#7 - Céline Nauer - Empowering women in tech and science

Author: Jeanne du Sartel
Published: Tue 06 Oct 2020
Episode Link: https://shows.acast.com/brillantes/episodes/7-celine-nauer

She has not finished her studies yet, but is already fighting on a daily basis to make her professional sector, tech, a more inclusive one. A place where women and men would fight on equal terms.

Three years ago, Céline Nauer co-founded Code Excursion, a coding school by and for women, conceived as a community. There, she teaches women about programming, in a helpful, passionate and including way. Her goal? To help and encourage women take ownership of such a male-dominated sector.

Since the beginning of her studies, Céline has been navigating in the least feminized academic and professional environments, science and technology. Today, women still represent on average only 30% of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) students. And this percentage decreases with the expertise level: only 5% of leadership positions in the tech sector are held by women.

But these figures have never discouraged Céline. After a bachelor's degree in physics at the University of Zurich, the woman whose aim in life is to learn as much as possible, is now finishing her master's degree in Neuroscience and Computation at the ETH. In this interview, Celine tells how the gender-neutral education she received pushed her down this path. She explains how her years at university, between Zurich and Taiwan, but also in the industry, at Swiss Post Solutions, convinced her to fight for parity and equality in tech and science.

Through her clear and concrete examples, Céline describes why the scientific world today is anything but meritocratic. We talk about the gender bias that the algorithms that shape our daily lives carry within them, and she demonstrates the absolute necessity for diversity in the tech and scientific worlds. Roles models, female initiatives, quotas: we go though all the solutions that can be implemented to promote gender quality.

To everyone who you is thinking about learning how to code, or who would just like to better understand those crucial topics for our democracies, I invite you to dive into this exciting and challenging conversation!

Time Codes

4:52 A brilliant mind: Corina, co-founder of Code Excursion

6:36 Being introduced and encouraged to go into science at an early age

Studies, between Zurich and Taiwan

8:44 Choosing physics: the rational choice to get the most of her studies

10:55 How “I think therefore I am” from Descartes convinced Céline to go into Physics

13:17 Shifting to neuro Sciences and Computation

14:54 Studying at the Institute of Neuro informatics (UZH and ETH)

17:06 Celine’s Master thesis: getting inspired by insects brains to develop navigational algorithms

18:22 Next career steps?

19:25 Taiwanese vs Swiss studies

22:30 “The science world is not a meritocracy”

24:22 Studying in a male-dominated environment

26:14 Facing sexism amongst the students body

27:55 Why it is important to break the glass ceiling

29:12 Female professors should be our role models

Code excursion

30:51 The need for a safe and benevolent learning environment for coding

34:19 The importance of coding knowhow in a digitised society

37:00 A non-profit organisation, dedicated to women, based on a community

40:48 The impact of the lack of women in the tech industry (eg of the Swiss Post Solutions and Ava Women)

44:27 How machine learning algorithms can reproduce the biases of our society

48:24 Sorority as a main weapon to fight inequality and gender biaises in tech

51:20 Final questions

Links and references

To follow Code Excursion :

Website: codeexcursion.ch/
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/school/code-excursion/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/codeexcursion/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/codeexcursionswitzerland

To follow Céline

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/celinenauer/

References in the episodes

The Institute of Neuro Informatics (ETH and University of Zurich): www.ini.uzh.ch/en.html
I think therefore I am, Descartes: http://faculty.winthrop.edu/sinnj/HMXP_102/Readings/Rene_Descartes.pdf

People she is talking about

Corina Schedler, Co-Founder of Code Excursion: www.linkedin.com/in/corinaschedler/
Nora Wilhelm, Co-Founder Collaboratio Helvatica: www.norawilhelm.org/

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