 Awesome. Isn't it amazing that I'm just like, I am myself? No, I'm sorry. I know, right? So apart from just hearing about all of their stories, apart from hearing about all the products, what's really interesting is their personal story. These people come from a bunch of different nationalities and those of different professions. So let's invite all of the guests up on stage to a panel discussion. Are you all comfortable now? Yes. Okay, you can check if the mic is on because I'm really not... Say something. Hi. Yeah, it's on. Okay, so just quickly go down the line, tell us your name, tell us what you were doing before the program. Xin Tian, you can start. Hi, everyone. My name is Xin Tian. I'm currently working as a customer service officer in my Republic. So basically, because my Republic is just a new style, so I basically do all the things. I do buildings, I do order, I do technical. But my technical knowledge is basically on hardware, like modern router. Yeah. So I just started to learn coding. Yeah. Hi, I'm Kate. I used to be a student. Then I did sales. I was very traded. I quit my job. Yeah. And I was very free. So I signed up for 10 ladies. Yeah, I think it was just the right place, right kind of thing. Yeah, and also because one of my friends was sitting there, also taught me how to use WordPress. And I thought, you know, it's about time to do some, you know, learn coding. And right now I'm pursuing a... I'm intern. I'm probably the oldest intern in the world. Yeah. At Singapore, which is a web development agency, and they do great work. Hello, everyone. I'm Sandy. I'm a Taiwanese. And I'm an air student now. And I used to be a sales administrator in Asus Computers, a very famous Taiwanese brand. And I started to call maybe like, have a year ago, because I want to feel something by myself. And thanks for Tech Lady program. I have a little bit skills, and now I'm helping African NGO to build their commercial e-commerce online. So I hope, I'm very excited about that. Because of Tech Lady, at first I thought I just can donate some money to them. But now I feel I have the abilities to... We still need the money, you know. But now, not only money, I can dedicate my time and build something with them together. Thank you. Hi, I'm Cornette. I used to be a student at the Ohio State University in the States. And then I was studying chemical engineering, and I got really sick of it, and I decided to take a gap year. And then I found Think About, the company that she's interning at, a web development agency's awesome company. And then they gave me an opportunity to intern there, and I got to learn some coding there. And then I improved a lot there. And then I found Tech Ladies as well, and then gave me even more opportunity to code. And I'm going to become a full-time, not a developer yet. It was a customer service but developer route position at Honor Speed next Monday. Hello everyone. My name is Yiting, and I was an linguistic student. It appears that I might have done something pretty relevant, but I did UX design, I did a little bit of graphic design, and I write a lot. So I was actually in this school computing module prior to joining this, and I was there as a UX designer. I think it's really cool to learn back end because I worked with so many really cool computing students from NUS, and they were just really, really cool. I just really wanted to learn something so cool as well, and my mentor is just laughing at me right now. Hey, I'm Casey Melhausen. I am the head gymnastics coach and program director at the Singapore American School, where I've developed a curriculum that gives children success at all levels. I guess I started coding to fix my own blog about four years ago. And during the summer, that's when I started really getting into coding, right? So I would stay up late at night and do things on Code Academy and try to teach myself. Ruby was the language that I resonated with, because it was cute, and one of my gymnasts' name was Ruby, so that's why I started. But actually when I got accepted to TechLadies, that's actually when a lot of things started moving into motion, and I'm the founder of a company called LeelaPass. We help parents discover their child's passion and develop their interests so they can live incredibly fulfilling lives. I work as a management consultant, currently working, as I said, at an online platform, so it helps people to buy and sell iron ore online, which is pretty interesting. It's actually the biggest platform in the world, but one of two. So they actually use Python, which is the language that eating and iron. Vina used to make the AFA with submissions. And it's interesting to see, actually for me, I started learning a little bit on Code Academy and found some websites that taught Python, but I wasn't really sure how to apply it. So understanding how it actually kind of fits together in TechLadies was really, really good for me. All right, so before I move on to the next question, I just want to let all of you know that there will be a Q&A after this. So as you know, these ladies, they come from super diverse backgrounds and different levels of awesomeness. So do start thinking about questions and ask later. So now move back to the panel. So I want to find, so all of you have experiences in programming before the program, either through Code Academy or learning other stuff, like Sandy built her own blog before that. So take me back to before the program. So why or how did you fall in love with programming? Why did you even start? So something that really attracted me was the concept that in programming was, I guess, a language that's based on logic. And so I saw it as a chance to quite nerdily look at it from a problem-solving point of view. So I thought that would be interesting just to keep that part of that brain working. I guess I don't know. I really like social media, to be honest. And I was really interested in