The Blog
West Coast Love: Meet The Mentors of Our First Vancouver Workshop
Ever since our first workshop on August 6, 2011 we’ve received dozens upon dozens of emails from people all around the world asking us to bring Ladies Learning Code to their city. Well, that day has finally arrived, with our very first workshops being offered outside Toronto on August 24th & 25th – An Introduction to HTML & CSS in Vancouver. Pearl Chen, who instructed the first ever Ladies Learning Code workshop, will once again be leading learners through creating beautiful websites. Thank you once again to our sponsor, Simon Fraser University, and to our host, Launch Academy for making this possible. Last but certainly not least, thank you to all our amazing mentors! We look forward to meeting Vancouver’s tech community.
Lead Instructor: Pearl Chen (@pearlchen | Google+)
From LEDs to HTML, Android hacking to micro-controllers — Pearl Chen takes on a cross-disciplinary approach to her work.
With over 8 years of professional experience in web technologies, Pearl has a body of work that ranges from Facebook campaigns for Google Chrome, microsites for Nike, and WordPress customizations for craib.com. Pearl was most recently the Research & Technology Manager at the CFC Media Lab and is now currently acting as CTO for The Hungry Veg, a startup for vegetarians that she co-founded.
Alongside her web developer work, Pearl also tackles more unusual jobs such as modifying the guts of Nintendo Wii controllers, making toys talk to her Android device, and holding electronics workshops (http://gplus.to/klab).
She can be reached on Google+ (http://klab.ca/+), on Twitter (@androidsNsheep), or old-fashioned email (pearl[at]karma-laboratory.com).
Why did you get involved with Ladies Learning Code? For my entire professional career (especially while freelancing as a web developer), I have never found myself working with another professional female developer (except once when I was involved in the hiring process). So…where are you, ladies? What scared you off? I hope Ladies Learning Code will help me answer this.
Kelly Miller (@quilbee | http://kelly.quilbee.com)
Front end and .net developer at T4G ltd.
What are you passionate about? “Startups and quilting!”
Why did you get involved with Ladies Learning Code? “I like working with other women who code, so want to encourage more women to get into the profession.”
Lorena Espinoza (http://www.room101.ca)
Freelancer – photography, design, & web development
What are you passionate about? “Anything design.”
Why did you get involved with Ladies Learning Code? “I am also passionate about sharing my knowledge and being involved in a positive community that shares my passion for technology.”
Yvonne Mendel (@viccityadvocate)
Works at BC Provincial Government, Queen’s Printer, Electronic Publishing Department – Maintaining and updating websites and photo galleries as well as working on print projects
What are you passionate about? “Good website practices, following W3C standards, learning new web design techniques, new versions of Creative Suite software, photography and using Photoshop to enhance my photos, Twitter, reading publications from A Book Apart, listening to The Big Web Show with Dan Benjamin and Jeffrey Zeldman.”
Why did you get involved with Ladies Learning Code? “I’ve been following you for around 6 months on Facebook and Twitter and have been re-tweeting your content. Most events are taking place in Ontario so I haven’t been able to attend/volunteer yet. Would like to meet some other women interested in web design and programming.”
Tiffany Shand (@TASDesigns | http://www.tasdesigns.ca)
Freelance Web Designer – Designing websites, widgets, and apps for independent clients.
What are you passionate about? “Baking, tablet friendly websites, and websites that scroll left-to-right to navigate.”
Why did you get involved with Ladies Learning Code? “It’s great to come together with other ladies who enjoy technology and coding; and to have the opportunity to teach people these skills especially when it’s aimed towards females, I feel very proud that I can be making a change to someone’s life because you never know where the skills that they have been taught will lead them to in the future. And Techy Girls rule!”
Toby Sullivan (@tobyjsullivan | http://tobyjsullivan.net)
I am an entrepreneur working to build a web application to help yoga teachers get an online presence quickly and easily. So far it’s a one-man show and I’m responsible for everything from design and development to marketing and sales.
What are you passionate about? “The Internet is an amazing tool but it is still in it’s infancy. My passion in life is to help the web mature to a point where it is easily accessible and available to all. Today I’m doing this with by building easy-to-use online tools which I’m hoping will be a stepping stone to what tomorrow will bring.”
Why did you get involved with Ladies Learning Code? “The World Wide Web is meant for everyone. Unfortunately, it can be a bit difficult for a lot of people to publish content and share their knowledge. I’ve been lucky enough to learn how to build websites and software and it has been a rewarding experience. Now, I want to help enable others to have the same opportunity to create and share.”
