Episode 3: with Vicky Twomey-Lee

Episode 3: with Vicky Twomey-Lee
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00:21 Hi everybody, welcome to PyPodcats
00:23 Hidden Figures of Python podcast series.
00:26 The PyPodcats is created to
00:29 highlight voices from the underrepresented group
00:32 group members of the Python community.
00:34 We follow the Python Software
00:36 Foundation's Code of Conduct.
00:38 So if you want to know a little bit more about
00:41 the Code of Conduct, you can check on pypodcats.live/conduct
00:46 That's pypodcats.live/conduct
00:52 Let me do a little bit of a self introduction.
00:54 My name is Georgi and I'm based in Amsterdam.
00:58 I'm one of the PyPodcats hosts and I'm
01:01 also one of the board director from the PSF.
01:03 Over to you, Tereza.
01:05 Hi, my name is Tereza, I'm based in Hamburg.
01:08 I'm also one of the PyPodcats.
01:10 I'm involved in several initiatives of Python Software
01:14 Foundation, like the Code of Conduct Work Group
01:17 Diversity and Inclusion workgroup, and PyLadies Hamburg.
01:21 And on to you, Vicky, our guest for this episode.
01:25 Hi everyone, Vicky here.
01:27 I'm based in Dublin, Ireland.
01:29 I look after PyLadies Dublin here, and I
01:31 have many, many hats on which we'll name,
01:34 but I am helping out in the PSF
01:37 Grants Working group as well, amongst other things.
01:40 So thank you for having me here today
01:42 And thank you, Vicky, for joining.
01:45 Well, Vicky, you have been an active member
01:48 in the Python community for quite some time.
01:50 So how do you get started using the Python language?
01:54 That was back in around 2002 when my now husband
02:01 then we used to work together in the company.
02:04 He came across Python and we decided
02:06 to use it to help streamline, streamline
02:08 our internal tools, processes made our life really easy,
02:12 as devs are kind of lazy and stuff.
02:15 So this really helped us out a lot. And it was out.
02:18 It was just really nice and simple to use.
02:20 And it was actually days before we encountered Python,
02:23 I did a Perl course at work and had the cert.
02:26 I was just sitting there lying on
02:27 the table, forgotten once I discovered Python.
02:29 So that's how I started using Python quite early on.
02:33 And it was just really helped
02:34 us out, really improved things.
02:36 I was helped with a lot of projects, especially with
02:39 the management and things like that, which is great to
02:42 see that even current day, I see my old colleagues
02:45 still using Python and things like that.
02:47 I assume they improved on the tools, but
02:49 it was good to be super early and
02:51 just making life easy for everyone, using a
02:53 super amazing technology and super easy to use.
02:56 That's really cool.
02:58 I have a question, though, regarding
02:59 your involvement in the Python community.
03:01 What attracted you to the community itself, like
03:04 organizing events and getting into PyLadies, for example?
03:09 You're not just coding in Python,
03:10 but you're doing so much more.
03:12 I suppose back in those days before Meetup and
03:15 Eventbrite came around, you have to know in Ireland
03:17 we may have one meetup a year. And that's true.
03:19 The irish Linux user group mailing list, if
03:21 you are honest and primarily word of mouth.
03:23 As much as I love my work colleagues at
03:25 the time, I do want to learn from other
03:28 people, like my peers, from other companies as well,
03:30 and other technology, which I just want my brain
03:32 to be melted a little bit and don't understand.
03:35 So when Python came about, probably two years after
03:39 we discovered Python and we saw other people who
03:41 were doing toys and stuff, and in Dublin, I
03:43 saw the meetup, jumped on it.
03:44 That was about 2004.
03:45 It was started by an engineer called
03:47 Darragh Sherwin, and then it got rebooted
03:49 in 2005 by the amazing Sean O'Donnell.
03:51 And we were gathered around a dark pub. Irish pub.
03:55 Yes, we're in Ireland. Stereotype.
03:56 We all meet in the pub.
03:57 Yes, that's what we do.
03:58 Sit around this tiny laptop in
04:00 the dark pub just not working.
04:01 And someone said, let's get a room
04:03 with a projector and give talks.
04:05 And no one volunteered.
04:06 So I said, oh, how hard could it be?
04:08 So I took the ball and ran with it and
04:11 ran the Python Ireland meetups every month, nearly every month
04:14 for nearly over eleven years before I handed it over.
04:17 So that's how I got involved
04:18 with the Python Ireland community.
04:20 It was pretty much very early on, and
04:22 when everything was extremely exciting, completely new technology,
04:25 that was the hottest thing right then, and
04:27 everyone just wanted to share what they did
04:29 with Python and its related technologies. With PyLadies,
04:32 that's another, another story as well that got
04:35 launched during PyCon Ireland in 2013 as well.
04:39 So, yeah, a lot of things kind of started
04:42 by me, I think a serial starter of things.
04:46 So when was that?
04:48 Is that in like a year?
04:50 It was.
04:51 So PyLadies Dublin was launched in 2013.
04:54 So that was my last year chairing PyCon Ireland 2013.
05:00 It was a pivotal moment because I managed to
05:02 invite a very first female keynote technical speaker, and
05:06 that was Lynn Root, and she was co founder
05:08 of the San Francisco chapter of PyLadies.
05:10 And I go, it's a sign.
05:12 Why not launch PyLadies Dublin?
05:14 I was launching not for profit initiatives all
05:16 over the place around 2012 and 13.
05:17 I said, what's one more to add to the list?
05:20 So we launched it in 2013 during sprints weekend, and
05:24 we had about six-ish people, a nice yummy cake
05:27 and a plan that we don't want to be the
05:29 same as other technical user groups at the time, which
05:31 we know is mainly two long talks with beer and
05:34 pizza in the middle, and then the pub afterwards.
