The conversation starts with a discussion with growing up watching the Disney Channel which lead into a discussion of true crime podcasts. Chloe then shares her experience working as an actor. Group then talks about technology and the arts. The conversation then falls into a theme park rabbit hole. Chloe then shares her story of how she went from acting to becoming a technologist. The discussion then wraps up with the group talking about how to make technical learning fun and interesting.

Chloe Condon on Twitter

Bio

Chloe is a Bay Area based Cloud Advocate for Microsoft. Previously, she worked at Sentry.io where she created the award winning Sentry Scouts program, and was featured in the Grace Hopper Conference 2018 gallery featuring 15 influential women in STEM by AnitaB.org. Chloe holds a BA in Drama from San Francisco State University and is a graduate of Hackbright Academy. She prides herself on being a non-traditional background engineer, and is likely one of the only engineers who has played an ogre, crayon, and the back-end of a cow on a professional stage. She hopes to bring more artists into tech, and more engineers into the arts.

The conversation starts with April talking about an injury she’s recovering from and then discusses her time in competitive bodybuilding. Then the discussion takes an unexpected turn when we learn that April played rugby. April then talks about connecting with people during COVID, treating science as fact, and meeting Bill Nye. The conversation wraps up with April sharing her love for fashion and creating her own clothing designs including creating her own brand.

Bio

April Speight is an author and developer advocate based in Beverly Hills, CA. She graduated from the University of Maryland University College with a BA in Global Business & Public Policy in addition to a certificate in Business Project Management. She later pursued and completed a MA in Luxury and Fashion Management at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

April began her professional career in the luxury fashion industry as a menswear stylist and visual merchandiser. She later transitioned into the tech industry as a project manager and systems analyst. In August 2020, she published Bite-Size Python: An Introduction to Python Programming with Wiley as a starter for adolescents to learn the Python programming language. She is currently a Sr. Cloud Advocate with the Spatial Computing technology team at Microsoft.

The conversation starts with Dr. Sarah sharing how she got involved in technology and the importance that quality instructors had in her education. She then shares how she decided to shift her focus from medicine to technology. Dr. Sarah goes on to tell her immigrant family story and how she deals with imposter syndrome. The conversation then wraps up with a discussion on how the panel is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Links

TEALS Program – Technology Education and Literacy in Schools (TEALS) is a Microsoft Philanthropies program that builds sustainable CS programs in high schools.

Bio

Dr. Sarah Guthals is a Principal Program Manager at Microsoft and focuses her life on providing access to high quality computer science education to novices of all ages, everywhere. With a Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of California, San Diego, her passion is to design content, software that focuses on engaging learners. Sarah builds curriculum, teaches teachers, writes books for novices around coding, and is one of Forbes 30 Under 30 in Science for her work in Computer Science Education.

The conversation starts with Eugene talking about his background and how he got into tech. He then talks about his experiences in developing Pluralsight courses. Eugene then shares about his struggles with diabetes and how he rose to overcome them. The conversation then moves to Eugene’s love of boardgames and he suggests some boardgames that are great for newbies. The conversation wraps up around Eugene telling us his involvement in Live Action Role Play (LARP).

Bio

Eugene Meidinger works as a Power BI consultant and full time Pluralsight author. He talks about a wide variety of data issues on the SQL Data Partners Podcast. But more importantly, he’s a lifelong fan of boardgames and a recent wargamer.

Cecil and Richie both share what they’ve been up to during the Away From The Keyboard hiatus and what they have planned for the future of the show.

Bio

Cecil Phillip is a Software Developer from South Florida with many years of experience building applications on the .NET Framework. Throughout his career, his primary focus has been providing web and service based solutions for various markets. Cecil’s current tool-set of choice comprises of C#, ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Web API, jQuery, KnockoutJS, Entity Framework, XUnit and FakeItEasy. He has a passion for software architecture, interoperability, and testing. Cecil also enjoys experimenting with different programming platforms such as Python, PowerShell, and NodeJS. You can follow Cecil on Twitter via @cecilphillip.

