OK, so I know we are all feeling the power of that story. We do have one more amazing speaker for you today. Um So her name is Katharina Rindy. She is the director of community in the open source team at G research.So now if you saw the title of her presentation today, you might be wondering how does a bilingual, hi there, Katarina. So you might be wondering how does a bilingual elementary school teacher go from the kindergarten classroom of a public school to traveling internationally and speaking at conferences like today without the travel, of course, about Bitcoin Blockchain, peer to peer technologies and open source software.

So quite the list of tech topics. So right now we're going to hear from Katharina about this not so linear journey tied together by her curiosity, learning and deep values in education and helping people. So welcome Katarina. I will give you the stage.

Thank you. And um thank you for having me and uh uh that's a little bit of a hard act to follow. So, uh hopefully, um some of what I can share with you all will still resonate. I, I am gonna start with, uh I'm gonna tell stories. Normally I have slides to guide all of my presentations, but today I'm just gonna tell stories. Um, and I recognize that I'm coming from a place of significant privilege. I'm a white woman and I, uh I was lucky enough to have an education that helped propel me. Um, but there's elements of my story that I think will resonate with uh with other people as well. So, uh I'll start from the beginning more or less. Um My family is Italian and uh my parents immigrated to the United States though my early years were spent in Italy and in Switzerland. So I grew up speaking Italian and French. And when we came to the San Francisco Bay area, I needed to learn English. And my mother claims that I learned English from watching Sesame Street, which is a, an children's show popular on um public television in the United States. So uh I don't know if you can hear my Sesame Street accent at all. Sometimes when I count like the count. Anyway, that's, that's meant to be a joke. It's hard to tell jokes when you can't see or hear your audience. I'm sure everyone's commented on this.

But anyway, so I learned English from Sesame Street and then I started all of my education kindergarten and everything was here in, in the United States in California. So I grew up speaking English as well. And then my mother remarried And so I um grew up speaking Spanish as well. So there was Spanish in our household. So I had sort of that kind of a, a beginning and that's where I got my Multilingual background. This is more common in other countries where people speak dialects or whatever other neighboring countries, they speak multiple languages in the United States is a little bit uncommon, but it has proved to be an advantage. So if you have an opportunity, if you've grown up speaking multiple languages, that can be useful to you, I uh was able to attend university here in California and my first year of university was paid, which was nice. But after that I had uh loans and I had to work. So I worked through most of my university. And the jobs I had were a photographer. I was a photographer for and fraternities. I never joined a sorority or fraternity, but I was a photographer for their parties and just for the record, I was not a very good photographer, but I have some funny stories about that which I'm not gonna share.

Now, another job I had was I was the night watch person equine research lab. I attended university in, in a uh farm area. And so they were studying horses and at night, the mayors would give birth and I needed to alert the staff so that they could come and help the mayors give birth. So I've seen foals being born which is super cool, not super relevant to Blockchain. Still super cool. Another job I had uh when I realized that I needed a place to live as well, I was a resident manager, so I helped run the dorms. Um and uh and that helped me a place to live. And I also became a peer counselor. I was studying psychology and I got a minor in education. So that was sort of my, my university experience, a lot of work. I didn't finish in four years. Like many people do and I had decent grades but not great grades. Uh, but I was very lucky to be at a, at a decent university. So, uh when I left university, I was looking for work and I was interested in education and psychology. And I was hired pretty quickly that summer at uh a public elementary school that hired me the day before school started to be their third grade teacher. And basically the only reason they hired me is because I spoke Spanish. So they put me in this classroom.

I didn't have a teaching credential. Thank goodness there was another third grade teacher because every day I would say so, what are we doing tomorrow? And she would hand me her lesson plans, just a saint, a saint of a woman. And I feel so bad for those poor students because I didn't really know what I was doing. But I cared, I cared about them and I was in an elementary school where there were quite a few disadvantaged students. In fact, the majority of, of that school and the neighborhood where I taught was a poor neighborhood. So I learned a lot about that, uh, about the inequalities and I had already, of course, been aware and sensitive to it, but it was even more obvious there. So I taught, uh, at this school for a year and I simultaneously got my teaching credential, um, in the evening. So I would teach all day and then in the evenings I would attend courses. So it was, it was difficult. Um, but I loved my students and I tried to give them as, as much as I could. I taught kindergarten first grade and third grade and some fifth grade. And I was in this public school in Richmond, California for about seven years in the classroom. Then I also ran a magnet programs and I, uh, helped write curriculum for. So I was in that school district for another three years. In all that time. I was very interested in computers. I loved technology, but I had no formal training in it.

