Founder & CEO of Code Like a Girl, Ally Watson
I’m thrilled that our first guest back, and our 37th episode, will be Ally Waston, CEO & Founder of Code Like a Girl. She is a fellow Scot and Glasgow Uni lass (where we met) and is a fab developer to boot.
Ally is transforming tech by empowering the next generation of women. Originally from Glasgow and now in Australia, Ally discovered her love for coding through art and music. Her social enterprise, Code Like a Girl, began as a community event and has since evolved into nationwide programs, like school holiday camps and a traveling classroom created with Toyota, that make tech accessible and fun. Through her work, Ally is driving diversity and creativity in the industry, inspiring young women to become equal creators in tech.
The quote below was mentioned by Ally in the podcast as something she feels describes her journey. I found it rung true to my new job pivot into a new sector in tech and as a new mum and I hope it can act similarly to others so I wanted to include it in the newsletter.
“You can start late, look different, be uncertain, and still succeed” - Quote by Misty Copeland
If you are interested in the role of a developer and coder, in setting up your own social enterprise or about Australian networking in regards to tech, this episode is right up your street.
Our guest
Ally Watson
- From Glasgow, Scotland
- Moved to Australia a decade ago
- Loves art and music and found herself learning to be a Developer
Code Like a Girl
- Code Like a Girl is a social enterprise
- Started as an event to bring in tech together.
- Since it has evolved in many forms including fun projects like:
- School holiday camps where they would tasks kids to code “homework excuse generator”
- A collaboration with Toyota to create travelling classrooms to kids outside the big cities — accessible economically and geographically. This was in the form of a can which was pink with neon signs, lockers and jacks.
- Mission: Empowering women to be equal creators in tech
Learnings
Design roles
- Designers: design what looks like
- Front End Developers: creates the skin (replicate what looks like) but if you clicked on anything nothing would do. So like a brochure
- Back End Developers: create a management solution for a client (e.g. like Square Space) and then hook that up to the front end. For example, if you want to update the HHeader or a Footer you could. Also hook things up so they work. E.g. if a contact form, need to connect website to database.
N.B. lines now blurred on these roles above
Coding languages
- Back in the day, there were a lot of programming languages that were not very human readable/ human writable.
- As computers and the way we programmed them evolved, we created ‘high-level’ languages. These are very readable and writable by humans. The “low -level” languages are the ones that talk to the hardware.
“High-level” languages:
- CSS — style sheets
- Java — is another ‘high level’ programming language
- HTML — skeleton of a webpage and its elements
- Technically these two are ‘markup’ languages — to make things structural and pretty
Programming languages:
- Java script — is a programming language. Which means you can create functionality using it
Tips & tricks
Starting out
Consider working at smaller, boutique agencies — great culture and thrown in to challenges and can progress faster.
When running a social enterprise
- You have to constantly be learning from what you are doing and understanding it’s impact. So measurements are really important to know the impact and if you are making a difference
- It is hard work, so choose something you are passionate about and know well
- Own a niche. By staying niche, being so lazer focused in the problem, that you become the expert in it, and the expert in driving change
- Solo founding is a tough journey:
- Cofounders are a positive — it’s good to find more people who are equally passionate to do the project with you. More people with skin in the game, and potentially equity
- Fiind people who have complementary skillsets. You can put smart contractual agreements to put in place to test waters with someone. “date them first, and marry them later” — do not rush into business with them.
Shoutouts
- Screenmedia (now Waracle)
- Kath Blackham
- Lara Salameh
- Sarah Brown
Want more?
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