Maria del Mar Llambí is a Business Applications MVP and Technical Architect in KPMG.
Mar has been developing with .NET and c# for many years, then she assumed a technical consultant role working with SharePoint and Power Platform. During this journey, she has discovered not only how technology should be at the service of innovation, but also how the evolution of our society is closely related to technological advances - is in our hands to use the technology correctly. She is passionate about technological disclosure, committed to the visibility of women in the tech world, and the defense of #LowCode to achieve complete business solutions.
Especially for the WomenTech Network, Mar agreed to give an interview and share her story.
Are you excited to be among the speakers at the WomenTech Global Conference 2021 and what motivated you to join our community of 100 000 women in tech, minorities, and allies?
It is a strange feeling when they ask you who has been your inspiration during your professional career because, in my case, it has not been a woman; not at least in a direct way. The great women who have inspired me have been my mother and my grandmothers: hard workers, but none in technology. I have always had the need to tell my story, not to show the world that I have achieved my dreams, but to introduce the reflection of how much further I could have gone if I had not had to deal with many feelings: contempt, distrust, prejudice on the part of the society, workers, and colleagues.
Participating in that event allows me to tell my personal story to anyone in the world and to demonstrate my professionalism, my experience, and my knowledge, no matter what gender I am.
Hopefully, my message can reach someone who finds it engaging. If I succeed in becoming someone's inspiration in the future, I will have achieved to give someone else what I did not have. Although my main objective is to work together side by side with women from all over the world, learn about other stories, learn from them, and once again, be inspired from the experience of others, breaking down existing barriers.
Share with us about your background, your journey in tech, and what inspired you to develop your career in this direction?
Since I was a child, I have had a predilection for technology. My brother, who was older than me, was passionate about consoles, and he loved to take them apart and put them back together; and I watched him while sitting in my chair, and he loved telling me what he was doing.
When the Internet connection arrived at home, while my friends from elementary school used to watch cartoons on TV, I woke up my parents very early to switch on the computer: I wanted to develop web pages with HTML and Jquery. I was 10-11 years old.
I must thank my parents for not putting up any barriers, supporting me in everything I wanted to do, and in any crazy journey that came up to my mind. When I told my parents, owners of a small tourist hostel and without a university degree at that time, that I wanted to be an astrophysicist, my father already dreamed of seeing me working at NASA.
In my adolescence, computers had no secrets for me, but I did not know that this could become a profession for me. I remember that I bought several tech magazines, and in one of them, there was the famous story of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates: a new world opened up before me, there were people working as developers, and even a university degree existed. But obviously, they were all men. Did being a woman stop me from thinking that I couldn't do it? Never.
Later, in those same magazines, I learned about Jude Milhon and how she became a great hacker, I learned about Ada Lovelace and Rózsa Peter, and I understood that I could go wherever I propose myself.
At the University, I understood that computing was not only programming; I discovered my strengths, my logical abilities, I acquired the skills to design solutions, and I started to define my path.
I am sorry to admit that I have not found any tech woman who has inspired me throughout my career, but I have met great women without limits at the University: in debate teams, student association ... and all of them have motivated me to pursue my dream.
I passed my junior days, I did not hesitate to move to Germany to continue growing, and I appreciate the trust that KPMG bestowed upon me when they recruited me to be part of the international team of experts.
My main motivation: to go one step further, meet each of the goals that I set for myself and avoid surrounding myself with anyone who tells me "you can't". They often ask me "how far do you want to go?" and I think my answer stays the same from the very beginning: I don't know how far I will go, but I am going to give my best in every step forward.
Who would you advise to attend the Global Conference and why?
I think it is a perfect event that, like the lineup, can bring together different profiles, either professionals and amateurs.
I would tell any woman in technology of any level and professional maturity to look for those female references that I would have liked to have, and perhaps they would have made my path somewhat easier. Let them listen, learn, get excited, and see that any story is important.
I would obviously recommend to any man who works in technology to support the event and give it visibility, and for sure, to attend to some of the sessions. Often we do not realize the difficulties, the opportunities, and the revolution that many women are generating in the technological world; sometimes, they tend to put on the blindfold and perpetuate discrimination and undervaluation.
Finally, I would recommend it to any father who has a daughter interested in technology, we usually see great success stories in technology by men on television, and we continue to hide those of women. Help your daughter understand where we come from, what we have fought for, and the great success stories that are getting known all over the world.
Reserve your spot at WomenTech Global Conference in June 2021 to enjoy Mar's talk "Democratization of Technology through the Low Code ", and learn from other inspiring speakers.