understanding a little bit more why things work or how they work and that I think that spurred the initial interest in me to learn programming. For me, I have been playing with HDMI with CSS since I was really young. So it was kind of like a blog that nobody knows about, I was just very anal about keeping the template the way I wanted it. So I think at my age, blogskins.com was very popular but there was just nothing that I really liked. So I like to still code and paste it everywhere. So I just want to make my own monster out of all the code that people have. So like I said just now, I took the computing module. I met a lot of really cool guys and so I know more front-end stuff, more creative stuff like design. And then they were just always talking about the back-end stuff, the big stuff like tables, how things work and I just never knew what they were saying at all. So I just really felt that I really want to know what's going on and how they can just use alphabets, use numbers, use symbols to just create an application out of something that seems like nothing. Well for me, I was lucky enough to take an introduction in programming class back in Ohio State. And then I realized that I get to, it's like writing an essay but into something that works, which was really really cool. And then I tried writing some accounting program for myself and I was like hey, this is fun! But because I was a chemical engineering student, I have my priorities so I have to like relocate my time to like studying for my chemical engineering stuff but after I decided to take a gap year, my friend told me to oh, you can actually try some coding thing in Codecademy or something. I was like okay, that's fun. And I tried and I realized hey, so this is how websites like Facebook come out. Like this is where it came from. Then yeah, I found I should like do something more about it. The reason I started to code is actually I never thought of coding related to me before. Once I read an article named software is eating your world. Maybe some people read about that. And then a lot of my friends, no matter their major is, maybe their major in finance or civil engineering, they started to learn computer science. And then they even directed me like, you know, coding is like another language, just like English. If in the future you don't know how to code, it's like you don't know how to speak English. You don't know how to communicate with others. And then I feel is it so serious? So serious? Maybe I should know something about that. And so I started to maybe talk to more friends and attend more meet-up and then meet some people. So I think actually to create something by yourself, no matter just the small, small little things to make your work more efficient, make you feel more confident about yourself and make you feel, oh, I have the superpower to create something. Maybe it's just very simple, but sometimes it can fulfill yourself and make you feel like, oh, I'm able to talk to computer. So it's quite a cool thing for me. Thank you. How many of you guys here can code something? Okay. Yeah, so maybe you see 20%, right? Yeah. So if you're wondering if you don't have any background in programming or maybe even using WordPress, what are you here for or why? For me, it started out because I was very bored when I was flying and wanted to sell something to get extra cash. So then that was out of need, something that you want. And I think technology always means the end. So when I was flying as well, I was thinking, oh, it's so hard to change my flight system. Because the system that Singapore Airlines use is very internal system. There must be a way to match your flight so they can change flights to someone else. There's always a need behind technology. And I guess for me, it's always from that. The starting point is always a need. And I think it's very empowering to learn how to code because you can satisfy that need yourself. When I first started to do coding, I was just doing it out of fun. So I didn't really put in much effort until there's one time I actually participated in one hackathon with my friends. So while everyone is building coding continuously for 24 hours, I think I sleep a lot because my job there is just to pitch, that's all. But during the presentation, I see how the participants actually present the things that are created in that 24 hours is just very amazing. So I tell myself, I say, the next time I come to another hackathon, I must be the one that code. I don't want to just go there and then look at people and then sleep and then eat and then drink. So after that, I started to put in a lot of efforts and I realized that coding actually changed the way I faced problems. For example, previously if let's say I faced an issue in work, I would just complain, complain with colleagues. Like, why is this system sucks? Why is it must use so many Excel? This is so troublesome. So now when the same issue appears, what I would think is that, no, I'm going to just create something to eat my own pain. So yeah, my boss is not paying me for doing that, but I still want to improve my own workload. Awesome. So I think that in all of your journey in learning how to code, this is definitely not an easy task. So what is the hardest hurdle or obstacle or the biggest trouble you face while you're learning how to code? I think the main issue I'm facing is probably building up my basic because a lot of times I realize that I do not have a very good basic. That's why I have a lot of troubles in understanding how code works. Sometimes I can just put out the things and it works and I don't know why. So yeah, I'm still working hard on this part. Yeah, I think sometimes the understanding comes like a bit later. You just have to push through for a while. Yeah, and probably the other thing is also asking for help and knowing where to find help. Yeah, so like a community like this and having mentors really does help. Yeah. I