TechLadies have launched their chapter on 25th of May 2019 in Penang, Malaysia! Piloted in Singapore, TechLadies is a community for women in Asia to connect, learn and advance as programmers. Throughout the years, TechLadies have educated women and increased the participation of women in field of STEM and tech- related industries. As an organization with a similar aspiration and vision, USM IEEE Women in Engineering is delighted to be a part of its launch party last May.

            Hosted at aCAT Penang, the launch party featured a panel discussion comprising of all- female speakers which followed immediately after a brief introduction by Elisha Tan, the founder of TechLadies and a sharing session by Pearly Ong, a user experience designer. The panel discussion was largely focused on their journey into the tech industry. What makes this discussion special was the founder and former chairwoman of USM IEEE Women in Engineering, Shum Kar Yen was part of the panelists alongside Xin Tian Oon, a freelance front-end developer as well as Racheal Ooi, a web and mobile app developer who is currently part of the organising team of GDG George Town.

            Throughout the panel discussion, the speakers did not hesitate to answer questions relating to the tech industry. When asked about what sparked her interest in this particular field, Xin Tian said that it was her partner who first piqued her interest in it. “I started learning on my own through online courses until I reached a bottleneck where I have trouble applying the theories and that was when I found TechLadies Bootcamp. From there, I gradually learnt how to connect knowledge to real world application.”

            Racheal was also opened about her opinion concerning the need of a Computer Science degree in order to obtain a job in this field. To this, she answered “I think this is more on yourself. As for me, I got my first job offer before I got my qualification when I met my current boss at Hackathon back in college. I first started as a part timer before continuing my internship and before knowing it I’ve been working full time for two years already at my current job.” As a final year student who is majoring in Electrical & Electronics Engineering, Kar Yen thinks that a degree in Computer Science might not be a must, but it is useful as she thinks peers who graduated with a degree in Computer Science have stronger basics and learn faster.