Hello everyone and welcome to the Pypodcats yes
for our Hidden Figures of Python
series today our guest is Mona Obedoza
and if this is your first time you're
listening to the
Pypodcats
you're probably wondering what the
PyPodcats are we are highlighting the voices
of underrepresented group members in the
Python community we have a code of conduct
which is the PSF the Python Software
Foundation code of conduct and we follow it
to help our interactions and keep Python
positive successful and growing community
and I am Tereza
I am based in Hamburg
and with us we have our other co-host
Georgi based in
Hi everyone my name is Georgi and I'm
coming from
I'm not coming from I'm based
I'm based in Amsterdam I'm coming from my
mother's womb but I'm based in the
Netherlands
so
we are in a mood today because both Georgi
and I are in
there's public holidays around here both in
Germany and Netherlands so it's a free day
it's sunny outside we're not used to this weather
so it gets to our head
so Mona would you like to do a little quick
introduction
about who you are
yes absolutely hello everyone my name is
Mona Obedoza I'm a high school student from
the Philippines and I study at Stanford
online high school I really love to code
I'm an inspiring artificial intelligence
engineer and because of that my advocacy is
also teaching other kids how to code and
to this end i'm also a student ambassador
for women in AI I'm the co-leader of the
Girls can Code club at my school and I'm
the founder of the Purposeful Mochii which is
a little organization I started locally
that holds workshops and hackathons to
teach kids how to code
That's very interesting Mona because I
remember I saw you the first time when you
attended one of the events
in Python Philippines and that triggered me
like whoa this girl and this young age has
started coding and knowing way more than
what I know already so I was totally
impressed to be honest and (thank you) I was like one
day I'm just gonna
approach and know a little bit more about
this little Mona here so how do you started
learning how to code and doing all the
programming
I started learning how to code around the
time I graduated from kinder I was maybe
around five years old my mom was a software
engineer at the time and so
he downloaded this app and it was like the
simple logic based game where like you
instruct a dinosaur to move in a certain
way and follow and like
use that to complete certain puzzles and it
was meant to teach me the basics of coding
and logic and that kind of thing and I was
just absolutely obsessed with it I
just played it for a very long time I think I
finished it in like one night and because
of that she let me move on to more advanced
programming languages such as
well I started blockbase fielding languages
like Tynker and then Scratch and then
because I couldn't get enough of that
either I eventually in around third grade
I moved on to
do text based programming with Python of
being my very first text based programming
language
after that I started learning more things
like HTML, CSS, Javascript, some mobile app
development with App Inventor and recently
I started taking classes at my school also
and because of that I also learned C++ and Java
Holy Moly
yeah so you know a lot of programming
languages which one is your favorite?
I think Python is definitely the one that's
closest to my heart as I said it's one of
the very first ones that I ever tried and
I remember that when I was a kid it
was really my favorite programming language to
do I would always try to make different
games with it and I had this little Python
book of games that I would always use
and even today when
when I work on some projects I always use
Python for Data Science, Artificial
Intelligence because it just has so many
libraries that are very well documented and
make it very easy to get started with all
of those things and even
when I teach kids how to code I think
Python is a really great language to get
started with because it's not too complex
you don't need to remember brackets and
that kind of thing in this kind of like
it's very simple and easy to pick up and
it's a really good way to bridge the gap
between block based programming and early
logic puzzles and data programming
languages as well wait a second because I just wrote down
here something because of your first
game being with dinosaurs do you also have
a special
affinity towards dinosaurs?
