I'm Ally!
I'm a coder, engineer and tech enthusiast who believes in the benefits technology can bring to everyday life. I'm passionate about the intersection between creativity, technology and culture & society and our opportunity to change the everyday lives of people and our planet through technology, innovation and cooperation. I’m also passionate about sharing my experience and helping build a supportive and inclusive tech community and passing on what I’ve learned from being part of the amazing tech and business ecosystem and working closely with developers and open source communities around the world.
Coming from a strong background in technology consultancy, research & development, I have scoped and delivered projects of all sizes, budgets and timelines. I'm experienced in hands-on small business and startup operations, and applying technology to solve real world business problems by building scalable and feasible solutions.
I previously owned and operated a successful café before going on to complete degrees in Mechatronics Engineering and Computer Science in 2017. Whilst studying, I co-founded a startup after winning a hackathon and worked through the iAccelarate business incubator to build out our solution. Throughout my studies, I worked as a freelance developer building websites and mobile applications (react + react-native/android) for clients and managing requirements and needs.
I have since worked on enterprise-level technologies at Accenture Australia, primarily focused on full stack development, deployment and integration of our teams flagship AIOps product to high value clients and Fortune 500 companies. I also worked to develop the software for a novel ML and IOT surveillance system in a joint collaboration between the Defence Department and University of Sydney Physics Department
I also worked as a Developer Advocate and success lead for IBM where I focused on building out the APAC IBM Developer community through technical workshops and blogs, hackathons, client and partner engagements, appearances at conferences and other engagements.
I now work on the building blocks of the open web, helping to build and engage the developer community at the Filecoin Foundation - the world's largest distributed storage network designed to store humanity's most important information.
In my free time, you’ll find me learning french (Je m'intéresse beaucoup à la langue et à la culture françaises), out getting some well needed exercise or exploring some new tech (with some good tunes) !
Filecoin & IPFS: All 2022 Presentations, Talks & topics
Tech Innovations that will change our future (writeup from a live workshop): Blogpost
IBM Developer Meetups ANZ (organiser): YouTube
AusIOT Meetups 2020 & 2021 (co-organiser): YouTube
APIDays Jakarta Conference - Cloud Native & OpenShift (live): YouTube
TechJam Podcast - we geek out on all things tech: Podcast
IBM Call For Code Hackathon ANZ 2021 (organiser): Blogpost
IBM Call For Code Hackathon ANZ 2020 (co-organiser): BlogPost
BlockParty - react & web3 for Solidity Contracts (live at BrisJS): YouTube
Innovation in Blockchain(live snyk stream): YouTube
Build a react native app with Watson chatbot and map on IBM Cloud (live): YouTube
Getting Mobile with React-Native in 10 (ok 20) minutes (live): YouTube
Using Moralis LiveQuery for a react web3 DApp: YouTube
ArtHack Hackathon - Techonology in Art (live): YouTube
IBM Call For Code Hackathon ANZ (organiser): Videos
Learn ReactJS in 2020 - Resources: Blogpost
FIIT Collective Podcast: Find out more about my story and advocacy for women in STEM
Accenture Australia Post: See more on my transition from my cafe to uni to Accenture
iAccelerate Startup Post: Find out about my startup journey
TechJam Podcast: Listen to me chat with fellow advocates on various tech topics!
Email: [email protected] (IKR - all that devving and I haven't set up a website and email!! :P)
BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING (MECHATRONICS) / BACHELOR OF COMPUTER SCIENCE – University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia
2012 - 2017
+ High Distinction average in Computer Science – received Distinction.
+ Credit to Distinction average in Engineering - received Honours
BACHELOR OF ARTS – Australian National University, A.C.T. Australia
1999 - 2001
+ Majors: Philosophy, Politics, Anthropology, French
IBM – Developer Advocate & Client Success Lead, Pre-sales, PM
April 2020 - Jan 2022
+ Organise and run external events (virtual/hybrid), Global/local Hackathons and Meetups throughout the APAC region
+ Develop and run workshops for clients, partners and community on IBM technology, Design Thinking and Innovation & Culture
+ Work closely with clients and partners to solve technical challenges, run enablement session and other developer workshop engagements
+ Assisted with developing and building out the IBM developer community within region
+ Company message delivery via socials media management, appearances and audience resonances methods
UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY – Senior Software Engineer
Nov 2019 - Nov 2021
+ Full stack developer utilizing node, graphQL, reactjs, mapbox, mongodb, devops, d3 to create a front and back end product from scratch matching the needs of the defence force. Including security, devops, and UX design and architecture decisions.
+ In charge of the security of assets belonging to the team
ACCENTURE AUSTRALIA – Technical Architect & Solutions Engineer
Jan 2018 - Nov 2019
+ Full stack developer primarily focused on front end development using technology including html, css, sass, reactjs, styled-components, material-ui, express, nodejs, mongodb, splunk and development, integration & testing tools such as Jest, Docker and CICD pipelines (Jenkins & AWS).
+ Working with teams and clients to develop products for business and deliver value and automation tools
+ Delivering customized, automated business solutions to clients across the globe by leveraging our unique product range
+ Developing POC products derived from client needs to deliver further value to our clients and rich features to our products
+ Leading boot camps (hiring hackathons run over 4 days) and mentoring students to develop a solution-based MV. Products include a Flutter app with a Splunk backend, and a react native app – screenshots can be made available on request.
+ Mentoring Blockchain Hackathon
LITTLE ELF LAUNDRY CO-FOUNDER – hosted at iAccelerate startup incubator, Wollongong, Australia
2017
+ Founded a startup company and acted as the CTO for a 1-year period.
+ Developed a startup idea from conception to incubation including economic and marketing, legal and development decisions.
+ Managed the overall architecture for the website and mobile product including conceptualizing the high level architecture, making smart technology stack decisions, designing the UI and UX, and consideration of hosting and development needs to suit economic environment and longevity of product.
+ Utilised the latest technology to develop a website and mobile app from initial concept including react, react native, mongodb backend, express, node, aws, cryptography libraries and best practice authorization methods – this code is available for viewing on my GitHub
FREELANCE FULL STACK DEVELOPER
2016-2021
+ Founded and run a freelance web and mobile development business.
+ Worked with clients to deliver solutions utilising the latest technologies to give longevity and ease of maintenance.
+ Project include:
+ Re-architecturing and modernising a financial app into react native (previously built in ios and phoneGap) that worked with the client’s current backend API and upgraded the features of their current app
+ Building websites in reactjs and deploying to AWS.
+ Re-architecturing and modernising a financial app into react native (previously built in ios and phoneGap) that worked with the client’s current backend API and upgraded the features of their current app building a website for another clients brand new product in react and hosting it on AWS.
+ Design, fullstack development and management of a novel indigenous community project aimed at connecting remote community businesses, including training and management of a small team of university developers
+ Design, fullstack development and management of a document template project, including training and management of a small team of university developers
ENGINEERING & STEM TUTOR – University of Wollongong, Australia
+ Teaching & tutoring students in a technical and practical Engineering subjects
+ Responsible for student engagement & understanding of the material
+ Preparing materials for assessment & classes
+ Marking assessment items
PROPRIETOR & OWNER – Ally’s Premier Café, Port Macquarie, Australia
2003 - 2010
+ Successfully ran a small business with up to 10 staff members for 7 years
+ Leadership, problem solving, management
+ HR and PR skills including Team building & Business networking
+ Staff & small business management including basic accounting
LinkedIn | Twitter | Podcast | Website
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| My first day coding.... XD |
React
Typescript
Django
Laravel
Facebook
Microsoft
Google
Alibaba
D3
Tencent