I had no background in, in technology, but I liked computers. And so I would go to these computer shows. This is way back when, uh, and I would buy parts for computers and motherboards and, uh, you know, the ra M that you needed and the cases and everything. And then I would put the computers together and it worked amazingly. I mean, obviously trial and error, but I built some computers and I put those computers in my students classroom. And at that time I was teaching kindergarten. So the five year olds had computers in the classroom, very basic stuff. And then I would teach them how to use certain programs and then they would teach each other. And I loved it. I loved having computers and technology in the classroom and it was simple programs, drawing and counting and things that five year olds do, but they loved it. And so I started writing grants and trying to get more money into these public schools that had no money. And eventually in the time that I was there, we got internet uh to our public school, it was the only school in that area that had internet. And uh we eventually got a computer lab which was just amazing and more the school district sort of, you know, got on board and other schools were doing this more at the high school level. But eventually it came to the elementary classrooms as well.

I also shared everything that I could uh with other teachers at conferences, things like that. I helped write some curriculum, as I mentioned and um gave a lot of presentations about this stuff. So that's sort of my background in, in the education and what I was doing. Uh there's probably some key themes that you're noticing here emerging uh do things even if you don't know what you're doing, just do it if you have the opportunity, if you are asked to do it, just do it. Failure is part of the process uh collaborate whenever you can work with other teachers, work with other colleagues, work with other people that are interested in the same thing. Follow your curiosity. I loved computers. And so I started playing around with them even though I didn't know anything about it. Um pick up mentors along the way, that third grade teacher that saved me for three months before I was able to write my own lesson plan um and teach whatever, you know. So I didn't have very much experience as a teacher, but I was learning things, putting computers in the classroom. So those were my presentations. They were literally titled How To Use Computers in a kindergarten classroom. I mean, it was just basic stuff, but people came up saying this is fantastic. I just never thought I could do this. And now I can, and now you're showing me that even five year olds can play with computers. I mean, it's 2020.

Now we know five year olds can do a lot more. Uh And then the last sort of emerging theme is bring others, lift others along the way as, as you do this. And my teaching was part of that and also just trying to bring this kind of technology into a community that didn't have it, that didn't have access to it. My, my, the parents of my students, a lot of them were undocumented. They didn't have cars, they didn't have health insurance, they didn't know how to ride the public transit in our neighborhood. I mean, it was really, really simple, basic stuff, but I was trying to introduce more things to, to them and to their families. So this is now we're talking about 2000 yeah, about 2001 or so. And I'm seeing this, you know, this gold rush all around me in the San Francisco Bay area, which is technology. And I was a teacher and I was working my butt off really hard, not making very much money. And I see all this stuff happening around me in, in the tech world and I decided I, I wanted to get involved. So I uh joined a start up, I applied for a job and I joined the start up as the office manager uh because I was very well organized as a teacher. So I, that was my first job in tech as office management.

Um you know, basically like admin, but it was a start up. So you end up doing, of course, everything I learned a lot at this start up. I had a terrible boss. Um uh you know, egomaniac ceo, what ego anyway, I won't dwell on that, but the developers were lovely and I did everything from processing the H one B visas for our Ukrainian developers, sales and marketing. Uh you know, obviously everything that office manager does plus in start up.

So I learned a ton doing that. But I also became pretty disillusioned because I was in education because I loved students and I wanted to help people. And here I was at this tech company, uh who was I helping, you know, we made remote access soft. How is that, how is that benefiting the world in any way? So uh our start up eventually got bought. Um I did not get any shares early on, but uh I took that as an opportunity to get back into education. So you're seeing how this is not linear, how this is sort of like do, do, do, do, do, do, do and uh and I went back into education and I started writing curriculum again and working for some nonprofits and doing some tutoring, running some tutoring programs. And I was headhunted to run a big chain tutoring program in San Francisco. And that was pretty exciting for me because I felt like, OK, I was moving up sort of in the, in the hierarchy of, of the world or the education world. But uh now we're at around 2008. And for those of you who have a sense of this history, 2008 was when the financial crisis hit. And um within the next year or so, my father also died. So, uh between the financial crisis, I lost my job, the funding for this, this tutoring program ran out. Um, my father passed away and I just had an existential crisis. I did not know who I was. I did not know what I wanted to do.

And I thought, ok, maybe I'll apply to a bunch of education programs and get a master's degree and, you know, gird myself with more education to have more options, but I got rejected from all the master's programs that I applied to. Um So it was a rough, it was a rough few years, of course, I can laugh about this now. Uh but it was very, it was difficult and it was a hard time for everyone. And I think there's some parallels to what people are going through now as well where you're in another crisis. As I'm sure some of you already know the Chinese character for crisis is a combination of danger and opportunity. And so in that, in that moment, once I sort of regained my um uh my momentum, if you will, I decided that what I wanted to do was grow my, my uh skill set and to educate myself. And if these master's programs weren't going to let me in, then I was going to do it anyway. And so I decided I wanted to get an MBA. I wanted to learn about business and starting your own company. And so I created what I call a faux MB A that's fa Uxmba. I created the faux MB, a program for myself and I tapped a bunch of friends of mine who, to me because they also had lost their jobs and didn't know what they wanted to do.

