JUILLIARD TRAINED BALLET DANCER TO AI

Victoria is exactly why I started this podcast - a classically trained ballet dancer at Juilliard School (!!!) she decided to change careers into the world of ethical AI during the 2020 pandemic. She is now thriving at Sama and has become a great member of the tech community. Hear about how she lived the life of a dance movie and then worked at getting into the AI world.

Ep 6 - Victoria Grempel

WRITER - FLUTE TEACHER - TUTOR - EDITOR - DEVELOPER - WEB DEV - FRONT END ENGINEER - UX LEAD - TECH INSTRUCTOR - DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT & DESIGN

We’re back and kickstarting 2022 with Milly Schmidt and her fabulous path into tech. She’s had an amazing journey of knocking on all different possibilities on her way to try and figure out what role fit her best. 

From beginning as a writer and content creator to marrying that up with the software skills she developed, she’s found a home in UX where she get’s to use all the skills she’s picked up over the years. Listen now to her path, lessons learnt and all the life that happened along the way.

Ep 21 - Milly Schmidt

COMP SCI - PhD - LECTURER - CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT - HEAD OF LEARNING DIGITAL - CHARITY FOUNDER ADSEI

Having completed a PhD in computer science, Linda might not seem to have had as untraditional a path as past guests BUT what she's using it for is definitely untraditional. 

Dr Linda McIver is easily one of the most inspirational people I have met in the industry. She's dedicated her time to ensuring each child is introduced to and given the chance to learn about STEM skills - skills that have become a necessity in the data driven world we now live in.

Having been a teacher and seeing the direct impact she was having on children she set about scaling that out to all across Australia and I'm sure globally in no time at all. The Australian Data Science Education Institute (ASDEI) is a charity that Linda created to see the vision out and has recently just released her book - Raising Heretics - explaining how to raise children in today data driven world. Links to her work and book can be found on the website.

Ep 22 - Dr. Linda McIver

BACKPACKING - SOUL SEARCHING - FORENSIC SCIENCE - STATISTICS - LOGISTICS - COMIC ILLUSTRATOR - DATA ANALYST - SOFTWARE ENGINEER - DESIGN

Julia to me is one of those people that just seems to be able to do all the things at one time - and based on the overview above it lines up.

Not wanting to commit to the “wrong” decision out of high school she went travelling. Through existential crisis and quarter life breakdowns she found herself in the right support system and ending up back in college. 

Julia is a perfect Paths Uncovered guest with all the pivots and turns she took from there to end up at ANZ as a technology graduate. Making a complete change by trying out all the things to find the best fit for her, listen to how Julia shaped up her career so far.

Ep 23 - Julia Ghent

RETAIL - MECHATRONICS - ROBOTICS - JAPANESE STUDIES - TUTOR - RESEARCH ENGINEER - SOFTWARE CONSULTANT - COMMUNITY NINJA - GUEST LECTURER - FREELANCER 

Larene has meandered her career into the perfect fit for her after trying out all sorts of avenues and seeing how they all add up. We chatted about our shared experiences with struggling in STEM at times to trying out different things to see what fits. If you have ever wondered what leads to becoming a freelancer, definitely worth a listen to this episode!

Having come across her in the community I have always been impressed by Larene and always come away with something new that I’ve learned in our interactions.

Larene is a passionate advocate for accessibility in technology and a thought leader in the space. I would highly recommend following her or even working with her if you get the opportunity!

Ep 24 - Larene Le Gassick

MEDICINE - BARTENDER - SPONSORSHIP DIRECTOR - CORPORATE BANKING - TRAVELLING - HEALTH NGO - STARTUPS - FOUNDER - COMMUNITY BUILDER - HEALTH TECH

You definitely don't see a pathway like this every day - dropping out from 4th year Medicine to find a more scalable path to help people and their healthcare. 

This chat with Emily is a long time in the making and it couldn't have come at a better time. Her journey is inspiring (maybe I'm ready to hop on a plane to Mexico right now too?) and all the twists have built up to where she is today - the founder of What the Health. The best resource to keep up with what's happening in Health Tech! 

So many take aways to be had from this chat, everything you do really does add up to build a completely unique perspective and opportunity. Listen now!

Ep 25 - Emily Casey

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT - ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING - MASTERS - SOFTWARE DEVELOPER - IMAGE RECOGNITION - SPEECH ANALYSIS - CONSULTANT - ML ENGINEER

Xin is easily one of the most impressive person I know - she was very casual about her 3RD PLACE in a national Chinese maths competition! From the start Xin found herself comfortable with STEM. While she had a passion for becoming a foreign correspondent (which I am now fully contemplating as a career change for myself) she decided to pursue Electrical Engineering at university. 

I have always been curious about how people navigate careers after engineering especially when it’s a pivot to tech. From becoming a software dev to slowly transitioning into an ML engineer it’s a great journey to listen to. 

Xin was very open about each move and change in her career and the why behind it which is always fascinating to hear. From aligning to personal values to wanting to try something completely out of her comfort zone, this episode covers it all. We definitely realised that Xin thrives in new places and challenges as we chatted!

Ep 26 - Xin Liang

With season 1 racking up over 5k listens, it was time to come back!

We have an excellent lineup ahead for this season so tune it and listen along. Follow and subscribe on your preferred platform to be notified of all new episodes, out every fortnight!

Paths Uncovered - Season 2

BURNOUT - MENTAL HEALTH - CAREER BREAKS - STARTUPS - DIVERSITY - RETENTION - REDUNDANCY - GOALS - PLANNING

This episode has it all. This is a Paths Continued episode with guests Gretchen Scott and Gwenny Warnick returning for some wide ranging conversations. 

The podcast went on a bit of a hiatus after Season 1 as I dealt with burnout and deteriorating mental health. A year later, we are back discussing it all in this episode with a wide range of personal and career journeys over the last few years - an emotional rollercoaster of an episode!

Ep 27 - Gretch & Gwenny

MUSICIAN - INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND POLICY - LINGUISTICS - RISK ADVISORY - CYBERSECURITY - STARTUP FOUNDER - AI

Sam joins us today to share her journey from aspiring musician to finding her love for linguistics and transitioning into tech and founding an AI focused startup - Decoded.AI

We discussed how she ended up pivoting from a promising music career, spent a year living in Spain during school and how she found herself surrounded by tech and dived in. We cover all the nuances in being a technical founder from an untraditional background and how the industry is still often heavily gatekept.

Listen now to see how Sam ended up working on a solution to help enable more trust in AI systems by helping decode what is actually happening!

Ep 28 - Samantha Lengyel

BIOMED - BUSINESS - STARTUP ACCELERATOR - MEDTECH - SCALE UPS - AI STARTUPS

Kaushalya undertook a biomed degree with the aim of transitioning into medicine but early into the degree realised that wasn't the path for her. Pivoting from that into the world of business to see what the hype was all about she found a passion in supporting businesses starting up. She worked on building an accelerator for MedTech startups bringing the best of her background into use and is now working on supporting AI startups actualising their potential. 

An episode diving into how the support for startups really works and tangible takeaways if you are considering going down the entrepreneurial path.

Ep 29 - Kaushalya Gunatilaka

Paths Uncovered is a podcast run by @akankshamalik96 where we chat with people in the tech world and uncover their journeys to how they got to where they are.

Ep 6 - Victoria Grempel

Paths Uncovered

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