My Journey Building Things

I was approached by my alma mater to lead a presentation about my journey after graduation (2009). The audience was largely made of teachers from around the country looking to expand their perspective and learn about real-life graduate stories.

My Agenda

• 10 minutes intro and background.
• 5 minutes describing the creative/tech industry.
• 10 minutes of current role and industry experience.
• Open up for discussion from the audience.

I talked about how it all started. I showed a diverse set of some past work, why I gravitated to the creative technology field, and some key things I've learned along the way.

Since the audience were teachers, I went into detail about the "how". How one might approach a problem (Design Thinking), how one can self-teach, and how one can get a job in these fields (hard-skills, soft-skills, and competencies). I gave some insight into my love for learning new things, such as attending hackathons to meet people, learn new skills, and overcome fear of presenting one's work.

Overall, I had a great time. The QA portion is usually my favorite, and we had a great dialogue regarding my past work and some of the biggest challenges I had to overcome.