05:37 And I did say we go to pub meetups a lot here,
05:40 especially in Ireland, but the folks here did not want to go
05:43 to pubs, did not want pizza and beer all the time.
05:47 They wanted something more interactive, but
05:49 they do want something monthly.
05:50 And, I mean, I'm still doing it right now, and it's currently
05:55 trying to keep it small to try and make sure that it's
05:58 not too scary for someone who's new coming into the group and
06:01 who wants to speak up or want to give a talk, or
06:03 just want to go around and meet other people and just don't
06:06 feel like they want to run away.
06:08 And because I'm not a coder or I'm not this, I'm
06:10 not a Python person, just want to make sure you just
06:12 come along, you're curious, or you just want to share and
06:14 be excited about something you found in Python.
06:16 Just share with us.
06:17 It's a safe space.
06:19 So that's 2013, quite a while ago.
06:22 I'd like to add a question, a follow up question.
06:25 Maybe it's a bit off script.
06:26 Okay, so how has your involvement in
06:30 the Python community helped in your career,
06:33 or has it helped in your career?
06:34 Helping, yes.
06:36 And I'm so blessed to have come across the Python
06:39 community, especially, as I said, I was really very privileged
06:43 in the right place at the right time, being able
06:45 to see Python in the early days, being able to
06:47 see a lot of the core developers, especially when I've
06:50 gone to EuroPython and I actually came across them.
06:52 I didn't even know they were the core developers.
06:53 And then I kind of nearly fainted when
06:55 my husband told me, you were sitting on
06:56 the table with all the core developers.
06:58 But they were so welcoming and so inviting and
07:01 so amazing to talk to and so supportive.
07:03 Those early days in 2009, while we're trying to
07:07 prepare our first conference in 2010 for PyCon Ireland,
07:10 it was the support of John Pinner and everyone
07:13 that helped us through, you know, setting up, like,
07:15 thinking of the ethos and why you're setting up
07:17 the conference, who you're setting it up for.
07:20 I think meeting those people and being supportive gave
07:23 me the kind of positivity that I want to
07:25 pay forward and help others as well.
07:27 And that's why I carry that as I left Python
07:29 Ireland behind and PyCon Ireland behind, because other people have
07:33 to take over, and I was burning out, but I
07:35 still want to carry on PyLadies Dublin, and I just
07:37 love how just even Global PyLadies, how we still have
07:40 that ethos of trying to help each other, trying to
07:43 be inclusive and have safe spaces and stuff.
07:45 And that goes same with EuroPython as well.
07:48 And that is a huge scale.
07:50 But I end up joining a lot of those just to
07:52 figure out how things work and run in the background to
07:54 try and improve how I do things here in Ireland and
07:57 also share that experience with other tech community organizers.
08:00 So from a community side of things,
08:02 I have learned a lot as a
08:03 volunteer, running events, hosting events, organizing events.
08:07 Career wise, I kind of stepped back a lot from
08:09 being a developer, as I got more pulled into the
08:11 community side, even though it's all mostly volunteer.
08:14 But I ended up working with say like
08:17 Dog Patch Labs, a co-sharing space, who also
08:21 runs a startup program here currently.
08:24 But they have a space for events and they were launching
08:26 it at the time and they asked me to come in
08:28 and connect them to the technical user groups around Dublin to
08:31 tell them to come along and use this.
08:33 So I was pretty much like a liaison with the irish tech
08:35 scene and I was trying to keep a finger on the pulse.
08:38 There is a very active kind of tech community here.
08:42 So Python, I think, formed the basis from that
08:45 where I started to meet a lot of different
08:47 people because the meetup scene was so small and
08:49 everyone start branching off and created their own niche
08:51 groups not technically Python related, go to
08:54 games, to different language user groups.
08:58 From that I bounced from different very kind
09:01 of interesting roles, like a game and curator
09:05 researcher for Dublin science gallery.
09:08 Back in 2012, around that same period that was,
09:11 I got paid to play games, research about games,
09:13 go to games, festivals and things like that.
09:15 And they came.
09:16 I interviewed a lot of game exhibitors, or
09:19 potential exhibitors who became exhibitors, and the gallery
09:22 produced an amazing wonder world of an exhibition
09:25 from my black and white spreadsheet.
09:28 It was fantastic.
09:30 That was completely so far away from coding, but
09:33 related to games, related to tech connected me to
09:35 a lot of indies, and that's where I got
09:37 involved with a lot of indies.
09:39 So I kind of very spread out in a lot of geeky things.
09:42 So community meant a lot to me.
09:44 So even though I start moving away from
09:46 python stuff, I always think back to how
09:49 I got started, and that is Python.
09:51 The community itself, the warm heartedness and the open
09:54 arms of the community that brought me in in
09:57 those early days and showed me the ropes.
09:58 And I want to push, give that to everyone else
10:01 because it is hard to start off for a lot
10:03 of people, it is hard if you fall down, especially
10:05 COVID, and you need to restart again.
10:07 You need that boost.
10:08 And I want to help everyone as much as I could. Right.
10:11 I think you're not the first invited guest
10:15 that said how important the community has actually
10:18 led us into the group and how it
10:21 actually motivates us into, like, creating more events,
10:26 creating more opportunities for everyone to join.
10:31 Your story about how you started PyLadies in Dublin actually
10:35 reminds me of how I started, because I was already
10:39 in PyCon Thailand, and organizing the event, and one of
10:44 the speakers was Lena from PyLadies Japan, Tokyo.
10:49 And she gave a talk about PyLadies, and I was
10:51 like, hey, wait a minute, there isn't one in Bangkok.
10:54 And that was how I actually started
10:56 PyLadies Bangkok, along with another co founder.
11:00 So I think a lot of us just kind of like a
11:02 kind of chain effect that we actually link from one to another.
11:06 And I also like the way you
11:08 mentioned about how you started PyCon Ireland.
