A bit of a personal story, trip to the Science Fair

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When I was in high school in Spain we had an annual trip to the local science fair. One year I came across a video stand that showed a prediction of the future. There were flying cars, buildings that reached up beyond the clouds, and robots of various shapes and sizes. At the end of the movie a voice asked: “And you? How do you imagine the future?”. Captivated by the film something clicked in me, I realized that it was up to us to build the future we wanted. On our way back home from the fair I kept telling myself that I would like to actively take part in creating “the future”, rather than wait for others to build it for me.

Fifteen years later after studying Business Management and Computer Engineering in Madrid I now live in The Netherlands and work for IBM as a mobile developer. My initial inspiration towards crafting the future transformed into a passion for new technology, innovation and entrepreneurship.

DIVERSITY IN IBM – Working with people from so many different countries

I really enjoy working at IBM. We are an agile team with flexible roles that work in a startup style developing mobile applications. Our small team is rich in diversity; my colleagues come from India, Greece, Spain, England, France, Belgium, Belarus and The Netherlands. It’s a testament to the times we live in that we can all communicate and produce innovative software together despite coming from countries with different cultures and languages, geographically thousands of kilometers apart.

Is this diversity really necessary? I believe so.

Our varied backgrounds bring unique skills to the team, allowing us to make more innovative and expert decisions. It also forces our team to be prepared for different points of view, making us achieve higher levels of technological and organizational efficiency. We’re a close and super cool knit team. We collaborate on side-projects to experiment with new technologies and regularly participate in Hackathons, workshops or events related to technology, like the Dutch Open Hackathon. This has provided us with a fertile environment to learn and experiment with the latest technology.

We’ve been working a lot, not only in mobile development, but also in other emerging fields such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) where we even won an international competition to devise IoT solutions for the Home Insurance Industry. Regarding AI, I believe it will have a huge impact on our daily lives and I’m eager to be part of it. I found it so fascinating that I applied to do a master’s degree on AI, for which I am studying after work hours (learning about super cool things like Artificial Vision, Data Mining, Robotics…). I also like to create new projects during my free time, so I never stop learning.

My opinion on the Hidden Figures inspiring movie

I am looking forward to seeing the “Hidden Figures” movie. The trailer motivated me to keep following a life style of doing as many great things as possible. With intelligence, technology and purpose, we can overcome the most challenging problems.

My key Take Away’s  

• “Hidden Figures” is not only about diversity, civil right and feminism, it’s a really inspiring and enthusiastic movie that will make you want to stand up and start working on something great.
• Best way to prepare for the future is to create it, learn as much as possible, be curious and put your thoughts into action.
• IBM is a company where diversity of thought and diversity of people help achieve the highest levels of innovation.

Patricia

Want to know more? Have a look at Hidden Figures, diversity and inclusion at IBM or Cognitive Business at IBM.