Chris Nicola (@lucisferre | http://lucisferre.com)
“Full-stack” developer at http://tictalking.com – I do a fair bit of infrastructure and architecture stuff but I’ve generally ended up doing a bit of everything whenever I’m working on something. Lately, I’ve been enjoying spending more time working on front-end web development.
What are you passionate about? “The local software and web development community. I like going to meetups, talking to other people in the industry, sharing ideas. Working on startups, creating something new, developing ideas, it’s exciting. Learning. I know that’s a bit cliche.”
Why did you get involved with Ladies Learning Code? “My wife Tea (who is helping organize LLC in Vancouver) and I helped organize the Polyglot Vancouver conference this year (which has now become a Polyglot meetup). One of our goals is to create an event that is more open and inviting and to improve upon the typically low numbers of women most tech conferences seem to attract. We feel we did ok, but also feel we want to do a lot better next year. Participating in Ladies Learning Code seems like a good opportunity to try and reach out.”
Angelina Fabbro (@angelinamagnum | steamclocksw.com)
Everything/ Software Engineer at Steam Clock Software – My business card says ‘software engineer’ but I’m often designing UX and graphics as well. Most of the time I’m writing code in Objective C, HTML/CSS, Javascript, and sometimes Ruby.
What are you passionate about? “Learning. My background is in cognitive science. Somehow teenage Angelina figured that if I could be good at any one thing, I wanted it to be learning new things or being able to figure out how to master a skill. I’m still working on that, but I consider this sort of my life’s work.”
Why did you get involved with Ladies Learning Code? “Because I was told for years, in so many ways, to not learn to code by many insecure people who in the end weren’t looking out for me, but for themselves. It was shitty. I’ve seen a lot of other women go through this, and I want to be the person that explains to them that they should do whatever they want, that it’s not hard to start coding, and let people see for themselves just what they are capable of.”
Adam Cooper (https://github.com/adamcooper)
Developer, Team Lead, & Development at Partnerpedia – We build Marketplaces and Appstore’s for the enterprise companies. Currently I am in the R&D department and I’m responsible for removing any technical uncertainty around upcoming work.
What are you passionate about? “Web Technologies, Software, Ashtanga Yoga (as of recently), Travel.”
Why did you get involved with Ladies Learning Code? “I enjoying helping and mentoring others and would like to help with gender diversity in the software industry.”
Jesse Heaslip (@jjheaslip | http://id8.ca)
Event Organizer at GrowLab
What are you passionate about? “Technology!”
Why did you get involved with Ladies Learning Code? “Because we need more ladies hacking code!”
Francois Deschenes (@fdeschenes | http://francoisdeschenes.com)
Web Developer at Deversus Software Inc.- I’m responsible for all aspects of the development including coding the HTML and CSS. I also maintain the servers, create the databases, and much more.
In addition to Deversus, I’m also CTO for myBestHelper (www.mybesthelper.com), a startup that aims to revolutionize the child care industry. I’m overseeing the development of the web application and I’m responsible for the technology aspect of the business.
What are you passionate about? “I’m passionnante about what I do, web development. Anyone that knows me will tell you that “I’m a machine” and that I do this all day, every day. I’ve been in this business processionally for 13 years but started when I was 7 on a Commodore VIC-20!”
Why did you get involved with Ladies Learning Code? “I first heard of Ladies Learning Code because Heather was featured in The Leaflet (FreshBooks) and I was in the middle of integrating Deversus’s SaaS software called Socket with it. I think that what you guys are doing is amazing and I’d love to be part of it. It’s actually a career goal of mine to teach and/or mentor… this could be the start.” 
Ruth Hatch (@momijizukamori | http://tokyo-tower.org)
Volunteer for the Dreamwidth Studios open source project – Creating new layout designs and performing clean-up and patching of designs submitted by other users
What are you passionate about? “Creation – in any form or medium (my favorites are food, sewing, and CSS). Aesthetics that don’t preclude functionality. Biology and the sciences. New technology. Digital privacy and digital freedom.”
Why did you get involved with Ladies Learning Code? “I’m (at least nominally) a lady, and I’ve been involved in some facets of coding and the internet for a very long time. I’m also looking to expand my own personal knowledge of code and programming.”
Marjolein Visser (@prettytinymight | http://www.tinymight.ca)
I’m a Visual Designer at SAP Vancouver – I work closely with interaction designers and other stakeholders to develop and document visual designs of web-based software applications including layout specifications, colour palettes, typography, hierarchy and positioning of UI elements.