11:13 It was a core group of us in the beginning.
11:16 There's only like six to maybe
11:18 twelve back before Pycon Ireland
11:20 was like, you have to know that our
11:22 largest ever meetup was, like, 20 people.
11:25 You know, this is really small,
11:27 but it was enthusiastic, 20 people.
11:30 But then when we had our first
11:31 PyCon Ireland, it was nearly 100.
11:33 And we go, where were the rest of you?
11:35 And we're asking for people to come and talk.
11:37 That was boiling down to us wanting
11:39 to get more experience, because it was.
11:42 I pointed to PyCon UK and John Pinner.
11:45 It was because they were
11:46 It was them who were actually calling out
11:48 for the next host for EuroPython in 2010. For 2010.
11:50 And the core bunch of us would just so happen
11:52 to be in EuroPython in Birmingham the year before, when
11:55 they were doing a call for city to host.
11:57 And that's how it started, really.
11:58 The ball got started there, and then, of
12:00 course, a pub got in there as well.
12:02 And when we're back in Ireland, and I was the
12:04 only sober one, but that was another side story.
12:06 But we started PyCon Ireland.
12:09 And yes, a bunch of us.
12:11 And of course, when you need someone to open
12:13 the conference and being a bunch of techies, no
12:16 one wants to stand in front of everyone.
12:17 So I got, hey, Vicky,
12:19 you're doing a bunch of work.
12:20 You know what's going on.
12:21 You go and tell everyone what's happening.
12:23 So people say it's down to practice. When, how. Why?
12:26 How do you speak in front of people?
12:27 But it's more like it's still quite nerve,
12:29 nerve wracking, but you have to do it. It's like a job.
12:33 You just get pushed out in front
12:34 or else the conference will never start.
12:37 So we just went ahead, did it.
12:38 And so it wasn't just me, it was a team effort.
12:41 It was such a big job.
12:43 Okay, fair enough.
12:44 Myself and my husband did spend the first
12:46 planning the first PyCon, mostly in Hong Kong and
12:48 Starbucks, trying to figure out sponsorship and figuring out
12:52 swag and programs and the website.
12:54 We did most of stuff, but it's still a
12:55 team effort because we need that support from the
12:57 community in order to make it happen.
12:59 And we had to start
13:00 from scratch, everything from scratch.
13:02 And it's really hard.
13:03 So I completely, you know, understand if someone
13:06 was starting anything from scratch with nothing to
13:08 back, nothing, no sponsor, no nothing. We know.
13:11 I know how hard it is.
13:12 I just keep thinking back when I
13:14 first started, how hard it was.
13:15 And now, even with all the information, all
13:17 the stuff that's happening, it's still hard.
13:19 You don't know where to go and where to start.
13:20 So having, you know.
13:21 So, yeah, I tried to give the information
13:23 I have could be out of date, but
13:25 I tried to learn from others as well.
13:27 So it's always a learning process.
13:28 You know how many people
13:29 attended PyCon Ireland, last time?
13:33 Do you know, like around.
13:34 Well, I can tell you, whatever the max, the hotel can
13:40 safely fit us in because we keep pushing the numbers.
13:43 We went from 100.
13:44 They saved us the first year because we lost
13:46 our evening event space on the first year.
13:48 Things go wrong as usual.
13:49 It always goes wrong when you organize stuff.
13:51 So this hotel, Horizon Blue, they hosted us.
13:54 It was like, initially it was like
13:55 100, 150 to 250 to 350.
13:58 We keep pushing and pushing.
14:00 So whatever the max.
14:01 I don't know, 400? I have no idea.
14:03 Whatever the max, their halls fit.
14:05 It's like three banquet halls that they.
14:07 It's like a huge banquet hall that can split into
14:09 three for a session is very normal in hotels.
14:11 And then for the plenary, they opened up the
14:13 three halls again to make it a plenary session.
14:15 So whatever the safety, the safe amount of
14:18 people they can fit in for their health
14:20 and safety, that is the amount. It's a few hundred.
14:22 So it's quite good and quite consistent, like, as well.
14:26 So it's nice to see and it's nice
14:28 to be an attendee and not an organizer.
14:33 So currently, what are you actually working on?
14:36 Like, is there any new activities or
14:39 some Python related events or PyLadies?
14:42 Yeah, I still run PyLadies each month.
14:45 There is a growing team of helpers.
14:47 I'm trying to support them and trying to get them
14:50 to get things going, like the Python study group and
14:54 things like that, and any ideas like PyLadies.
14:56 Dublin we're very open on what people want to do.
14:59 I can be very experimental. Other things.
15:02 I'm involved with another
15:04 initiative called Coding Grace.
15:06 We advocate diversity in tech, mainly myself
15:09 through coding Grace, we curate newsletters and
15:13 events in around the island of Ireland.
15:15 But we do have a virtual series of events
15:19 for the next few months coming up called Cupán Tae
15:21 Cupán Tae is an irish word for cup of tea,
15:24 because, as I mentioned, we don't like, PyLadies,
15:27 We don't like beer and pizza, so we like a cup tea.
15:30 I do have a couple.
15:31 My mug of tea in front of me right now, an Irish Tea.
15:35 And that's this particular.
15:37 This particular conference is aimed at principal engineers, head
15:39 of engineering staff engineers, because we do, there's a
15:42 lot of events, but there's not one.
15:44 There wasn't one aimed at very senior level, so
15:46 we wanted to create one called Cupán Tae Conf.
15:49 So hopefully we get enough
15:51 interest for the virtual ones.
15:53 We do have three speakers all lined up.
15:56 Laura Nolan talking about path dependence.
15:58 History matters on March 26, John Looney second
16:01 system event, not a new problem, on April
16:03 4, Patricia Aas, who's an international speaker talking
16:06 about classic vulnerabilities in May 7th
16:08 And details can be found in cupantaeconf.com
16:12 That's one big one.