Actually I am very scared of dinosaurs I
refused to watch dinosaur movies it
scares me a lot but it's just that in that
particular game it was
a very cute little chirpy dinosaur and so I
just loved it a lot
But then in real life dinosaurs scare me
yeah I mean it's just birds that are still
around us right I mean the other ones are
all dead
it's very unnerving
so you're safe
and actually Tereza is reviving them
oh my gosh
yeah I'm just putting them on paintings
it's fine it's made up dinosaur so it's
it's fine cute perfect I hope I hope it stays that way
so
just curious like why do you like Python
more is it really because of like the
language or are you drawn to the community
or what's the reason why you actually
prefer Python
it's really a little bit of both language
is honestly just so great it's really a
great way to get started with
programming in general get started with
fundamentals before having to worry about
complicated syntax and that kind of thing
and it also
makes really easy to get started with more
complicated topics like Data Science, AI and
alike but at the same time I also really
love the Python community I think the
Python community is really where I
started my whole journey I remember you
mentioned that you saw me at
an event several years ago here in Python
Philippines and
ithatwas probably
actually that was my very first speaking
engagement i remember i just joined the
Python tech conference because I loved
programming in Python I wanted to learn more
more and I found out that
they were having
lightning talks and so I decided you know
why not I might as well let's just see where
that takes me
and so yeah that was my very first speaking
engagement and even though I was only
around perhaps 10 years old or something
like that at the time they were all very
supportive of me I was so nervous to be
speaking in front of such a big crowd for the
very first time but they were all so
supportive and so engaged in my
presentation and they really made me feel
welcomed and appreciated and yeah clearly
what gave me the confidence to try other
speaking opportunities, try signing up for
summer camps schools and that kind of thing
where I could learn how to code
and improve my coding skills as well and
get more involved with the tech community
that's really cool
so you mentioned you got involved also in
the Python community what do you do in the
Python community currently
Generally I still do some speaking
engagements I think I've been invited to a
few speaking engagements in the past like
I've done a talk at the PyLadiesCon also at
the most recent PyCon and generally I speak
about my advocacy which is teaching kids
how to code
and I also and I also speak about my
organization the Purposeful Mochii which
does exactly that and I speak about some of
the AI projects I do as well
so tell us a little bit more about how you
teach younger people to code like the kids or
because
it passed our
our level you see so we are in the
adulthood so you
are still like in between you know I mean
so I'm really interested on
actually teach the kids code
right well I started the Purposeful Mochii
when I was pretty young and it was just
kind of like doing little coding workshops
for my friends because
we didn't really have coding lessons at my
school at the time because we were very
young and so I decided it would be fun to
just teach my friends how to code and so we
had little gatherings and coffee shops and
that kind of thing but eventually I decided
to take that further I started doing
workshops with larger groups of people I
didn't know and also younger age groups as
well and then most recently I partnered
with Accenture Philippines for the Breaking
Barriers Building Bridges Hackathon for
Girls here in the Philippines where
basically girls of
any level of experience with coding really
can come join in teams of around three or
four and
start learning how to solve problems using code
I think that hackathons are really my
preferred way of teaching kids how to code
because well first of all it's very
important more important than just learning
how to code it's also important to learn
how to use technology to solve problems and
that's exactly what hackathons are all
about you pick a problem and make a project
to try and solve it
second I also think that this improves this
increases their confidence a lot because when
you join a hackathon and you make a project
that can solve a real world problem
at the very end you're able to take a step back
and think wow I was able to create all
of this stuff I think it really improves
their confidence a lot and I think
and so that's generally what the Purposeful
Mochii has been focusing on its efforts on
lately doing hackathons and things like
that where kids can get started with coding
and find out all of the amazing things that
technology can do / Are you doing this all
alone or do you have other people helping you out?
I have some people helping me out so I have
this one I have this one friend who helps
me out with the Purposeful Mochii as well
and we just collaborate sometimes in teaching
workshops and in reaching more kids
and aside from that I also partnered with
tech companies such as Accenture like I
mentioned and also with the Python
community sometimes
and to seek more support you know that's at another level
because you are actually getting the
companies involved
at your age like how do you actually
approach them?