And, uh, you know, we sort of floundering or people who were starting their own businesses because that was what they had to do or they were working by themselves as contractors or consultants because they had lost their, their full time jobs. So we had a, there were a bunch of folks like this. And so I started a networking group and so we would meet every week I uh joined a friend and we created a, an, a faux MB, a book club where we would read all of the books that were part of Stanford's uh MB A program. So I went and looked and saw what their reading list was and what their curriculum was and we just tried to copy that and discuss the books. Um I wrote a business plan and I tapped some of my friends who did have mbas already from accredited universities and had them go over my business plan and I started a business. I started a small food business, uh tapping um surplus fruit from people's backyards in San Francisco and the Bay area.

And I'm talking lemons and apples and plums and all the stuff that you see growing around and falling on the ground and we would collect this fruit for free, obviously. And a friend of mine would make these recipes and we would make things out of this fruit. So we had jams and uh, pickled plums and uh drinks and, you know, just whatever she could come up with. And then we would sell these things at this underground farmers market. Um, and this was because of the financial crisis, lots of people were making food in their kitchens and then selling the stuff that they were making. And this, we called the underground farmers Market because there were, there weren't regulations regulating this or there were and we were working outside of the regulations. So I had this little food business and I ran it for about a year. Um And the other thing I had was a car, I still had my car and all of this time, the sharing economy was starting to happen all around me in San Francisco again because of this time because of this moment because people were just trying to make do with what they had. So some of the first companies that were coming out then uh were couchsurfing and airbnb, which came a little bit later. But couch surfing was people sharing their homes and that they still couchsurfing still exists.

By the way, you can travel around the world, uh sharing the homes of other people who have opened them up So I was involved with Couch who started that and then Airbnb started uh Task Rabbit, I knew the CEO who started Task Rabbit at the time. Um Lyft and Sidecar, this is when Uber was just a black car service, but they started in San Francisco and a whole other story for another time of why they started in San Francisco that I could share with you. I drove for sidecar early on. Um they went out of business, but then Lyft sort of took over that. And uh time banking was also really, really popular. And there was one other company that started in Boston was incubated in Boston and it was called Relay rides. And relay rides was a company that had people share their own personal cars with their neighbors. So I had read about relay rides and I wrote to them and I said, hey, I'm in San Francisco and I love this idea. I have a car. I'm only using it a few days a week. It would be great if I could share it with my neighbors and make a little money on it. And they wrote me back and said, we're going to be in San Francisco. They wrote me back within a week. We're gonna be in San Francisco. Would you like to be the first person to share their car on the West coast? And I said, sure. So, so I was relay rides now is called to uh and uh I was the first person to share their car.

So I to share, yeah, their own personal car. Um I did a bunch of interviews because I was the first person I was spoke at conferences. Um There were articles written all about it and the, the conference speaking was, you know, again, like an opportunity for me to talk about what I was doing and to share with people how it was going And of course, it was also marketing for this company. Um But I enjoyed it and I decided that that was something that I wanted to keep doing. So we're now in like, uh you know, 2010, 20 11 around there, 2013, I think it was 2013, I think. And um this is also more or less around the time when Bitcoin was being uh written about and was growing in use. So I shared my car with one of the people that I shared my car with was a tech entrepreneur from Belgium and he was in town because there had been a bunch of Bitcoin meetups going on and Ethereum meetups going on. And uh we got along like most of the time people would share their car and you never see them. But I was much more of a hands on. I was friendly and I would talk to people and, you know, find out about them.

I mean, I had people leaving bottles of wine in my car. When they return the car, it was, it was kind of cool. Uh There was a real sense of collaboration, you know, the real sense of, of neighbor neighbor in that. So, so this entrepreneur from Belgium, uh he and I started going to these Bitcoin and Ethereum meetups. And then when I told him that I was going to be traveling in Europe, I decided at that point that I was going to go to Europe and attend conferences and write about the sharing economy and write about car sharing and all this stuff that was coming up. He asked me to join his start up because he was doing a Bitcoin start up. So I said, yes, it was again, sort of this like, I don't know what I'm doing but OK, I'll do it. It's an opportunity. And so I spent a year in Europe. I did do some writing about sharing economy. But I, what I ended up doing is getting a crash course in Bitcoin. And as a teacher, once I learned, I read a lot, I still read a lot. There's so much going on in Bitcoin. Always in Blockchain as a teacher. What I was decent at was explaining to people, these complicated ideas and co sort of translating it if you will into something that was accessible. So for non-technical audiences especially. So that's what I did.