16:14 How do you spell cupantea?
16:15 Can I have a cup on tea, please?
16:17 Cupán
16:18 So C U P.
16:19 So there's an á.
16:20 I know in French, you call it an "aigu".
16:22 So I don't know what other languages, what you call it
16:24 It's like.
16:26 It's like on top of the a there is like a
16:30 Accent aigu. Yeah.
16:32 So in Irish, that's a "Fada", because elongates the a.
16:36 So it's Cupán.
16:37 So C U P A Fada N. Cupán. Space. T A E.
16:40 And that's tae. Cupán Tae.
16:42 So it's a cup of tea. Right. Right.
16:46 So what is irish tea?
16:48 Is it black tea or?
16:49 Yeah, it's normal tea. We have.
16:51 I don't want to go into the whole argument. There's two.
16:54 There's Lyons, or Barry's. Lyons is pretty
16:56 much in Dublin, but everywhere else is Barry's,
16:58 and I'm Barry's tea person.
16:59 But I don't know if you want to keep that in
17:01 the podcast, but it might cause a fury in Ireland.
17:05 "I don't want to listen to Vicky anymore!"
17:07 "She drinks Barry's tea!"
17:10 Tea should be that way.
17:12 Yes, it should be like Barry's or Lyons.
17:14 You know, the Lyons when people know it's
17:16 Lyons because it's like a pyramid shaped tea
17:18 bag and it's all these kind of things.
17:20 If you go down further south
17:21 of Ireland, it's definitely Barry's tea.
17:24 I grew up with Barry's tea.
17:25 I think it's fine, but it's fun to pull the leg
17:28 of people who are very serious about their irish tea.
17:31 You drink your tea with milk or.
17:33 Yeah, I drink my tea with milk.
17:34 No sugar sometimes, but normally no sugar.
17:37 Yeah, this is a funny conversation.
17:39 Normally a conversation.
17:40 I will actually talk if I was running
17:41 a podcast or Cupán Tae, to be honest.
17:45 But yeah, I do have a cup of milk tea in
17:48 front of me and it's a mug with cats on it.
17:51 Don't know if you see it.
17:55 For the podcast.
17:58 Just so happen I picked it up.
18:01 You have quite a professional setup.
18:03 Do you do other things with or why
18:06 do you have such a professional setup?
18:07 Oh, that was from thanks to COVID, things got
18:10 upgraded more and more because my imac only had,
18:14 I think the camera was like 720p
18:16 and I wasn't very happy with it.
18:18 I wanted more high def because I was
18:19 doing a lot of podcasts, streaming, live streaming
18:22 and stuff and I wasn't very happy.
18:23 And I want a higher camera ratio
18:24 I want at least 1080.
18:26 I want at least 1080.
18:27 So my camera, it got upgraded.
18:29 My lights got upgraded.
18:31 My microphone upgraded at least twice.
18:33 I think I have like audio switchers.
18:35 I have, you know, other switches in front of
18:38 me and then the lights in the back keeps
18:40 getting upgraded a little bit here and there.
18:42 So yeah, there's a lot of.
18:43 I still got lots of things kind of I want to
18:45 do because it's not just purely I want to do a
18:47 lot more content creation, but been talking about that for two
18:50 years to everyone who's known me so far.
18:52 But before that I've been doing a lot of stuff for.
18:54 When I was a maker advocate for Dublin Maker.
18:56 That was in my past, it was part of.
18:58 It was actually a cool freelance gig with Dublin Maker.
19:01 If you're into the making culture, they
19:04 run a Maker festival and COVID really
19:06 dented the whole maker advocacy because you're
19:09 meeting makers, physically meeting makers.
19:11 You physically go into colleges, talking to
19:13 lecturers that you're potentially helping teachers learn
19:15 about STEAM and workshops and stuff.
19:17 And you can't do that when there's a whole lockdown.
19:20 And at one stage, we can't even go outside,
19:22 two clicks outside our home from our own.
19:25 So what we end up doing was, what
19:27 I ended up doing was doing more content
19:28 creation, doing my own stuff, learning to sew,
19:31 showing that off, and then starting to interview
19:33 other, remotely other makers in and around Ireland.
19:37 Then we had to do a virtual Dublin Maker festival.
19:39 That was fun, where we had, like,
19:42 a newscaster type thing with two side
19:44 science communicators running around like a roving
19:47 reporters, doing live interviews and stuff.
19:50 And I was also broadcasting as well as
19:53 in the behind the scenes operations as well.
19:54 So it was completely hectic.
19:56 And then after that, I went in with another friend.
19:59 We did an Irish Makers podcast.
20:01 We interviewed a lot of different people, from
20:02 blacksmiths to special effects people, to bladesmiths to
20:07 cosplayers to people, how they felt makers, how
20:10 they felt being isolated during COVID Well, all
20:14 those kind of different topics. So it was.
20:16 And we even went to Dublin ComicCon
20:18 and interviewed a lot of cosplayers there.
20:20 So we did a lot of content work,
20:23 and also Dublin maker itself on site.
20:25 So besides sitting here, we were also doing stuff
20:28 off site or on site at the various locations.
20:32 So that's why all the setup is just gone
20:34 It's just got built up over the period, thanks to COVID, as
20:37 I said, and ended up doing a lot of digital stuff. So.
20:40 And that kind of feeds into some of the.
20:43 I think mostly, yeah, that was the Maker stuff,
20:45 which I still tried to promote, I think, during
20:47 COVID helped a lot during PyLadies Dublin as well.
20:50 We kept on going with our monthly meetups,
20:52 so we saw that there was a lot
20:54 of people watching playbacks, not necessarily attending live,
20:57 because I think people were having Zoom fatigue
21:00 at that stage, which is very understandable.