well actually
well I think it just
it all started really when I just had that first
experience at the Python tech conference
and I started making connections meeting
new people and then because of that I
started being invited to more and more
things and because of that I ended up just
meeting more and more people who I'm able
to reach out to whenever I have an event
Like I get to reach out to them and ask hey
do you want to be a guest speaker for this
event and help inspire these kids and that
sort of thing so it's really just all about
all of the
conferences that I like going to and
speaking at and making connections through there
interesting
to be honest because I do have kids too and
a lot of young people some of them they
feel like coding is not cool
so it's not easy to trigger them to pick up
this because
it
gives them a perception that it's actually
hard or like it seems to be that the
learning curve is higher than other things
so how do you actually make it
accessible or make it interesting to
younger people to learn how code
I can absolutely
relate to that most of the time when I was
really young
and
a lot of the people i would talk to would
think that coding was really hard and
then coding and math and science and
especially girls they would really think
that it was really difficult and that's why
in my workshops usually I get started with
very simple things like block based coding
languages starting with Scratch for desktop
and game development they're thunkable for
mobile development to teach them that it's
really not that scary at all it's just
doing some logic and putting stuff
together and eventually you're going to end
up with this project and you're going to be
like wow how did I
do all of this it actually wasn't
that tough after all
and I think there's a misconception that
programming is all very technical stuff
algorithms match etc it's like wow I don't
want to have all these particles swimming
around in my head
but in actuality the programming is all
about you know logic creative thinking and
that sort of thing and that's why through
hackathons and workshops and that kind of
thing where i get started with very simple
programming languages and games and stuff
to begin with I hope to instill that
impression that coding is actually
something that can be fun yeah but I think
that misconception came out also from
larger companies who had the whole phase of
job interviews being algorithm cracking
so
you have to know all the algorithms by
heart and everything and that it was like
the only way to get through the door
and think that it's something that
there's a whole generation affected by that
thinking although they go in the job and
then they don't apply any of the algorithms
so that's very true yeah
but in reality the real job does not really
encompass what the interview goes through
it's true it's true I mean for you perhaps
not a level yet but I'm pretty sure you'll
be hired by some big company soon but I think
that's kind of like what Tereza has
mentioned is a very interesting issue here
that in the tech industry they tend to over
test
yeah
it's just
testing on a different aspect that is then
not really connected to the world and also
nowadays we have so so many technologies
and so many aids you don't really need to
learn exactly like what to do
yeah and it's probably exactly how Mona is designing her
courses in the end is like putting things
together and getting something done
yep absolutely that's why
I like doing hackathon so that they can
actually experience what it's actually like
to program a project instead of just
programming like a simple like some kind of
mathematical thing they actually program a
project that has a practical use and so you
get to experience all the stuff where
you're trying to come up with you're trying
to come up with creative solutions and you
end up like spending a lot of time
debugging but also spending a lot of time
designing things, ideating, brainstorming and
that sort of thing and all of the things
that make that make coding a technology button
are your courses then also available
online for like kids all over the world or
going to be available online?
