Celebrating Women in STEM on Ada Lovelace DayCelebrating Women in STEM on Ada Lovelace DayCelebrating Women in STEM on Ada Lovelace DayCelebrating Women in STEM on Ada Lovelace Day
  • Revenue
    Protection
    • Fraud Management
    • Revenue Assurance
    • Machine Learning
    • Anti-Money Laundering
    • Application Risk
    • Business Assurance
    • Credit Risk Management
    • Dunning
    • Mobile Money
  • Data
    Integration
    • Mediation
    • Charging
    • Machine Learning
    • Orchestration
    • Data Transformation
    • IoT Integration
      • Big Data Integration
  • Customer
    Engagement
    • Customer Analytics
    • Data Portal
    • Machine Learning
    • Orchestration
    • Dunning
  • Solution
    by Industry
    • Telecoms
    • Finance
    • Utilities
  • About
    Us
    • Partners
    • Our Offices
    • Case Studies and Testimonials
    • Careers
  • News
    & Insights
    • News
    • Blog
    • Events
    • White Papers
  • Contact
    Us
  • SCHEDULE
    FREE DEMO

Celebrating Women in STEM on Ada Lovelace Day

Ada Lovelace is widely recognized as the world’s first computer programmer. Yet despite her foundational role in the history of computer programming, women remain underrepresented in the modern science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) industries. 

Less than a third of researchers globally are women. Just 3% of those studying ICT courses globally are female, with just 5% for mathematics and statistics, and 8% for engineering. 

Ada Lovelace Day is designed to celebrate and promote the profile of women in STEM, in order to encourage the next generation of women programmers, researchers, mathematicians, and engineers. That presents the perfect opportunity to speak to Julia Beyrich, Deputy Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Neural Technologies.

Women in STEM

Q1. Can you briefly describe your role and responsibilities at Neural Technologies?

My official job title is Deputy CTO, which basically means that I’m trying to support our CTO to cover the day-to-day business, i.e. looking after various internal engineering projects, making sure that timelines are defined and kept, ensuring prioritization of various engineering tasks in order to allow for a decent release coordination of our products.

Given my history of 17-years employment with Neural Technologies  – I’m on top of that. I also still work as a responsible Project Manager for various customer projects with regards to configuring our mediation solutions

Q2. What does a successful day look like for you?

Getting up in the morning I’m starting to think about “achievements for the day”. Depending on what is on my list it would be something like: “Get an important internal reconciliation meeting done” plus “Get a specification document finalized” plus “Get a mediation mapping configured”. I can be very sure that there will be unforeseen items coming in, so I should not plan too much for a day…

… a successful day is: I’m leaving the office and all items – planned and unplanned – have been handled in a satisfactory manner ? Happy staff AND happy customers!

Q3. What inspired you to pursue a career in a STEM field?

The inspiration hit me during my younger years when I was at school. A friend of my mother (also a “woman in STEM”) worked for Philips as a programmer. She told me about her work and I was very interested. 

She organized a work experience position for me at Philips and I spent one week at that company – during some autumn school holidays – learning how to program in COBOL (a programming language). This was my initial experience, and from that day onwards I found my passion for this type of work.

Q4. Women have historically been underrepresented in STEM roles. Would you say that created additional barriers or challenges in your own career?

Luckily, I have only rarely came across any barriers…assuming you are referring to the classical “man often not accepting that a woman might have knowledge in the area of STEM”?! I wouldn’t say I don’t know that type of feeling! But whenever it occurs, I try to ignore it, and convince them of my expertise by performing a good job!

Q5. How important is it to promote the visibility of women in STEM roles, particularly in areas of leadership, to inspire the next generation?

Hmm, good question?! I would have hoped that we’ve reached a status in society that this is not important at all any longer. But I do remember a colleague commenting on my promotion to Deputy CTO with some sentence like “I’m happy that I can tell my 5-year-old daughter that women can achieve these positions as well”. So, obviously it is important, still?!

… so, thanks for doing this interview! ?

Q6: What can the industry do to create a more positive environment that encourages more women to pursue STEM careers?

Simply don’t stress the male/female question too much. Gender is not important – interest, motivation, commitment, expertise are the things that matter.

I would wish for a more natural approach to not judge a person based on their gender but on their skills!

 Women Programmers

Q7. What advice would you give to other women looking to follow your footsteps into STEM roles?

Rely on your skills, ensure empathy for others, believe in yourself – this might sound a little withdrawn but basically those are the things that I had to learn throughout my work-life.

Q8: Finally, if you could wave a magic wand and transform one element of the industry, what would it be, and why?

This is the most difficult question I have ever been asked… I guess it would be something to transform “communication”, and make it easier?!

In my role I’m often dealing with one side of the business that has issued feature requirements and the other side that implements those feature requirements. Having a magic wand to easily transform the gap between the two groups — or in other words achieve an understanding of the gap on both sides — would probably ease my work. To some extent my role would be: become this magic wand  ?

Share
What Does 2023 Hold for Mobile Money?

Discover five trends that will impact the adoption and expansion of mobile money in 2023.

What Does 2023 Hold for Mobile Money?

Read more
SMS Customer Engagement in an IoT and 5G Landscape

Rapid proliferation of IoT and 5G network technologies, alongside huge e-commerce growth, means important opportunities for customer engagement and SMS marketing.

SMS Customer Engagement in an IoT and 5G Landscape

Read more
2023 Tech & communication trend & Introducing SI product & its use cases

2023 Tech & communication trend & Introducing SI product & its use cases

5 Tech and Communication Trends Shaping Businesses in 2023

Read more
5 Business Data Trends to Look Out for in 2023

Data reminds the bedrock of good business intelligence and analytics. Here are 5 business data trends to look out for in 2023.

5 Business Data Trends to Look Out for in 2023

Read more

Subscribe to our Newsletter







    Neural Technologies may use the contact information you hereby provide to us to contact you about our products and services. You may, however, unsubscribe from these communications at any time. For information about our privacy practices and commitment to protecting your privacy, check out our Privacy Policy.

    Terms and Conditions | Privacy Policy

    © 2021 Neural Technologies Limited – Company No: #2527794

        Data integration that drives real business value


          *mandatory fields

          Neural Technologies may use your details to contact you about our products and services. You can unsubscribe from these emails at any time.

          The intelligent Fraud Management Solution (FMS)


            *mandatory fields

            Neural Technologies may use your details to contact you about our products and services. You can unsubscribe from these emails at any time.

            Block Scam Calls with Scam Call Mitigation


              *mandatory fields

              Neural Technologies may use your details to contact you about our products and services. You can unsubscribe from these emails at any time.