think the most difficult thing I encounter is flying and coding at the same time. It's super tiring. Imagine if you don't sleep for more than 24 hours and then after you arrive at a very beautiful place, maybe like London, and then you need to turn on your computer, face all the code and then try to figure out why my code is not working now. And then you're just like, oh I want to sleep now but why should I just debug and then... but still need to insist in doing it because it makes you feel good when you finally find out why my code is not working and even you don't know why your code is working still feel good because it's working. So it's the most challenging thing for me. For me, it's indentation, indentation of indentation. So much indentation. The thing about coding is that you have to be really, really precise or else that it won't work. So I guess it kind of makes me, it kind of trains me to become more detail oriental, make me a better person I guess. So I guess that's good. For me, in my final semester, so I have all those classes and then I took an extra class in Spanish. So I normally code at night which is not very good for me because I typically sleep quite early. So I can't really see what I do when I do backend stuff so sometimes I think that it works and then I just push it. Martin's like, I'm surprised that it works and then with people I know that it doesn't work at all. So eventually I have to correct it but because of the error that I made I have to go a really large round to correct it. So it takes up a lot more of my time but I guess it's difficult but it's good for me as well because I get to learn from that. I get to know how to not be careless anymore and to really check on your code before just submitting because as someone used to HTML and CSS I like to just write and then save and then check, write, save, check. So I don't like to write and then have to look through each line of code and then check if there's error, check repeatedly if there's errors and then submit it. So that was kind of problematic for me, honestly. I'm a mother of two so time is actually the biggest struggle for me but the tech ladies, what I got the most out of it was actually the mentors were amazing and I remember specifically the first couple of weeks Shantiana and I would be on Skype for three hours and we're not really talking to each other just like Googling things and trying to figure out things. So because of this program we were able to rely on each other and find the answers or get a little nudge this is the right direction to go in or not and that was something that when you're just doing Code Academy or trying to learn things on your own you don't have somebody to bounce off different ideas and that is really what I got the most about most from this program but getting back down to that core question for me it's actually finding the time to get everything done and that's just like a general problem that I have. For me, when people talk about coding and then they start talking more about coding I feel like they're speaking English like it sounds like English but I don't understand anything that they're saying so if you're completely new, someone says Python that sounds like a reptile it doesn't sound like a language and then when they say it's a language well it's not a language, it's a programming language so it's just trying to wrap my head around all these things and every time something sounds like a word and I think something is actually something completely different so I think that's probably the hardest bit and also having to be extremely precise I think I spent a lot more time talking to Martin asking him to tell me what issue of my code was than the time that I spent writing it Speaking of misconception or Python as the reptile and Ruby as the gem are there any other misconceptions that you have about programming before you joined the program and also what did you realise was wrong after or during? Well I just learnt Python as a language I had no idea how you would apply that language so the misconception I had was that you could learn a language and then create something but actually you need to understand how it works within something like Django for example to actually do something with it I think I really underestimated technology like what we've built or what all the teams have built to help these NGOs is really just a small piece of what is happening right now like never in the history of the time has there been a better time in history to take technology and solve the world's problems and I think I totally underestimated the power that we have to make the world a better place so that was the misconception I had about technology Similar to SKC I thought that coding was a very static thing you would never think that there are actually so many things you have to look out for and it's just only going to increase it's just going to be more stuff so there are actually a lot of things to read it's not just like I know ABC and I'm going to use ABC for something else I can create more things with ABC than I know and I think one common misconception we have is that coding is a guys thing I think we can see that from the sheer numbers of programmers we have in the tertiary institutions around so I think that is a main deterrent for a lot of goals as well For me, I thought that you just have to know one particular language and you are able to solve many of the problems but after I started interning at Think A Box I realised that there's front end, there's a back end front end runs on HTML, CSS and stuff like that and back end is Rails and there's other framework for maybe Python or something so it's a lot of things that you have to learn you have to learn really quick to solve them as fast as possible The misconception I have is before I started to code every time when I look at someone turn on the computer and turn on terminal and there's a