well so far
I haven't done anything about releasing
courses myself with the Purposeful Mochii
although we do do some workshops and
they're mostly live workshop but as far as coding
courses go I remember that when I was young
I did a few things on Khan Academy I think
and also generally what helped me a lot was
getting programming books I had this book
of like how to make
several like I don't know around 40 like
simple sketch games and I would follow it
and I would make a lot of Scatch games and
then I had one also with Python and it
taught me how to make
If Conditions for example by making choose
your own adventure games or how to do
For Loops by doing alien invasion games so that
kind of thing and that's really what got me
interested in
coding
so games is the key no dinosaur yeah and not dinosaurs I just
I just didn't get any dinosaurs sorry
okay but I just realized there is one instance in
which I like dinosaurs which is like the Chrome
dinosaur game you know the one where you keep on
hitting space bars and there's no internet
Google
I understand that you started coding like
really young you mentioned once to me like
five years old yeah she mentioned like yes I think I said that
so does looking young and being smaller
help people interact with you do you feel
intimidated sometimes if like people who
try to like you know older people start to
talk to you or things like that about the
knowledge and or at you
yeah exactly
actually there are really pros and cons to being into being
small and cute
when I go to tech conferences
well
sometimes I feel really nervous like when I
am about to go up in front like oh my gosh
all of these people have so much more
experience than me they're so much older
than me what could I possibly teach them
but that's why I guess I'm just so grateful
that communities here are just super
supportive like the Python community for
example
they never look down at me or anything like
that they've always supported me and
invited me
to speak at the tech conferences and help
me out whenever I have a big event going on
and also being young also makes it easier
for me to talk to kids I guess especially
when I teach workshops and when I hold
hackathons I guess it helps me relate to
them more and come up with activities that
they would find fun and at the same time it
feels like being young kind of inspires
them if I can do all of these things then
so can they I guess
have you experienced being taught in the
more traditional way coding did anybody try
to teach you coding and he's like here's a
programming book let's go through it page
by page or that's right
20 programs and then you know how to code style
I got most of my coding lessons at Stanford
online high school where I currently study
and it's honestly that's actually part of
what made coding so fun for me too
the way that they approached teaching is
really cool and even when they do have to
teach fundamental things like algorithms
like the math behind it like the hardware
behind it they do it in such a way where it's
easy for me to understand what's going on
by drawing it out on the screen and showing
it step by step and it really just makes me
realize that in the end all of it is just
about logic that's really the most
important part developing that logic and
critical thinking skills after you've done
that it's easy to pick up any language
regardless of the syntax and it's easy to
understand the algorithms and all of that
so it's really all about building that
strong foundation
have you actually tried different
educational
books and like some of them actually kind
of like you couldn't get it and like when
it's exactly the same thing that you would
like to learn say for example maybe when
you just started to learn like machine
learning like other books that seem to
speak to you more than others or like
apps or anything seems to work better than the others
I think when I got started in machine
learning I used this website called Machine
Learning for kids and the way it works is
that it actually explains machine learning
to me in a very easy way because the way it
works is that
you come up with categories called buckets
and then you put in examples in each
category and then after that you can deploy
it to a Scratch game or a Python game or
something like that and so I just had so
much fun with it when I was a kid after
school I would sit down
and I would go to that site all the time and try out
all the different worksheets that they have
and all the different programming projects
that they have
and so yeah I think it was really those
kinds of online resources
that really spoke to me a lot when I
was growing up at the same time receiving a
formal education in programming was also
really helpful for me because
you know I went online to learn all of the
practical things about coding but at the
same time it was also
really important for me to go to school and learn
of the fundamentals going on behind it
maybe about that so I mean
you seem to have like your education is
like it's not just home you're not going
it's not very traditional in a sense like
you're going to school in a physical school
and probably the
I guess the online aspect of it was
triggered by Covid or would that have been
something that you would have planned
before the pandemic to
study on
I actually go to an online school with
students from all around the world so I go
to Stanford Online High school and it's
based in the US but we have
folks from
just here in Asia we have folks from Europe
and different time zones and all of that
and so that's why
all of us are online and it was like
that even before the pandemic but I only
applied here after the pandemic and yeah we
really have a
different way of learning stuff and that's
why I'm also able to learn coding at such a
young age but then
over here coding isn't part of the basic
education curriculum yet and that's why
it's part of my advocacy to make it part of
that curriculum and you know expose kids
to coding at the early young age and
of the opportunities that they don't have
yeah so cool how do you what do you do
as part of your advocacy
movement do you go like also getting
involved in politics with politicians or
because this is
sorry I mean
the future of Mona
like if you go to a normal school and you
say hey I want you to do something they're
gonna be like ah you have to write I don't
know how many forms, convince I don't know
how many people and all the children in the
school have to sign and all their parents
and their grandparents so
I think that's kind of how it was when I
wanted to change something in my school
no that's totally true though and that's what do you do?