21:01 I made peace with the numbers.
21:03 I was very upset setting it all up and
21:06 had a few new meltdowns because tech went wrong.
21:09 One stage, people didn't leave after
21:11 20 minutes of tech melting down.
21:13 They were still hanging around for me to keep it going.
21:15 And I had a very special guest as well.
21:17 I think it was from ImagiLabs.
21:20 I had the CTO one that was like my January
21:23 very big event, and it went horribly, horribly wrong.
21:25 But everyone was super nice.
21:27 And that's what I love about
21:28 communities like ours, especially PyLadies Dublin.
21:31 Technical difficulties, either virtual or even just this month when
21:34 we had our meetup, we had a few technical difficulties,
21:37 and people are all okay with it because they're just
21:39 super nice, you know, but that's tech.
21:42 And I'm hoping to, myself and my husband
21:45 hoping to improve our recording at different, at
21:48 the PyLadies events at the very least.
21:50 And hopefully we will help other user groups
21:52 who are running their technical meetups to help
21:56 them record their talks, because I can see
21:58 people asking them, are your talks recorded?
22:00 Are your talks recorded?
22:01 And they're not.
22:03 So we're not going to do it for free, but we're
22:05 not also not going to charge them a huge amount.
22:07 But we definitely understand that, you know, people do need some
22:11 of the content and we just give them the videos, you
22:13 know, take the videos, clean it up a bit and just
22:16 give it to them and let them, let them like, so
22:19 it's just to, again, an extension of, you know, community work
22:23 that we're doing here and helping people.
22:25 And especially now that I heard feedback that
22:27 people do appreciate online events because it's more
22:30 accessible, because they can't come into the city
22:33 to go to an event in the evening.
22:35 Things are just in, the real life is
22:37 in the way you can't make it.
22:38 It's not like they don't want to come.
22:40 They physically can't make the time to get to it, but
22:44 they would be able to watch it if it's online or
22:47 make playback, but they do appreciate if it's streamed online.
22:52 So I kind of appreciated that kind of feedback as well.
22:55 So, so we're making a conscious effort to try and make
22:58 it accessible, but it is a lot more work, as you
23:00 know, here with a lot of editing and video.
23:03 It does take a lot more time and stuff like that.
23:06 And so people, if you, if you.
23:08 Need help, Vicky and her husband is here for you.
23:13 I think there's one more that was very interesting thing
23:16 that I'm involved in, is I try to stay away
23:19 from startups, but I'm bumped into a friend of mine,
23:22 as everyone does after COVID for a coffee.
23:24 And I told her, there's this itch that I'm scratching
23:27 from Coding Grace side, that there was a lot of female
23:30 founders are coming to us for advice, just privately asking
23:34 for help, saying that they're not techies.
23:36 What do I do?
23:37 What tech do I use?
23:39 Oh, I'm locked out of my AWS account.
23:41 The person that was contracting us can't be found because
23:45 they forgot to give us all this kind of stuff.
23:47 And, you know, how do we do we get a CTO net?
23:50 All these kind of questions.
23:51 I was just telling my friend, and
23:52 she just so happens to be relaunching.
23:54 TechFoundHer.
23:55 So Tech Found and then H E R, and she wanted to do a
23:58 bootcamp and she said she had similar ideas, similar people coming up
24:02 to her as well, but she was more in the startup space,
24:04 so she was talking to a lot of people.
24:06 So between my background and her background as well,
24:09 she used to run Tech For Good Dublin
24:11 We decided to put our heads together last year to
24:12 run this bootcamp and we're doing again this year.
24:15 It's aimed at female founders in the kind of pre-seed like
24:19 early stage or you have an idea and you want to
24:20 create a startup but you don't necessarily have a tech background,
24:23 but you know you will end up using some tech in
24:26 some form or another in your startup.
24:29 It's a way to bring the community together, share
24:31 experiences, kind of demystify tech, and just to know
24:34 you don't have to be a coder to run
24:36 us through a startup that uses tech as well.
24:38 And we have some pretty amazing kind of speakers
24:42 which will be announced in the next few weeks.
24:43 And the bootcamp itself is happening on Tuesday, April
24:46 16 in a historical beautiful building that is at
24:52 Dublin City hall in Dublin city centre.
24:54 And looking forward to that.
24:56 So that's kind of something a little bit different,
24:59 sort of related crosses over, because again, it advocates
25:02 diversity in an area startup, which is, I know
25:05 we have a lot of problems in tech. Oh my goodness.
25:07 Startup is like another barrel of fun there.
25:12 So it's good to be able to
25:14 help where I can with TechFoundHer.
25:17 So I'm pretty much kind of helping the
25:18 operation side of things where I can.
25:21 So as you can see, when I do a lot of these
25:23 kind of events, I tend to be ended up admin and operations.
25:26 So that's why it's not the most fun part of it, but
25:30 it is necessary for anyone who wants to get in community.
25:34 Yes, it's lovely to talk to people.
25:35 It's scary to talk in front of a lot of people
25:39 if you're on stage, if you're not comfortable, but you still
25:42 have to do a lot of admin work in the background,
25:44 which is not the fun part, but you have to like
25:46 finances, your AGMs, if you're a incorporated kind of organization and
25:52 all that kind of stuff, it is.
25:53 It is not fun, but you have to do it.
25:55 But I somehow I keep on, I don't
25:57 know, would you say punishing myself for this?
25:59 I keep doing.
26:00 I don't think that's kind of like punishing.
26:02 It's just like if you want something to
26:04 move on, someone has to do the job.
26:06 Right, yeah.
26:08 And I think it's really hard to.
26:10 Find someone to like last minute.
26:13 If you want to find someone to manage, to
26:14 finance, probably it's much faster to get yourself to.
26:18 It's great.
26:19 It's great experience, especially.