black background and then they start typing something very fast and I feel so cool and then I never knew that I will be the one to type something very fast I thought maybe only IQ 180 only IQ 180 you can do code but actually it's not everyone can do it no matter your IQ is 180 or 100 even everyone's grandmother also can do it so what it is interesting just start from basic although there will be a lot of challenges and debug is the most difficult thing but still I feel it's not as difficult as I imagined when I didn't try it when you try it it's very difficult but it's not impossible You remind me of when Gerald asked us to run something on Rails console I'm like what console? I think it was my first time using the terminal I didn't know you can type something that align and then something will happen I think the misunderstanding is if you don't have background and technology is it possible to pick it up? and there are actually a lot of resources up there in the community if online and offline it's very strong if you have a question and you really can't solve it you don't really have someone to ask you can ask it on set old flow or about one of your colleagues or friends so that's one thing I think the misconception I have is actually I thought people who know how to code actually memorise all the things it was like you can memorise everything every command, every of the code then after I learnt coding I realised that there's a lot of things that can be auto-generated for example type in Rails new project name there will be a whole-frame thing come out and I think another very epic misconception I have is Java equal to JavaScript I thought that friend you know that Java then he said no, it's JavaScript Java is just a short form of JavaScript that's why I answered him that time now I know that's different awesome so now we're going to take a pause is there any question from the audience anything that you would like to ask let me come over to you so first just awesome job everyone I'm really impressed and I think you guys have a lot to be proud of and I think you're doing a good job inspiring people in the audience who might be considering doing the next batch or the next next batch of tech ladies so my question for you is what advice do you have for the people in the audience who are thinking about participating what do you wish you knew at the beginning that you know now that you can pass on to them anyone can just take the question advice for anybody who wants to do tech ladies do it it's really changed a way that I think about things like in solving problems but also like the teamwork aspect is really amazing I think what I wish I would have known I guess I really don't have anything that I wish I would have known but if you want to get started to start today by doing anything, reading doing the tutorials online there's really nothing stopping you from starting coding and yeah just start maybe if you want to get started on coding or even joining tech ladies have something in mind what you want out of this I think for me it was more exploratory but I was wondering whether like it really does help in learning a programming skill by having something to work on and having something to work on is actually very important because sometimes when you're learning you don't really implement it you're not sure how it's supposed to come into play so having something to work on whether it's a tech ladies project or something of your own with a bunch of friends really does help I would say if you guys are interested in learning Ruby and you're just a beginner without the book Learn Ruby the Hard Way I think her book is really really good because if you are learning online they're just teaching you a bit by bit and everything and it's kind of like fragmented and bits and pieces everywhere but this book kind of put it all together and show you like a big picture of it so it helped me a lot I think that it would be useful for you to actually know some stuff about what you're going to learn so I actually tried a bit of Ruby Code Academy I did a little bit on Udemy yeah so I did a little bit there but eventually I went with Python because I liked the idea of AFA but I think if I had more experience with Python I could actually be able to contribute more I think I would be able to take more high-end stuff as well instead of having Martin having to go through like more basic stuff with me because I have no experience in Python at all and there are a lot of resources out there there are a lot of free things you don't even need to buy anything and there are a lot of people out there the communities are very supportive I think even if you're a totally new person you can just join their Facebook page they would just approve you even if you're like really stupid so just join everything just try everything and I think it would be nice to come prepared to tell you I know it's really hard to start I thought it was really hard to get started with back end especially by myself online but it's really good to have some information so learn Python the hard way is a very good tool as well alright any next question anyone no question so I'm very curious about it so all of you went through this program I know Connet you already have a job Kate you're an intern and think about so what about the rest what's next for you like how would you use your programming skills I don't think I'm going for a job in computing anytime soon because I want to be able to do something I can proud of instead of you know just like trying and trying an error and screwing things up you know so even so I am going to help Martin with his new project which has to do with techniques as well so like I said just now I thought it would be nice to be prepared so this is a really cool platform for you to just learn a little bit more about these languages and try a little bit more and you can connect with like mentors on Slack you can