why I partner with tech companies to make
things like I'm making various Building
Bridges Hackathons I partner with
Accenture and that's why it's easier it's easier it's
easier to reach
more schools and you know to teach more kids
how to code
actually I've done some things with the
government for like
the DICT the Department of Information
Communications Technology once invited me
to do a little talk on Artificial
Intelligence for some of these students so it's
really hard finding to see how they're
implementing technology education already
on some government level I guess but
not part of the curriculum and that's why I
do have some personal projects in order to
make coding more accessible to kids and my
own and one of these projects actually is
this thing that I've been doing lately
called Mochii Ball Basic Algorithm earning
language and basically its goal is to
bridge digital divide and how public school
students learn how to code and the way it
works is that instead of using a computer
to write their code each student is given a
piece of paper where they can write down
where they can write down
their program basically and then after that
the teacher will just scan it and upload it
onto one computer and run it and that way
students will be able to see it come to life on
the digital screen but at the same time it's not
the case that you need 40 computers for one
classroom you actually only need one for
the teacher and all of the students will
write it down on paper so
you get that whole thing where you get to
see the code in action on your computer and get to
think wow that's really cool and also go
through the debugging process but at the
same time it doesn't require that much
technical infrastructure making it more
accessible through public schools and rural
communities
hmm that's very interesting because that
actually solved the problem of having like
multiple laptops available in each
classroom so it kind of save cost
when I learned programming in school we had
programming class and we were learning
Pascal on whiteboards blackboards actually
back then but it was like you never knew
what was gonna happen if it was working or
not so you only relied on the teacher so
yeah and then I think that's cool with
Mona's project yes I think that's really something that I
wanted to emphasize a lot with Mochii Ball
because in traditional unplugged
programming exercises where you write down
stuff on paper usually you're not able to
see the output but then when I taught
Mochii Ball at the
local public school I think the moment when
the magic happened for those kids was
really when
I uploaded the code onto the computer and
they were able to watch it run and they
were all like wow that's so cool and I
think that's really one of the most
important moments in fair gaming when you
actually get something to work when you
actually see that Hello World printed for
the first time or you see something moving
on your screen for the first time and it's
like wow that's just so awesome you know
and it motivates people to like try it out yeah
yeah because I think
a lot of the developers spend a lot of time
getting that to happen
the success has to happen
so that's called debugging
I hope that wouldn't demotivate a lot of
young people because it's just a daily part
of life
the debugging actually the debugging is
actually one of the fun parts because even
though it's super frustrating when you
can't get it to work it's always so relieving
when you finally see wow this area
was solved now it's a different error
that means I'm making progress and after
that one it's finally they finally actually
worked it's just like oh my gosh I can sleep now
that's so so true I guess it happens to
every one of us it's like sometimes it
sounds just so easy and then sometimes it
just takes for hours and days you just
couldn't figure out what went wrong and then you just keep
tgoing back over and over and
over again the day you actually found out
what happened it was like wait what
why didn't I see that?