26:21 I noticed that, like doing small kind of
26:24 events, small organizations like the ones I do,
26:26 I can turn around stuff very quickly.
26:28 But then, as I said, I worked as the maker advocate
26:32 for Dublin Maker, and that was actually a paid position.
26:34 It was a very special once one, and it was
26:36 part of, it was funded by Science Foundation Ireland.
26:40 So the money has to go through
26:41 an institution which is a university.
26:44 So Dublin City University was where one of
26:46 the volunteer organizers or the founders worked, and
26:49 that's where the money was going through and
26:51 that's where the funding was going to.
26:53 And so I was kind of a staff of
26:55 the university, so it was a public institution.
26:57 Dealing with finance was a completely new scale
27:01 from mini organization that I look after to
27:05 a university which has two different finance departments.
27:09 You try not to annoy any of them, trying to
27:11 be friends as you sort out through your budgets and
27:14 stuff, because you have to write reports for the funder
27:17 who funds you, and you have to make sure everything
27:19 and their system is so slow and everything and codes
27:23 everywhere and all these words you never heard of before.
27:26 And I was very lucky.
27:29 The staff there is very nice.
27:32 The department secretary was so patient, and I was
27:35 there nearly every day for like the first three
27:37 weeks, trying to ask so many questions.
27:40 So it's a great experience.
27:42 I know it's not what everyone thinks of when
27:44 they say they want to start up like a
27:47 community group or running a conference and things like
27:49 that, but it's great experience, especially when it comes
27:53 to organization in general operations.
27:57 And as you say, finances helps a lot.
27:59 At least you have an inkling of what a
28:01 budget is, how expenses work, everything, you know, keep
28:04 things on track, the, you know, things like that.
28:07 They're trying to figure out how to,
28:09 how to herd cats, as with all
28:11 volunteers, trying to run conferences and stuff.
28:14 So it's good experience and it will help you
28:18 if you in your career as well, in, you
28:20 know, in your day to day stuff as well.
28:22 So it's not purely just for.
28:24 Just for people bearing in mind if
28:25 they want to come, come help.
28:26 I'm not trying to scare you away, but
28:28 it is very good skills, really good life
28:31 skills, and very good skills in general to
28:34 have, because you won't be, because it's just.
28:38 It's not something that you can just pick.
28:40 Yeah, it's not something that you just pick
28:41 up just like that and just do it. Yeah.
28:43 Because you have to work with a lot of people as well.
28:46 And of course, when it
28:47 When it comes, when you have to
28:48 handle finances, it's quite important that you
28:50 do it right in transparency as well.
28:53 Somehow I feel like starting all those community events
28:56 is a little bit like you being the founder
28:59 of a company, you know, because you have
29:02 to start everything and handle everything at the beginning.
29:06 Branding, PR, marketing, social media, like you said
29:15 before, like sponsorship and getting where the money
29:19 comes in, where the money goes out and
29:21 whether you can continue next year.
29:23 And it's a little bit like starting a company.
29:26 Yeah.
29:27 And finding venues, finding venues is
29:29 hard here in Dublin right now.
29:31 I think it's as, again, COVID keeps popping up
29:34 in my thing every time because it has dented
29:36 a lot of different things between community groups to
29:39 availability of different venues to nowadays because of, I
29:43 suppose, the world, global things happening, produce goes up
29:47 in price as well, all these kind of things.
29:49 So for me, I want to tell people, when you run a
29:53 meetup, you don't have to have food if you don't need to.
29:56 I think. Because I.
29:58 I have done PyLadies Dublin, where
30:01 I ask people to bring their own
30:03 beverages and their own kind of sandwiches.
30:05 I think someone mentioned brown
30:07 bag, right?
30:09 And also I wanted to mention that I heard
30:11 you also drink coffee, which is besides tea.
30:15 Yes.
30:17 So I think that's.
30:19 So you are not going to upset anybody in this podcast.
30:21 No, no, no, no.
30:23 I do drink a bit of coffee, but
30:24 not too much, I think, for anyone, organizing
30:29 kind of small meetup groups would be great.
30:31 And I think lucky if you can get a company to
30:34 host you because normally they have a kitchenette, so people can
30:36 make their own tea, coffee and grab some water.
30:38 And depending on the type of companies, they'll
30:40 have snacks and stuff like that anyway.
30:42 So people snack on stuff, but you don't
30:43 need your beer, you don't need your pizza,
30:45 you don't need all those sandwiches.
30:47 Smaller venues won't offer that.
30:49 Yeah.
30:50 And you'd be wasting food and things like that.
30:52 You don't know where to go.
30:52 I have in the early days where I have to
30:55 bring platters of sandwiches back home and you're there looking
30:58 at the fridge for three days with this sad sandwiches
31:00 in the fridge and taking out all the salads so
31:02 you can make your own salads from it.
31:03 So you don't waste the salad. Oh, no.
31:05 And then eventually you have to toss out some of
31:07 the sandwiches anyway, because after three something days, then, you
31:10 know, you don't want to get food poisoning.
31:13 It's just you can't.
31:14 And also, you can't just hand, you know,
31:16 sandwiches to kind of homeless shelters because some
31:19 of them would have been opened.
31:20 There's a very strict guidelines on what
31:21 they accept and don't accept, so. So.
31:24 And this costs a lot of money catering.
31:26 I'm just trying to tell people, but
31:28 we are so spoiled that people expect
31:29 beer, pizza and sandwiches or whatever.
31:31 There's food all the time.
31:33 So, yeah, I run things very frugally
31:37 for my own events, so I'm just
31:40 mainly Coding Grace, PyLadies specifically.
31:43 That's definitely zero budget.
31:44 And then other things I do is Game Jams.
31:48 Again, I run that very frugally.
31:50 If I'm helping other people, I try to point out things,
31:53 but it's their budget at the end of the day, so
31:57 I can help them where I can and point out things.