meet them so it's going to be a really cool thing so I'm going to try React.js which I think will be really cool because I like front end and it has Python and Django stuff in it as well so I think that will be really cool so I'm building a tech start up at the moment so we will be using Ruby and Rails and I'm also organizing a Guinness World Record Attempt for most handstands in a group for International Handstand Day but it's also a global day so we have started recruiting different ambassadors for Instagram to help spread the word about the Handstand Day and we actually want to find a way to track the data on their hashtags and have like one central location so we want to build something to actually track that because we think that would be a little bit pretty fun and be able to like give them prizes for posting handstands and making handstands so that's what I'll be using the technology and the skills that I learned with. I'm going to be a lot more patient with software engineers that I work with I appreciate so where I'm working the software engineer he helps to generate market reports and everything using Django and Python I was like hey I understand what you're doing and I think as much as I'm not going to be doing it it's definitely going to help a lot more with just bridging that gap between people who don't know anything about tech and those that are in that space so hopefully that will just make projects a little bit easier for everyone. Okay what about so we know what you're doing, what about you? So for now I'm still planning to stay in my current company so what I'm going to do I think I will try to build a system to help to solve my current work issue so hope that by doing this I will be able to accumulate some experience and be really sure that Cody is ready for me before I venture into the field. Okay does anyone else have a question? Okay I'm coming to you. Hi sorry it's not so much geared towards the panel but towards the organizers as well because we just want to know what was the details of your bootcamp like what was the frequency like how often were you guys coding and what was the criteria of achieving this nine beautiful amazing ladies for you know to set participants for the next round. So I think maybe the panel can take you know what happened during the program one of you want to get it? So for us it's actually eight weeks part time program so we normally communicate with each other by slag and every week we will meet up on Saturday to actually discuss further more about our projects so actually our mentors will have some class for us to actually learn out all the basics because most of us started off with for example me myself I don't know Ruby at all before I joined this program so yeah we need to actually catch up with some basics so that's what we basically do. There's a lot of self learning in the beginning so if you start from like zero you'll be spending a lot of time a lot of nights like on court category and just trying to absorb whatever you can and then when you come together every Saturday it's just to kind of like plan what to do for the next week ahead and then every week you spend about 10 hours also depending on how slow or fast you are just coding on your own and trying to figure out what is the task for the week how you can complete the task for the week 10 hours a week 10 hours a week maybe more for me it's more than 10 hours per week imagine when you are debugging maybe one hour past and then two hours and three hours so it's not included in your self learning time maybe you take about three hours for watching videos any website you want and then you need to spend three more hours to practice and then maybe three more hours for debugging and then you still have some homework to finish but it depends on everyone because some people they might learn it very fast and pick up very fast but for me I need to slowly find out how to solve my problems so I will say it takes about 12 hours a week not included Saturday meet up Saturday it basically is about three hours course but after course maybe your team will have some meet up to discuss about your project because the course is not included in the project they will teach you the basic things and you need to apply it of course you need to discuss with your coach about how to apply or maybe it's a bit different from what they want you to do so Saturday basically maybe takes about four hours for everything basically so total will be 16 hours a week but it's for me only it really varies so we meet every Saturday just for hands-on debugging and through week they are expected to also be coding and also be producing code so as for the selection criteria we're still fine-tuning the process so I'm not going to say anything for now so what else here has a question that's now no more is it the same question anyone else wants to ask a question eventually so are you confident of building your own application a web application now probably out of a scale of 10 how confident are you to create something for your friend quickly go down the road say the number 10 for kids maybe 9 if not confident enough I will ask someone that's the reason I left one I would say about like 9 as well but of course I need some help from my friends and stuff and stack up a solo so if I get a lot a lot of help from Martin I would say 10 and a lot of booking stack up a solo is really really good you just can't do something to marry you just have to google you have to find out you have to try so I don't think it really has a number but it's more of your commitment and your willingness is my friend going to pay me my confidence level is really high I think the program actually helped me strengthen my growth mindset so I would say a 10 because I think that I can probably program anything not right now but it would take a while but yeah I can do it with lots of help from Martin I would give myself a 9 if it was me in