it's usually useful to sleep on it
yeah recently my friend was working on his
computer science project and
he was at it for like several hours only to
realize that the problem was that he used
two equal signs instead of one equal sign oh
right
sometimes two doesn't mean that it will be
extra sure
so I was just interested because you
mentioned about this project and I also
heard about your project TEDDY so you seem
to have a lot of projects going on oh yes absolutely
I would like to touch a little bit more, ask
a little bit more about project TEDDY but
before that can I ask how many projects are you
currently holding right now like well
I think I do a different I do a
different project every year because I like
joining tech competitions every year and
whenever there's a prompt and I have to
solve a problem for something it always
gets me thinking about how I can adjust it
and I end up having a new project every
year but I think the ones that are
like currently ongoing and that I'm currently
like well we actually made it past the prototype
stage in the recent years and I'm working
to take it further are TEDDY the Text Based
Early Stress Detector for Youth which
uses artificial intelligence to assess
whether a student might have a mental
health concern and Mochii Ball the one I
was just talking about a while ago that's
aimed to help bridge the digital divide and
help public school students in learning how to code
I love this idea totally
yeah so now
so now tell us more about TEDDY
yes absolutely so TEDDY it's short for the
Text Based Early Distress Detector for
Youth and the way that it works is that you
upload an essay schools will upload an essay
written by a student and then it's going to
go through it line by line and use
artificial intelligence to determine
whether the student might be at risk for
depression or self destructive thoughts and
that kind of thing so that school
counselors will be able to approach
students accordingly and so i guess
and yeah I guess the way that it works is
that it's able to help connect students who
are in need with counselors and help
counselors figure out which students they should
they should reach out to and that way
hopefully
prevent mental health concerns from
escalating
how did you come up with the idea
I know a couple of people in my community
with mental health concerns who opened up
to me about it and I guess that really
inspired me to try and connect
them with the appropriate with the help
that they need
in order to get through that I guess and I guess the
main problem with that is that
when people have mental health concerns
it's always it's always really challenging to try and
reach out to the appropriate support and so
with TEDDY I hope to make it so that it's
easier for counselors to figure out which
students to reach out to and to
help give them the support that they need
but then students need to actively opt in
for their data to be processed right to say
like I want in case there's something that I need
yep absolutely
and that's why we've been trying to work
closely with schools
in order to work on those privacy concerns
and that sort of thing
when applying TEDDY
right
I don't know much about the educational
system in the Philippines but do you have
like a counselor in every school or are they
set like you have to go by for appointment
or things like that for schools
yes we do have counselor for every school
and the problem really is that for one
counselor there are like hundreds of
students
who
they have to worry about and like
if they have to read the reflection papers
for example
by like several hundred students they're
probably going to miss a few who really
need help and
that's what TEDDY is for it's to
accelerate that process kind of using
artificial intelligence and basically show
which students
seem to be in most dire need of
support of course that's still up to the counselor's
judgment in the end because human judgment
is of course really important
in these kinds of situations especially
when actually talking to the student that's
where the counselors really come in but
with TEDDY hopefully it will make it a lot easier
to identify which students need help
Have you actually tested this pilot yet or
Yep we have tested it at my school we
surveyed a bunch of people and had them
write some essays and then
after that what we did is that we ran them through
TEDDY and then put the results there and
then we also asked the counselors like
to verify whether TEEDY was accurate or not
and it was actually really accurate even
some essays that look like they were just
about regular innocent topics like
superheroes or that kind of thing
and it didn't look like there was any
concern at all TEDDY was able to catch a
concern and the counselor confirmed that
so it proves that it's actually a very
accurate technology
did you ever have the situation where a
student is flagged
maybe having
some struggles but then the student denies
having the struggles like they do not want
to be labeled like that is that also
something happening
I'm actually not sure we weren't able to
take TEDDY that far in my school yet and
that's why and that's why we've also been
looking for more schools that we can
partner with in our day to get TEDDY out
there and try out these kinds of situations
have you ever thought of like expanding
this project like worldwide to other
schools around the world ?
yes absolutely the team that worked on
TEDDY or other students in my school a lot
of them are actually the rest of them are
from the US and so they've also been trying
it out in schools in the US and like
schools that they're aware of in the us and
we'll see where it takes us
so what's the hurdles that you have to
jump for this project right now?
the main thing is finding a school that's
willing to work with us I guess
that's why it's actually good that I'm
able to bring up TEDDY during this podcast
because hopefully
if anyone is interested in reaching out and
then trying to pilot TEDDY in their school
or in our community or in our community
TEDDY is available at teddy-technovation.streamlit.app
teddy-technovation.streamlit.app and so if you want to
go check it out and then leave us a message
if you would be interested in piloting it
and exploring it further
is there a specific age group like for
TEDDY or any
any schools like
universities
high schools primary schools everything is
applicable ?