31:59 But for my own events that I run, I try
32:02 to make sure that we don't waste any money.
32:06 The money should be spent on the people, not on
32:10 other frivolous stuff, I suppose, from my point of view.
32:13 So, yeah, I have a question regarding what's next.
32:17 Do you have small plans, big plans?
32:20 Python plans?
32:22 I suppose.
32:25 When I mentioned Cupán Tae virtual talks, I did
32:29 say that that's used to gauge the interest
32:32 from people if they like the format.
32:34 The format is person gives, the guest
32:36 speaker gives the talk about an hour.
32:38 It's quite a long talk.
32:40 It's very in depth technical talk,
32:42 and they're followed by it on
32:43 conference style breakout sessions afterwards.
32:45 So it's like the DDD conference.
32:47 You can do a search for that.
32:48 It's sort of like that DDD
32:50 on conference kind of format.
32:51 But we were going to do it in
32:52 person, but it didn't work out timing wise,
32:55 so we decided to do virtual gauge interest.
32:57 And we have enough interest. We would like to host
33:00 this conference outside of Dublin.
33:01 Because Dublin is expensive, we want to raise
33:03 the profile of the tech technical user group
33:06 community in that local town or city.
33:09 And also because people have been working remotely from
33:12 home, some of those people might be, don't have
33:14 to travel to Dublin, they can actually go to
33:16 is conference because it is in their locale as well. So.
33:20 And if this works out, we would like to
33:22 move to different towns and cities around Ireland to
33:24 highlight the tech community and stuff like that.
33:26 I hope you can see a passion here and what
33:28 we're trying to do besides the Events on the Wheel.
33:33 We're aiming at more senior people as
33:36 well, because we want to be.
33:38 We try to focus this one as well and also
33:40 trying to make it sustainable because we're doing a lot
33:43 of these events and said we've been very frugal, but
33:45 doesn't mean that it's maintainable and sustainable.
33:48 We don't actually, you know, charge
33:49 memberships or anything like that. So that's one thing.
33:52 We're just trying to try this out.
33:53 It's experimental.
33:54 Myself, my husband is also on the team, founding
33:57 team, and my friend who's based in London, who
34:00 will be in New Zealand very soon.
34:03 So that's going to be fun to organize stuff together.
34:05 That's a different challenge, remote organizing or someone
34:08 on the other side of the world.
34:09 But then that's one thing, and the other thing
34:11 is just keep recording talks at PyLadies Dublin and
34:14 trying to perfect that process so myself and my
34:17 husband can offer our help to other local tech
34:19 community groups to record their talks.
34:21 And hopefully I get to run another game jam,
34:24 I suppose by the end of the year.
34:26 We did one recently in Cork I would
34:27 love to do in relation to that.
34:30 That's part of Gamecraft. We did a.
34:31 Last year we did a DIY custom game controller
34:34 where we actually custom PCB board and we preloaded
34:41 it with Python on it, MicroPython on it.
34:43 And all the people had to do was
34:46 learn how to connect the wires between the
34:49 PCB board and the RaspberryPI Pico.
34:52 And then they can just
34:54 We just gave them lots of crafty stuff
34:55 and they can just make their own board.
34:57 Their game controllers or whatever they want
35:00 to do with the controllers can be
35:02 completely different, use whatever they want.
35:05 But we gave them the components, so we did something.
35:07 We did this for beta festival late last
35:10 year and we have some components left over,
35:11 so we want to run something again, similar.
35:15 It was meant to be a jam, but it ended
35:16 up becoming a workshop because we didn't want to scare
35:18 people away because the electronics, they think that there's programming
35:21 involved, but there's none because we preloaded it.
35:24 You should just plug it in and should be able
35:25 to play any game you want and things like that.
35:27 So yeah, there's, as I said, I do a lot
35:31 of different things, but the main core things is even
35:34 get to a conference room, Cupán Tae kind of virtual talks
35:38 and make that into an in person one.
35:40 Because we want to actually have afternoon tea, because
35:44 for lunch there's a whole theme going on there.
35:47 We have a whole theme going on there.
35:49 And it's going to be held in kind of
35:52 down in the southeast and it's going to be
35:54 in a grand house with lovely gardens and stuff.
35:57 You know, that's the plan.
35:58 We're going to see how things go.
36:00 So those are the two kind of things.
36:02 Two or three different things, but I'm sure there's lots
36:04 of other stuff that I know, but they're, they're all
36:08 kind of being juggled and ongoing at the same time.
36:10 Right.
36:11 Do you have any hidden hobbies that you.
36:21 I heard so many things.
36:23 You said something about sewing.
36:25 Yeah, I have so many things I have
36:27 to get back onto my sewing machine.
36:29 I have so many patterns I want to make.
36:31 My first pair of pants I've got, I've got cross
36:36 stitching I want to get back on as well.
36:39 What else have we got? Oh, I want to do.
36:41 I want to finish off my kind of.
36:43 What, what do I have back here?
36:44 Hold on, I have something here.
36:46 My lino print.
36:47 Sorry, bit of a noise here, but I've
36:49 been doing a bit of lino printing.
36:51 Can I see, can you see this?
36:53 Oh, wow, that's cool.
36:57 So that's where a lino board,
36:58 it's just right beside me.
37:00 So that's me carving into Lino
37:03 and trying not to cut myself.
37:05 Also digital painting. What else?
37:08 Oh, yeah, cross media.
37:10 Cross media kind of art stuff that I want to do.
37:13 Oh, I'm making zines. Oh, my God. I want to make zines.
37:16 I want to make so many zines. What else do I have?
37:18 I'm looking around me, I was like, so I'm sorry.
37:20 In my room, this is also my Make room.
37:22 So there's lots of things hanging around that
37:24 is on my to do list, which I
37:26 have started and not come finished and completed.
