes – you are one!
We invite you to become a member of Girl Geek Academy so we can say: “Here’s what Girl Geeks look like and here is what they do”.
For $99 we will give you first access to our events, which usually sell out in 24 hours, showcase your profile in the Girl Geek Academy member directory and invite you to try our online courses when we launch in 2017.
Help us reach 1000 women and let’s continue to create #SheHacks, #SheMakes and #SheMakes_Games and also help us launch new initiatives the Girl Geek way.
We have plenty more up our sleeve and we need your help to make it happen. If you’re up for helping us get to one million girl geeks become a member today!
MEET OUR MEMBERS
Hanna Thomas
Director
Hanna works as a Director of Mint Talent. She is an honest, diligent and passionate Headhunting Consultant with extensive knowledge and understanding of the Media, Advertising and Digital industry. She gained global experience and cultural understanding working across the UK, Australia and Asia. She is highly ambitious and proactive having launched and built an office in Australia, generating new business and growing a team. Proficient in developing long lasting relationships with individuals at all levels within the industry, from Assistants to CEO’s, always maintaining a strong work ethic and taking on new challenges with passion and a drive to succeed. MSc qualified in Organisational Psychology, with a huge passion for understanding people and ensuring talent underpins business decisions and success.
Bron Thulke
Web Developer
I'm a full stack web developer, with a software engineering background. I work with a variety of development stacks but mostly .NET, and I love sharing my knowledge and passion with others! Out of hours I'm a mum, a gamer and a gadget lover. I also love playing with electronics and have a dream of one day having the time and energy to really sink my teeth into some "making"!
Hima Tk
Business and Technology Consultant
I like problem solving and finding innovative solutions to the problems faced by the businesses. I analyse data to develop insights and design solutions. I am currently the part of the team building the Robotic Process Automation capability within the organisation. Working across three continents (Asia, North America and Australia) over these years has exposed me to a wide range of industries and cultures. I believe in being a effective collaborator in problem solving. I am passionate about startups, technology, entrepreneurship and innovation. I head up the Girl Geek Dinners in Melbourne, a meetup group of 1600+ women interested in technology, startups and entrepreneurship. We run regular monthly meetups across Melbourne to encourage people to connect and collaborate on various projects. I also work as the Director of Sponsorships at Startup Victoria Female Founders committee whose aim is to encourage more women in building high growth startups.
Ayla Toyokawa
Co-Founder
Ayla is one of the co-founders at ThemeBoy, where she designs and develops WordPress products. As a business owner with a passion for digital marketing and commerce, she works as a project manager, web designer, content creator, and digital growth strategist in a wide variety of business applications. She is results driven and focused on accomplishing organizational goals while keeping an open mind for new opportunities. She understands the importance of developing a well-designed and optimized website in order to drive sales conversions for any business. As a web designer and digital strategist, she has had the opportunity to work with clients from various industries in health care, animal services, retail, and software. This experience has helped her understand the needs and pain points business owners face in the competitive online space and guide them through what needs to be done in order to achieve success in this fast moving digital world. She has a strong passion for inspiring and empowering people to take a leap of faith to achieve happiness and success in their personal and professional lives.
Angela Tuazon
Consultant / Operations Manager
Angela works at Good People HR as a Consultant. She is focused on providing high quality recruitment and executive search services. Angela is responsible for strategic candidate sourcing methodologies to fulfill positions at all levels across a range of different industries. Her goal is to deliver a high quality recruitment to reduce the risk of poor hiring decisions. Her motto is to stay humble, travel, inspire and be happy.
Theresa Turner
Business Manager and Engineer
Theresa works as a Business Manager and Engineer at Turner & Turner Consulting. She is a critical thinker and an active listener with over 10 years experience in professional engineering practice. Having spent a considerable chunk of her time in the design, review, and commissioning of safety and control systems, she balances a well-developed sense of the importance of detail with a preference for understanding the bigger picture, and a knack for spotting the threats and opportunities in a range of possible paths of action.A
Fiona Tweedie
Data Scientist
Fiona is the Data Scientist at The Australian Ballet. She was thrilled to join The Australian Ballet in the newly-created role of data scientist where she is combining her loves of data and culture. The Ballet recognises that it holds a wealth of information about both its community and its company, which it uses to understand its audience and monitor the success of performances. Her role was created to go both wider and deeper than the current analysis and look for new ways to extract value from the data. Fiona describes herself as data scientist, digital fabulist, community wrangler, Roman historian, curator of the surreal.
Kadri Uljas
Digital nomad
Kadri is a Digital nomad at Tech Sisters in Estonia. She and her team think the world needs a more diverse group of people taking part in developing new technological solutions. So they are aiming to encourage women to step out of their comfort zone, to experiment and learn new things. They organize awesome Rubi on Rails hack events, Monthly Networking event, write tech-blog to Estonian biggest women magazine Anne&Stiil and just try to spread the love for technology as much as they can.
Jemma Vanderboon
Client Care Specialist
Jemma is a client care extraordinaire, CRM and website manager, all round organiser and an avid sun seeker fuelled by a love of skinny mochas. After 8 years of travelling the world, living in deserts and on tropical islands, Jemma started Your Virtual Asset. Now being fully grounded, Jemma loves working with coaches, creatives and online entrepreneurs, whipping their business admin into shape. Clients are drawn to her worldly knowledge with a down-to-earth, positive approach to business administration. To find out more, please visit the Your Virtual Asset Website: http://www.yourvirtualasset.com/
Mel Vanroyen
Mobile and New Media Marketing Manager
Mel works as a Mobile and New Media Marketing Manager at Monash University. Having worked into the fields of culture for such a long time, she is always a good person to talk to because she is ‘obliged’ to know something about any theme. Her greatest passion is Heather Graham movies.