And my position was community manager, but I did a lot of education and I did a lot of speaking at conferences. And um one of the other things that I did, every, every time I spoke at a conference, people would approach me afterwards and I would ask them about their projects, what they're working on, what they wanted to learn. And then I would ask them how I could help them, how I could support them. And I was early on in, in that world. So there wasn't a whole lot that I could do, but sometimes it was as simple as retweet, their tweet or follow them or introduce them to someone else. And through that process, I met a lot of people, I, I got to travel in Europe and then back again in the United States as well all over the place. And I met some people that were on the same page of sort of wanting to share this knowledge as much as possible.

And like my previous, the previous speaker before me, and I'm sure everyone around here, we realized that there were not that many women at these Bitcoin Blockchain conferences. So we created some lists of women speakers um and spreadsheets and things like that. And so these sort of um attempts to share and to connect and to network have, have really benefited me in the long run. And this is something that I sort of want to encourage everyone to do along the way. One of the things that I also sort of continued to do regularly, even though this was not a linear path, I would stop every once in a while and I would sort of do like a skills assessment if I'm, if I don't have, you know, a degree from the university in, in computer engineering or something.

Well, what am I good at? Uh because that's not the only way to be in this world. Right. And so my, my general skills as assessment was that I'm organized that I am a teacher that I'm curious that I'm collaborative, that I'm Multilingual. And I'm a pretty quick learner, I can read something and I can, you know, learn it and understand it. Um Though usually it takes about seven times for, for most people, including me to absorb certain things that are more challenging. But these are, these were my skills and it's like, OK, do I like doing that was sort of my next assessment and I like traveling and meeting people from different places. Um I like teaching and helping people. I am very aware of the huge wealth disparities in the world. And I want to be doing something to address that and to address these inequalities. Uh And I really like learning new things. So with the skills assessment and with this idea of what I want to be doing, that's what I sort of used to drive me towards what I am doing now. And I've been very fortunate again. Um but I think that my path and my uh my direction is not unique to me and I think that other people can do this as well. So today, as per my introduction, I uh am a public speaker. I am uh an educator. I'm a community manager.

I present at conferences worldwide. I've been incredibly fortunate to have been to China, to Russia, to Japan, Europe, the United States. Some of those conferences that I spoke at. I was given the opportunity because one of my friends or colleagues or people within my network, they were invited, but they couldn't go. So they recommended me. That's another really easy thing that you can do for other people. And, and I said yes um for a while at the very beginning in 2014 or so, when I was traveling around Europe giving uh toxic conferences, I didn't charge anything. But after a year, I thought, OK, I've gotten good enough and I had enough experience um where I started actually charging. So I would and sometimes it's not, you don't actually get paid but you get your uh your travel paid and things like that. So I've sort of balanced all of that out. Um I still do Blockchain research and presentations and I love doing that stuff and I am a community manager now for uh the open source team for a company called G Research in London. And I'm supposed to put in a plug, by the way that G research is hiring.

So if you are a DEV uh developer engineer um or anything in that around that tech world uh G research in London is hiring and then the open source team that I work with is remote. And so we have uh developers that are doing a bunch of different interesting things. I have a website and I have a Twitter, you can find me there and linkedin of course, and you can find me in any of those places. Um But the main thing that I want us to sort of leave you with is the consistent themes that I think helped drive me. And that I recommend because I think they can help pretty much anyone uh do things even when you don't know what you're doing. Uh imposter syndrome, everyone has that, especially women and uh do it anyway, like just power through it anyway. There's, there's no such thing as like the perfect person, you know, um Failure is part of the process as a teacher whenever students acted up or uh we had uh mistakes made. We called it a teachable moment. Failure is a teachable moment. It's an opportunity to learn something, collaborate, anyone that you collaborate with that becomes your network and your network is gonna help you find a job, a place to live, a partner.

You know, that's, that's really a strong social mesh that is helpful, uh pick up mentors along the way, um teach whatever you know, there's always going to be someone that knows do and whatever you impart is appreciated. Uh follow your curio curiosity and uh bring help lift others along the way. Thank you everyone for giving me this opportunity to address you all and I hope that it has been somewhat helpful to you. Thank you so much,

Katarina for closing out our day today. What a story. Lots of people in the chat really resonating with you. It's always, you know, fun to hear about nontraditional stories, especially pathways into technology. There were so many women throughout the day today that spoke about authenticity and about really like owning your path that you're on. And I think, you know, you had this up and down route, but you were, you were doing that the whole time, right? And so your tips are so helpful. And thank you again for sharing your story today.

Katarina. Of course. Thank you for inviting me.