theoretically
we're hoping to expand it to everyone not
just schools but also workplaces as well
but right now we're mostly focusing on high
school students because actually though
that's kind of data that we collected and we're
working with
maybe it would work out also for the
PyLadies community
maybe hmm
yeah
it could be like it could run as a PyLadies
workshop and then everybody writes a short
essay and then sees it in action
okay this is
and then you're like
I don't know what the labels that are
coming out of
surprise
99 percent
everybody's depressed
everybody's struggling everybody's getting
a burn off yeah
tech world so I think
yeah interesting for grown ups it's
quite
different data set yeah
I think that there is actually a big issue
related to mental health especially for the
tech industry
workers
which is
developers and programmers included so it's
something that unlike health
like physical health problems it's really hard to
identify yeah that's absolutely true with
physical health problems if you were
stabbed at something and you're bleeding
everyone will be able to see it but then
with mental health problems even if you're
you know even if it's if it's really reach to the
crucial point already it's really it's really
tough for other people to identify
I'm loving TEDDY so we should have this tag Thank you
line called I'm loving TEDDY
but I don't think it's just the tech
community I think it's everywhere
there's a lot of domains are facing changes
way faster than before and people are
getting you
know they feel unstable about their job
insecure about their job situation and that
affects them and everything yeah yeah
I guess in our generation right
now it seems to be better than like 20
years ago because it's almost unheard of
mental health it's like no yeah it didn't exist 20 years ago right no
no no
everybody was healthy
yeah everyone's healthy and like say what's
wrong you just have to bite and
get through this problem that's all
man up
man up or like
get over it
yeah get over it like
get yourself together don't be so sensitive
Georgi
yeah
another thing that I wanted to ask before
that was that your learning
journey
because you did mention before that
your mother is also a software engineer so
does that actually help you or does she
actually like specifically gave you
games that's related to coding or you just self
picked it up and like get more interested
in programming you know what I mean
oh yeah well she helped me out a lot really
she was the one who decided to teach me
coding when I was really young and she
found this app and then she gave it to me
and she also supported me all throughout my
journey when i expressed interest in it she
gave me books and that kind of thing she
connected me with opportunities
like hey there's this competition here that
you might want to try or this summer camp
that you might want to apply to and so all that
aside she's also really been my inspiration
all throughout i guess and
she's really my real model in life honestly
she also took me a few programming
fundamentals
and also and other STEM stuff when I
was growing up I remember
yeah i remember we would usually sit down
and then she would teach me some things I
remember she was showing me when I was
really young how recursion worked and
writing down on a piece of paper so I
could follow along and so yeah she was really
because of that I really had the support
to learn more about programming and
technology and that's really what inspired
me to try and give that same kind of
support to other kids who don't necessarily
have that kind of background
does she encourage you to do other things like other
hobbies or
like let you go let loose and just like try
everything Mona
yeah she does encourage me well she
encourages me not to stress so much about school and
extracurriculars and that kind of thing and
to play video games, reading books and do
other and you know
just also have fun with my life and that
kind of thing programming is definitely
very fun but she also encourages me to let
loose and de-stress a lot
do you have any hobbies other than
well
than programming and learning
in school
which I guess for some people is not a
hobby but anyways
well let's see my hobbies I like reading
fantasy books lately I've been getting into
Brandon Sanderson's work and the Cosmere
Universe and the Stormlight Archive
I've been a really big fan of this lately
I've also been into I'm also watching
Anime, reading manga
and also listening to rock music and baking
chocolate chip cookies for my family
so maybe on our
podcast we can
share also for the first time a recipe do
you have a special recipe for the chocolate
chip cookies? is it like a recipe?