Kamina Vincent
Producer
Vincent is credited in over twenty titles in her role as Producer and Lead QA at Tin Man Games, including Ryan North's To Be Or Not To Be and Warhammer 40K: Legacy of Dorn. She is also heavily involved in the local game dev community, assisting in the organisation of GCAP (Game Connect Asia Pacific) since 2013. Vincent is currently developing a program to mentor students of diverse backgrounds. Earlier this year, Vincent won the Creative Inspiration Award at MCV Pacific Women in Games.
Jessica Vovers
PhD Candidate
Born in Thailand and raised in the US, Cameroon and Adelaide, Jess has completed her BSci (Chemical Systems), DipLang (Japanese) and MEng (Biochemical, with Distinction) at the University of Melbourne, with a brief exchange in Japan. Jess is undertaking her PhD in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, with a focus on sustainable solvents. In particular she aims to replace petrochemical solvents for bio-derived ones in the extraction of natural products, specifically pharmaceutical compounds from opium. Jess is passionate about diversity in STEM and advocates for this through her role as President of Women in Science and Engineering. Through this role and as a mentor, Jess hopes to help break down barriers for the next generations of women in STEM.
Pranati Vyas
Pranati is currently working at Sanctuary Digital as a Software Engineer. She is a Full Stack Developer with a strong technical mindset. She loves to find simple solutions to complex problems and create beautiful and intuitive user interfaces, using technologies such as Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, Node.js, jQuery, HTML5 and CSS. She loves programming, as it gives her a chance to be a life-long learner. She is passionate about bring more women into STEM, and getting kids coding.
Osheen Walawedura
Student
Osheen is a Lecturer at Lifeway Education Services Nuwara Eliya. She is an open minded person who seeks for new opportunities! Computing, IT has always been her field of interest, where she specialises in Software Development, Systems Analysis, Database design, implementation and maintenance, and web development. She is all in for challenging work environments, and is someone who wants to get the job done on time, with 200% effort on her part. She likes to explore the world of IT, learn new things, and pursue a great career, where she could support the organisation she works at towards achieving their goals.
Maize Wallin
Composer and audio engineer
Maize Wallin is a Melbourne based composer (technically educated at VCA), a curator and creator of live art shows, as well as teaching Sound for Interactive Media, and Composition at the Australian Institute of Music. Maize works predominantly in installation and live art, most recently directing Encounters, a large scale public art installation for Summer Salt and White Night festivals by Microsoft Social NUI lab and VCA. Maize has also recently exhibited at Arts Centre Melbourne's Channel for Open Melbourne. She is also well known for creating the Game Art Melbourne Exhibition, co-directing Glitchmark's Holograph conference in 2014, and musical instrument videogame series, CTRL_Coda. As well as directing and managing events, Maize is involved as a consultant or guest speaker or lecturer at other arts and tech events in Melbourne. While Maize has done extensive work in prominent Melbourne galleries and museums, such as Arts Centre Melbourne, Fort Delta and the Ian Potter Museum of Art, she also works regularly as a composer for theatre, film and games. Her passion lies in live arts and interdisciplinary collaborations.
Ally Watson
Developer @ Deepend, Co-Founder of Code Like a Girl
.NET developer by day, founder of Melbourne-based organisation Code Like a Girl by night/weekends
Caitlin Watson
Office Administrator
I'm the Office Administrator for Women's Legal Service Victoria (WLSV) - a NFP community legal service for women experiencing relationship breakdown and family violence. Over the past four years with WLSV I have enjoyed maintaining and developing the website and social media accounts, assisting with a range of in house projects, coordinating many events, coordinating our large volunteer program, and providing governance assistance to the CEO and Principal Lawyer. I am also studying part time to complete my Bachelor of Business (Public Relations) with Swinburne online.
Amanda Watts
Brand & Digital Designer
Hi, I'm Amanda, Creative Director of Design Junkies and Girl Geek Academy cofounder. Every day I get the privilege of working on exciting projects, pushing pixels and courageous clients to do something new. Over the last 10 years I have seen my industry go through endless changes and trends - you have to adapt to survive and build value by creating a strong brand. My company Design Junkies is built on a solid foundation of multi-disciplinary work, a passion for all things design and a love of technology. I want each and every project we work on to be successful. I believe if you want to create change, stand out or be noticed - use this time of change as an opportunity to turn business challenges into marketing opportunities, realign expectations, build consumer confidence or create industry leadership.
My startup - BrandSpot
I am a co-Founder of startup venture BrandSpot. BrandSpot is an innovative brand delivery platform. Empower your suppliers and partners to use your brand the RIGHT way. Living safely in the cloud 24/7, you can safely share your brand without having to be glued to your desk, phone, sending and receiving emails or notifications. Currently looking for opportunities to partner with companies with a similar customer for cross promotion or to integrate with our platform.Kirsty Watts
Academic Dean of Technology/eLearning
Kirsty is currently working as an Academic Dean of Technology at Kilvington Grammar School in Melbourne. She is teaching Maths and IT classes for Year 7 to Year 11. Her top skills are educational technology and teacher training.