complete isolation without stack overflow or any mentors then that number would be a lot lower but having said that I think that anyone that's coding actually does end up looking for help and going to stack overflow and there's so many resources out there so no one really seems to code in isolation I would also say 9 or 10 if let's say I get help from mentors and also I put in effort because I think after the program I realised that we can actually build something as long as we put in enough efforts and if let's say we don't know then we just ask or google so you guys know that by saying all that 9 and 10 a lot of people are expecting you guys to do apps already all of your friends will be like hey I heard you know how to code anyway so let's close out this panel with one last question what would be one advice you give to people who are learning how to code I'm not sure whether it's a women thing or whether it's just myself I think the confidence even when you know some and so it's a confidence issue thing but when you do see but you're comparing yourself to the experts but then again when I see the experts I realise that they don't know everything as well and so it's always like there's always someone bigger and it's to have the confidence to know what you know and know that you can be better and everyone else is just trying to be the same as well I would say have a little bit more patience no matter for yourself or to others have a little bit more patience because everyone learns step by step so don't blame yourself no matter you feel oh my god how come I learn so slow but it's okay just take your time yeah for me I would say start out a project as soon as possible because for me it's that I spend too much time learning how each command works so it became very fragmented and everything is like everywhere and then if you get to spend more time on a project everything forces you to learn faster I like to be very independent so I like to try googling for answers first so I would say exploit your mental really really shy about approaching Martin at the start so I had a lot of errors and I sort of didn't really know where I went wrong or what I should be doing or I would have maybe a more complicated code for something that can be simplified some of the things like you shouldn't try to reinvent the wheel that much you should really just try to ask people because everyone is really very nice in the tech community one piece of advice I would give to people trying to learn really any new skills to actually document the learning that helps you reflect on things that you've learned especially if you feel like you're stuck and you suck and you just want to crawl into a hole but if you reflect on the things that you've learned like six months you're like whoa it came so far it's really like when athletes train they document what they've done and how fast they've run the race and they always try to get better and better and I think that is a huge part of it so if you document the learning and you review that it's also a great way to share with other people what you're learning so that's the one piece of advice that I would have I would say very early on think about what it is you actually want to build because that gives you a lot more direction and gives you something to aim towards and it helps to really direct your learning because there's so much out there that you can learn but if you're not actually creating anything you can get really sidetracked so I think it's better just to know what it is you want to make Alright awesome thank you so much Kendall for the event so if there's anything you were too shy to ask you can go ahead and ask them back to me the stuff that some of you are interested in like what are we going to do next so we're planning for the next bootcamp to happen from August to November as you can see this is more than 8 weeks I'll tell you a bit more later so our next our next activity is this group this Tech Ladies Tech Talks so it's going to be people with ruby skills sharing their knowledge and it's going to be in about 2 weeks time so I have all of your email addresses so I'll just email you about more of the details later or you can just sign up for our mailing list laser okay so the thing that you really want to hear about is the second iteration of the bootcamp so we're going to make this longer 2 weeks so it will be a 10 week program and we're going to start in September so why did I say August earlier because we're going to have a pre-workshop pre-bootcamp workshop in August just to help you out in terms of the foundation get you prepped already to start on the project so again more details in terms of the selection criteria how the workshop is going to be like it will come much later so do make sure that you're on the mailing list to keep yourself in the loop and I think it's not working tell people to take note that the URL is case sensitive oh yes the URL is case sensitive so make sure you just take a photo of this and then you just type exactly the same and you'll be fine so another thing that I really really want to highlight is that for this bootcamp we could only take 9 the thing is that I would love to help everyone if I could the thing is that I have constraints in my resources as well but as someone once told me the community really wants you to succeed so there's a lot of a lot of other community groups some of them are also here I think Girls in Tech, Coding Girls is here RubyMeta, CopyJS is here so maybe we just like do a little wave so these are all the people who are running community meetups and they are awesome people doing everything volunteer basis so if there's anything that you're interested in just hone them and don't give up programming just because you didn't get it in a bootcamp okay? that's all for today if you want more information about the program we'll just talk to the community people and you'll just have fun thank you