Ladies Learning Code

Founder + Sponsorship & Partnerships

Heather Payne is the founder of Ladies Learning Code,  a Toronto-based not-for-profit startup that runs wildly popular  workshops for women (and men) who want to learn computer programming and  other technical skills in a social and collaborative way. Recently, she founded HackerYou as  a way to bring more learning experiences around technology, startups  and entrepreneurship to Toronto. She’s also working on a project for the  Mozilla Foundation: her job is to build a community of people and  organizations in Toronto who care about raising youth as creators – not  just consumers – of technology and the web. She was an early investor in ShopLocket, and in a former life, Heather helped startups like Pinpoint Social and Shopcastr to acquire their first users. You can reach her at heather [at] ladieslearningcode.com.

Operations + Expansion

Melissa was born and raised in London, Ontario. When her family purchased their first computer, she spent her evenings and summers teaching herself to code (a Harry Potter fan site by trial and error). After entering high school, where computer science was not promoted or encouraged, she lost touch with coding. Melissa went on to graduate from the Richard Ivey School of Business and since her first startup in university, she's realized what an advantage a technical skill set would bring. Since then, she’s always dreamed of a group for women that makes coding and tech fun and social and really makes it accessible to complete beginners. She thinks the buzz around the #ladieslearningcode is case in point that Toronto (and the world) needs groups like this and she couldn’t be more excited to be part of it. Ladies Learning Code is more than a resource to her, it’s a community.

Content

Breanna was born and raised in a small village in British Columbia, and knew the big city of Toronto was calling her name when she started her own online business at the young age of 10. Breanna attended The University of Toronto, Computer Science and finished her degree in Information Technology Management at Ryerson University. In her spare time, you will almost always find Breanna "Googling" anything and everything - usually from her iPhone, reading the latest technology magazines and blogs, catching a concert, Facebooking, blogging and tweeting galore! As a woman that works in IT, she wants to help encourage other women to get involved and help make tech less intimidating and scary.

Developer Outreach + Director of Girls Learning Code

Laura grew up all over Southwestern Ontario, moving around her whole life. Always “the new girl” Laura began to understand, pretty early on, the importance of relationships and “staying connected”. With an educational and professional background in Human Resources, Laura made the shift to the world of consulting 4 years ago and has not looked back. The link between technology and human relationships fascinates her. This has ignited a personal passion for exploring and helping others to learn, women in particular, how to leverage and evolve the technology available to us in our world today and even tomorrow. In her spare time, Laura is exploring what technology has to offer and how it can help her do her job better, much like many of Ladies Learning Code’s beginner-level students. She has recognized these untapped resources at her fingertips and is energized to help others break through into this world of opportunity!

Vancouver Chapter Lead

Tea Nicola can be found around any organization or event that has to do with code, software or tech community building. Having coded her first computer program at age 9 in BASIC, software and code have been an interest all her life. She graduated from Queen's University in Materials Engineering and pivoted into tech sector in 2009. Since then, she has founded Polyglot Software Association, that presents an annual (un)conference for software professionals in any language and WealthBar, a start-up that poises to revolutionize the way people plan for and build their financial independence. When she is not trying to change the world through internet, you can find her at the playground with her daughter or at the farmer's market poring over organic and local foods. You can reach out to Tea at tea [at] ladieslearningcode.com.

Ottawa Chapter Lead

Nicole is a recent university graduate who works in the fundraising industry in Ottawa, Canada. Recently, she began a social media and communications internship with Erica Diamond and WomenOnTheFence.com, a website dedicated to personal development for women. In her spare time, Nicole does freelance marketing and communications. She is also proud to serve on the Board of Directors of Volunteer Ottawa. Nicole is passionate about helping young women succeed and achieve their career goals. In her spare time, Nicole has been trying her hand at blogging (nskbelanger.wordpress.com), and lives for live music, skiing, and weekend roadtrips.

Halifax Chapter Lead

Born and raised in Vancouver, Rachel decamped to Halifax six years ago. She now works as an early stage venture capitalist at Innovacorp where her focus is primarily on high tech and clean tech companies. Prior to joining Innovacorp, Rachel worked as a wind farm developer in Nova Scotia, where she focused on the environmental assessment and public consultation aspects of the development process. She also worked as a GIS specialist on a large scale master planning project in Saudi Arabia, and was an event services manager at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

London Chapter Lead

Professionally, Kelly advises startups on strategic business development. In addition to working with individual entrepreneurs, Kelly is involved with Startup Canada, Startup London, and Emerging Leaders. In her spare time Kelly writes code and researches the impact of technology on community and economic development. Having seen first-hand the power of software to shape prosperity and success, Kelly sees the ability to code as an essential skill to making a difference in the world.

Calgary Chapter Leads

Kylie Toh (@kylietoh)

Kylie is a communicator in the hi-tech sector. She’s passionate about startups, entrepreneurship and all things nerdy. She had a vision to help the community grow by incorporating more diverse backgrounds and perspectives. In her spare time, she enjoys eating popcorn and DIY crafts.

Morgan Moe (@morgansmoe)

Morgan is a dedicated entrepreneur and active member of the startup community. She is currently Founder and Chief Clinical Innovation Officer of StrokeLink, a tablet application and corresponding software system designed to empower stroke patients.

About The Chic Geek (@chicgeekyyc)

Kylie and Morgan are also the founders of The Chic Geek, a Calgary-based organization striving to increase diversity in the hi-tech and startup communities by educating, engaging and empowering women.

Edmonton Chapter Lead

By the end of elementary school Bree figured out two things about herself, that she was born to be her own boss and that she wanted to help other people realize their goals and passions. Born and raised in BC, Bree relocated to Alberta after college where she inevitably decided to start her own business, BE3Designs, in an effort to help other like-minded small business owners and entrepreneurs. Providing freelance and contract services to clients across Canada, Bree has come from a background of designing, developing and optimizing websites for well over a decade. Creating her first website in FrontPage when she was 12, Bree taught herself HTML and CSS basics by viewing source code and trial by error edits. Nowadays, she can be found coding via HTML5, CSS3, PHP and WordPress for a variety of devices. When not staring at a glowing monitor, tablet or mobile screen - Bree can be found in front of a television hypnotized over favorite TV shows, movies, getting lost in a book, blogging from Philosofreaky, and obsessing over the color orange at Orange U Happy.