Tech in the Right Direction

Tips on how to be seen by Technology Staff recruiters.

Tech in the Right Direction host, Jennifer Didier and Manager of People and Culture at Curate Partners,  Natasha Thomas talk about how she got involved in the Technology industry.  Natasha also shares some great insight on how to represent yourself to be considered for technology opportunities.
Natasha's Bio:
Natasha Thomas is the Manager of People and Culture at Curate Partners. She studied at SUNY Fredonia, majoring in Psychology and minoring in Sociology and currently resides in the North end of Boston, MA. With over a decade of IT industry experience, Natasha is passionate about building programs and opportunities to support people of all backgrounds in achieving their career ambitions. A major focus in her current role is expanding DEI&B initiatives for internal/external employees and clients.

Understanding Education Technology

Jennifer Didier and Shannon Meadows talk details on education technology.  How it came to be a necessary service for our daily lives. 
Some additional information about Shannon:
Shannon was previously VP of Sales & Operations for Blackboard Inc. where she worked on $182M in Acquisition between NTI Group & Blackboard Connect. As Chief Revenue Officer, Shannon leads the Sales and Customer Success organizations at BibliU. She is an industry expert in Ed Tech and Digital Publishing sales and go-to-market strategies. She has led companies in C-level roles in Sales, Marketing and Business Development, building several start-up businesses resulting in successful company equity events.
About BibliU
BibliU is a learning enablement platform that empowers higher education institutions to streamline their textbook and courseware workflows to achieve greater student outcomes, affordability and social mobility. With BibliU, colleges and universities can finally deliver on the promise of digitalization, guaranteeing all students have first-day access to the learning content they need.
 

Understanding the basics of Web 3 and Blockchain

As Jennifer asks questions, Liya helps us explore and gain understanding of web 3 and blockchain.  This is a detailed conversation of where we are now and where this technology may take us. 
Liya Safina Bio:
Liya is a digital design director and web3 strategist living in Honolulu, Hawaii. Through her work in blockchain innovation, Liya is building with a mission to help people get educated, connected, and empowered in web3.She has established creative for Fortune 500 companies and startups alike: Nike, Google, Alibaba, Sotheby’s, StreetEasy, Brandless and Coinbase to name a few. Liya has experienced a variety of leadership scenarios, from bootstrapping a startup to designing for future citizens of a city built by Toyota in Japan. Recognition closely followed: she was selected as a fellow at Estee Lauder's Vital Voices Leadership program and awarded as Innovator of the Year by Falling Walls Conference in Berlin.
 
Liya’s vision is to build a future where technology serves human needs, instead of humans serving revenue models.

Understanding Blockchain

Join Jennifer Didier and Shruthi Rao, as they discuss how the data blockchain can resolve communication problems for companies and offer better customer and data interactions.
Shruthi Rao Bio:
Shruthi Rao is the Co-Founder & CBO at Vendia, a serverless, multi-cloud platform inspired by the tenets of blockchains, that enables IT firms to manage distributed data and code. Rao has spent most of her professional life scaling businesses, investing, and as an advisor for projects in technology and crypto. Before Vendia, she led the business development for AWS, as well as high-profile deals for enterprises such as Bank of America and AT&T.
 

Bringing Stem into the Food Space with Corporate Cooking Experiences

Join us on this episode as Jennifer speaks with Kimberly Fox. Kimberly will share with us how she used the pandemic to start a food blog and turn it into a variety of corporate cooking experiences. 
A little about Kimberly:
Kimberly Fox leads virtual corporate cooking classes and is a recipe developer and writer for her food blog, From Market to Table. Kimberly developed her signature corporate cooking experiences after spending 10+ years working in STEM and experiencing the gender inequities and micro-cultures in corporate cultures. Now, she leverages her understanding of STEM culture and well-tested recipes to help leaders build inclusive teams and close the gender gap.
"Learn more about Kimberly's Cooking Classes here: https://frommarkettotable.com"
 

Jumping Back Into Technology after an Extended Break

Jennifer interviews Sunnie Weber about her accomplishments professionally as well as family.
Sunnie Weber Bio:
Director of IoT Ecosystem Partner Strategy and Scale
Sunnie has been in the world of IoT for the last 8 + years now having worked in Sales and Partner Enablement, Sales Operations, and Channel Scale Design at Cisco and Intel before focusing on setting up partner programs for our edge partners, the OT SI. Just recently she moved into a broader role in IoT as the Ecosystem Partner Strategy Lead and is excited to be able to take everything she’s learned to help build a bridge across the ecosystem, helping our partners cross over from get to go to market with a goal of getting everyone faster time to market and more services opportunities. Connecting our ecosystems through solutions and solution selling is her greatest passion at Intel.

The App That’s Making Waves in Healthcare

This week on Tech in the Right Direction we are joined by Elizabeth Burstein, CEO and Co-Founder of Neura Health, who foundered this organization based on her personal journey with chronic pain and the challenges that came along with it. In this episode we discuss the lack of access, administrative burdens, and general struggles that exist within our healthcare system, how that affects quality of care, and how Neura Health helps solve these issues.
 
Thank you - we hope Elizabeth's story helps inspire others to seek or grow their tech career.

How the Gig Economy is Driving New Technologies in Insurance

This week's guest is Brandy Mayfield, the Chief Underwriting Officer at InShare - an insurance claims solution provider that focuses on services and solutions in Actuarial, Claims Operations, Claims Platform, Claims Process, Legal, Data Science, and Third Party Administration. Their focus on providing insurance within the gig economy is revolutionizing the industry and is filling gaps created by emerging technologies and apps.
Today we talk about Brandy's career journey and how her goals and aspirations led her to a leadership position within InShare. We also discuss the ever-changing insurance industry and how InShare meets modern-day needs within the gig economy. We also cover women's influence on technology and how we can continue to encourage them to join the tech industry. 
Learn more about InShare here: https://inshare.com/ Thank you for listening - we hope Brandy's story helps inspire others to grow their tech career.