37:28 Of course, the other thing, big thing, is just
37:30 renovating this room, making a proper maker room.
37:34 But yeah, there's a lot of things that I want to do.
37:36 It's just the time, really, and finishing it and
37:40 I just, yeah, I just need to take, stand
37:43 back and just want to do stuff.
37:44 But then when I stand back and want to
37:45 do stuff, I end up playing like games, like
37:48 cozy games or something because that's just relaxing.
37:50 And then I realize, oh, so,
37:55 yeah, I get distracted so easily.
37:59 So, yeah, if you ask me what I think, I just,
38:02 too many to name, but I just need to sit down.
38:04 I have also a lot of electronic projects that
38:07 I want to do that have finished as well.
38:09 And also so many different videos I want to make.
38:12 Like my, you know, digital videos of my journeys
38:15 over, you know, car journeys and things like that.
38:18 Oh, it's just so much that I want to do.
38:21 I just need to pick maybe the top
38:22 three and just do it or something.
38:25 Or when, you know, when the inspiration strikes.
38:28 I'm currently knitting, so I'm knitting yoga
38:31 socks with writing on them and.
38:33 But since December, I have a tufting gun, so my
38:37 plan is to make some carpets in the flat, so.
38:39 Oh, my goodness.
38:40 You're on a completely different level.
38:45 And she's really good in these, like.
38:48 That stuff is hard!
38:50 You should look at her knitting stuff.
38:52 It's crazy.
38:54 She does like a, so I saw the recent one that she did.
38:56 She did was like, sweater zigzag wave.
38:59 But I followed the pattern.
39:01 I mean, yeah, but still.
39:03 So can we see your, your project
39:06 on Instagram or where can we see.
39:08 Your, like, I don't put up
39:10 stuff that they're not really finished.
39:11 I try to put up stuff with all that
39:13 means there's not much, like, I can tell you.
39:17 I did enjoy crocheting on, and at the time, many, many years
39:21 ago, I asked my DnD GM if I can crochet
39:27 a D 20, and he says, yes, as long as it's loaded right.
39:30 And so I started crocheting.
39:33 I'm quite new in the crocheting.
39:34 Then I realized all the triangles were wrong, and I
39:37 had, like, I would have them all sewing up, and
39:39 I realized things were going wrong and didn't look right.
39:41 I had to undo all the stitching. Had to undo.
39:43 And then I started unraveling the
39:44 stuff, and then I gave up. I was so sad. I gave up.
39:47 And I said, I'm don't do, I don't want to do it again.
39:50 I don't want to crochet again
39:52 You picked, like, a very complicated project.
39:55 But I was very confident. I did too many.
39:57 I did so many squares.
39:58 I said, how hard could it be?
40:00 Triangles.
40:02 That's the same.
40:03 When I wanted to do 3D printing.
40:06 But the one with the pen.
40:07 Yeah.
40:08 You know, you can, like, you can get the pen.
40:10 And my startup project was Pickle Rick.
40:13 Oh, that's hard. Wow.
40:17 Because there was a YouTube video about it,
40:19 like, some guy, like, doing Pickle Rick.
40:21 And I was following, you two can do it.
40:23 I can do it.
40:24 I think I spent, like, 4 hours.
40:26 I made the head of Pickle Rick
40:28 was kind of flat but looked cool.
40:30 And then I gave it as a present to
40:32 someone that was super excited about Pickle Rick.
40:34 And then I never did 3D printing.
40:37 Those 3D pens are hard to use though those 3D.
40:41 So how do people get to get in touch with you
40:45 if they want to, you know, maybe ask Vicky and to
40:49 help with some recordings or get some advice from you?
40:54 LinkedIn, you find me on LinkedIn if you
40:55 want to email me, I suppose with regards
40:57 to PyLadies Dublin, but LinkedIn, right.
41:02 Thank you so much, Vicky, for
41:04 joining us today at PyPodcats.
41:07 You can find us in pypodcats.live, or
41:12 you can also search on YouTube channel from
41:14 the PSF to watch these episodes.
41:18 And you can also catch us in any of
41:20 your favorite podcast channel, Apple, Spotify, whatever you prefer.

We interviewed Vicky Twomey-Lee to hear about how she started learning Python, and becoming involved with the Python community in Dublin, Ireland.

Vicky is an advocate for diversity in tech. She discovered Python (and its community) in 2002 and since then she has been actively involved in building the tech scene in Ireland.

Vicky is a serial starter, having started and co-founded various communities including GameCraft, Coding Grace, and PyLadies Dublin. She was the Maker Advocate for Dublin Maker.

Be sure to listen to the episode to learn about all the amazing things Vicky has done!

Topic discussed

  • Introductions
  • Discovering Python in 2002
  • Getting involved with Python Ireland, PyCon Ireland, and PyLadies Dublin
  • Providing safe space for women to learn tech through PyLadies Dublin
  • Getting paid to play and research games, going to game festivals, Dublin ComicCon
  • How Covid impacts the tech community in Dublin, and challenges in running events after covid
  • Making tech events more accessible
  • TechFoundHer Boot Camp to help women to become tech startup founder
  • Dublin Maker community
  • Cupán Tae Conf: virtual talk series
  • Her choice of Irish Tea
  • Other hobbies: Lino Print, Zines, Gaming, Electronics, Cross-media arts
  • Her Make room
  • How to get in touch with her
  • Making with 3D Pen

Get to know Vicky Twomey-Lee

Vicky Twomey-Lee

Vicky Twomey-Lee

Vicky Twomey-Lee organized Python Ireland user group for over 10 years, and she is still actively running community tech events around Dublin. She is an advocate for diversity in tech. She was featured on Silicon Republic's 100 Top Women in STEM 2014 and on IrishCentral's talented 38 women of technology for 2014.

Stay in touch and support the Python Community

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