What are you passionate about? “I’m passionate about when things work well. I love how there’s a growing awareness of traditional graphic-design techniques in web design, such as grid systems and the finer points of typography.”
Why did you get involved with Ladies Learning Code? “This is my first time. I found the link to this form on the meetup.com group for the Vancouver Pub (web) Standards group.”
Yuriy Dybskiy (@dybskiy | http://dybskiy.com)
Front-End Engineer at Unbounce – I’m responsible for development of new features and improvement of the current code-base. Check out the new UI we are rolling out soon: next.unbounce.com (after beta it will be available at app.unbounce.com )
What are you passionate about? “I’ve been trying to make the web easy to use and accessible since joining psd2html.com in 2006 and I’m really happy to see how much attention HTML5/CSS3 is getting these days. Open source community has a tremendous impact on the world and it’s really nice to see how much people contribute to it on a daily basis and how much has been improve within the last few years. Aside from work my passions are Photography, Argentine Tango and combination of those two.”
Why did you get involved with Ladies Learning Code? “I’d love to get involved because I’m thankful to a lot of people who helped me become who I am today. I’d love to give back to the tech community and help grow it. I also miss my teaching days back in the university. Hope it’s not too late to join.”
Richard Tse
Works at EA – Transforming the aesthetics and the design of the website to the live webpages for the public; implement Google Analytics, Google Web Optimizer and Omniture for creating reports; build and implement the widgets (i.e. carousel, Facebook, Twitter) to the frontend
What are you passionate about? “I am passionate about computers and everything related to computing technology. I believe that computers are the gateway to connect people and improve the quality of our life. Other than computers, I am also loving to practice Tai Chi everyday.”
Why did you get involved with Ladies Learning Code? “Because I would like to share my experience in building websites with more people and Ladies Learning Code gives me this opportunity to do this. In my personal perspective, I would like to expand my career field and learn how to teach.”
Tim Abdulla (@tabdulla | http://www.timabdulla.com)
Principal Software Engineer at PaySavvy – My responsibilities are developing our software on both the front and back end and setting priorities for our team
What are you passionate about? “I’m sure many people responding to this call will say that they are passionate about software development. At the risk of this sounding tired, there is no better feeling for me than building a well thought out piece of software that improves people’s lives. When I am not actually coding, I am probably reading about something to do with software engineering. It’s such an enormous field that is exploding with new developments every day that it is practically a full time job just to keep on top of developments in the industry. We live in a great age for technology, and I am happy to be a part of it.”
Why did you get involved with Ladies Learning Code? “I want to get people excited about learning to code. Building things is a very satisfying feeling, and I want others to feel that satisfaction. This to me seems like a good way of accomplishing that goal.”
Catherine Winters (@catherineomega | http://catherineomega.com)
Web Designer and Developer at Winters + Associates
What are you passionate about? “Usability, punctuation, standards.”
Why did you get involved with Ladies Learning Code? “It’s such an important cause. I wish it’d been around when I was learning.”
Carlo Costantini (@fifteen3 | http://carlocostantini.ca)
Works at Bensimon Byrne – Developing solutions to problems usually with code.
What are you passionate about? “Being efficient, learning/understanding, rowing.”
Why did you get involved with Ladies Learning Code? “Nothing is more rewarding than working with people who are genuinely interested in something, especially when you yourself are interested in it.”
Robbie Trudeau
Founder and CEO of Vult Technologies Inc.
What are you passionate about? “I’ve always been really interested in innovation, especially in regard to technology. Being involved with programming languages and development definitely fuels that passion which is why I’ve decided on a career in the field.”
Why did you get involved with Ladies Learning Code? “I currently work out of the GrowLab space, and I heard that the workshop was being held there, so I decided helping out is another great way to meet new people!”
Lindsay Watt (@lindsayrgwatt | http://placeling.com)
Cofounder of Placeling – I write front end code and handle all the business side of the company.
What are you passionate about? “My family, exploring, cities and how we can use technology to solve problems.”
Why did you get involved with Ladies Learning Code? “Love the idea; would like to see more women in tech and if I can help change that, want to participate.”
What an amazing group! Thank you for helping to make our west coast debut a success!
For more info about Ladies Learning Code, follow us on Twitter or check out our Facebook Page. If you’d like to join our email list, click here or to volunteer as a Mentor, join our developer email list.