oh yes I do have a recipe
oh my god okay cool
I don't know how to describe it
I don't know how to describe it on
audio though I think it's just in a book
no no you you will send it to us you will
send it to us we just put it on the web oh yes I will send it to you guys send it to us and we post it on our website
posted yes exactly it's going to be the
Mona Obedoza Chocolate Chip cookies
wow
all right
I truly believe that women should
name things more often after themselves
absolutely you know
exactly so there we go but I'm just saying
more women should do it absolutely
so Georgi I know Georgi should also
use like for for example on tweet on
Twitter I think Georgi is really famous
for espresso with orange juice and that's oh wow
yes if you go on her twitter you will see
that she's having she's posting different
pictures of that almost daily I just posted one today
exactly so I
I tried to imagine what espresso
with orange juice tastes like
there you go there you go
well it's actually really easy, very easy so
you need fresh orange juice so you have a
glass of fresh orange juice and then you
just order a double espresso and you just
pour on top over it slowly and then you'll
get this double layer like the top layer of
the espresso and the bottom layer orange juice
so when you use a straw to drink you
actually pops down it has a combo of
espresso and orange juice it's the best for
the morning because you don't want to be
awake and you want to be alive so that's
that's my secret and I'm
and I heard that in order yes but I'm not allowed to drink
you're not allowed to drink coffee yet?
yes i'm not allowed to drink coffee yet unfortunately
if i were i would try this instantly
but you can have decaf
espresso
oh yes okay I will try decaf espresso
orange juice so it's the next thing on my
on my drink agenda
and I think that the secret to having this
layered effect because it's not really
putting slowly might still not cut it
because it's also temperature wise they
have to be
is to pour with a spoon like you have a
teaspoon and then you pour it in the spoon
and that breaks down the gravity and stuff so
there goes
I usually prefer those
orange juice that has like fresh freshly
squeezed so you have the sap
so with the sap that's weight so when you
pour over it will just lays down
easy yeah there you go
there you go
so Mona what are some of your goals in the
future it feels like you have a lot of
intention in your life compared to at least
if I remember when I was your age
I don't remember what I wanted back then
but it feels like you really know what you want so
where are you going next what are you gonna do
well right now I'm in 10th grade in a
couple of years I hope to go
to university abroad I'm aiming for like to
get into like Stanford or MIT or that kind
a school abroad and learn more about
programming and technology so that I can go
back here and then teach more kids how to code
and all the things and share all things that I've learned I guess
and I guess
another another goal of mine is to pilot Mochii Ball
in more schools so I'm currently
I'm currently working with a tech company to
pilot it with some schools locally but
we're just getting started and I hope
and I also have to mention it here and
if anyone wants to try it out in
your own school or community you can also
reach out to me because we're really trying to
spread Mochii Ball and pilot it this
year so that's another more immediate goal
of mine to get this Mochii Ball to get
programming technology integrated in the
basic education curriculum by making it
more accessible to kids and also more fun
hmm right so our podcast is listened to by
a huge Python community
so if you other than this
project
that you mentioned if you have any other
help that you need I'm pretty sure they
will help out just tell us, tell us
what you need wow thank you so much
thank you and I guess there is just one
more thing aside from Mochii Ball and TEDDY
as I mentioned I partnered with Accenture to
hold the Breaking Barriers Building
Bridges Hackathon for girls and teach more
girls how to code and how to work on their
own projects to use technology to solve
problems
and if anyone knows a school in the
Philippines or even abroad we can try to
extend abroad too that would be really fun
if anyone knows a school who might be
interested in sending a team to join this
hackathon then do let me know as well
and yeah that would be
that would be really awesome
when is the hackathon?
it's held every February to march every year
okay
so it's for next year now
yep it'll be for next year
so there's plenty of time for people to plan
yes absolutely maybe you can even be guest speakers at the next
hackathon I think you guys would be really
inspirational
we can even get all the PyPodcats hosts
all four the combo
mega combo
yes that would be fun
thank you so much Mona I see that we
we come to the end of this
podcast here in
podcat's
podcast
so
is there anything else that you would like
to address to our listeners here before we
end this podcast
There's something I can think of right now so all I
guess I just wanted to say is thank you so much
it's really been such an honor to be here
and it's been super fun talking to you guys
and so thank
you for the invitation
yeah thank you for joining us
yeah thank you for joining us and we hope thank you
to see you soon somewhere around the
community I'm sure
it will be real soon
yep yes absolutely
thank you everybody for listening and see
you next time bye
bye everyone thank you so much