Richie Rump is a software developer, data architect and project manager. Richie is a dataveloper at Brent Ozar Unlimited where he writes software that makes it easier to adminster SQL Server. He also developed http://statisticsparser.com, a tool that helps data professionals tune SQL Server. Richie is the founder of the dotNet Miami, a community focused on enterprise development with .NET and SQL Server. He is a graduate of the University of Miami and has written software for many corporations over the past twenty-five years. He can be found on Twitter at @Jorriss or at http://jorriss.net.

The conversation starts with Lara discussing her start in technology which believe it or not started with Lord of the Rings, international studies, a semester in Prague, and photography. Lara then goes in and discusses how she started speaking publicly, how she prepares to for a presentation, and why she wrote the book “Demystifying Public Speaking”. The panel then talks travel and their tips for traveling. Lara then shares about her trip to New Zealand and what she does when she’s away from the keyboard.

Links

• Lara’s book: Demystifying Public Speaking
• Lara’s website
• Lara on Twitter
• Adam Savage at Weta Workshop

Bio

Lara Callender Hogan is an engineering leader, coach, and consultant at Wherewithall. Lara is also the author of Designing for Performance, Building a Device Lab, and Demystifying Public Speaking. She champions engineering management as a practice, helps people get comfortable public speaking, and believes it’s important to celebrate career achievements with donuts. Follow her on Twitter.

In this episode, we have the pleasure of chatting with developer, author, and dedicated learner, Ian Felton. We start off the conversation talking about Ian’s background and learning how he got into technology. He tells us about his experience in college, playing in a band, and recording music. We also get some insight into how he got into NASA with some help from a college professor. Then we spent some time understanding how Ian dealt with the pressures of his figure job.

We also get to learn more about Ian’s book, The Code of the Samurai. Ian tell us where he got his inspiration from to write the book and some of the historical research he had to do. Richie asks Ian to tell us how writing books compares to writing code. Moving forward, Cecil asks Ian about his musical past.

Links

• The Coding Samurai on Amazon
• The Coding Samurai
• Ian’s Blog
• Marching Mountains

Bio

Ian Felton has more than twenty years of professional experience writing software for organizations such as NASA, Mayo Clinic, Thomson Reuters, and many more. He is the author of, “The Coding Samurai – The Way of the Computer Warrior.” His blog, The Psychologist Coder, explores IT through the lens of psychology. Ian is also a published author of haibun, a prosemetric Japanese form of writing, mainly centered around travel and journies to far-off places. In addition to writing and wildlife photography, his interests include running his nonprofit organization, which puts musical instruments into the hands of children  who need them, and practicing meditation, Chinese, and several Chinese martial arts. He’s also a graduate student pursuing a Master of Arts in Psychology and Counseling Services.

The conversation starts with Aurelia sharing what she’s currently watching on Netflix. Which leads to a discussion about 13 Reasons Why and the controversies around the show. Aurelia then shares what she does at the Mozilla Science Lab and the projects she’s worked on. She then talks about her time studying Art in grad school. Cecil then inquires about Aurelia’s love for maps which leads to a discussion on open source mapping tools. The conversation then wraps up with Aurelia talking about what she does when she’s away from the keyboard including her radio show Stereo Semantics.

Links

• Aurelia’s Website
• Aurelia on Twitter
• Aurelia’s Book: Geospatial Data and Analysis
• Stereo Semantics
• That Belongs in A Museum

Bio

Aurelia is a developer and curious cartographer building communities around code at the Mozilla Science Lab. Previously of Ushahidi, Internews Kenya, and Carto, she’s been working in the open tech and non-profit journalism space for a few years, and recent projects have had mapping sensor data to support agricultural security and sustainable APIs ecosystems in the Global South. She’s taught coding classes at GDI-NYC, SVA-DSI, and Parsons. She also runs a radio show based on the Semantic Web, called Stereo Semantics, and co-hosts a show-and-tell meetup called That Belongs in A Museum. Sometimes she makes and writes stuff too.

The conversation starts with Chris talking about how he got started in web development and his experience as a web designer. The conversation then turns to his site, CodePen. Chris describes how CodePen got started, how they determine features, and some of the interesting things that people are building with CodePen. Chris then talks about some of the things he likes to do when he’s away from the keyboard and then describes what it was like living in Miami for six months.

Links

• CodePen
• CSS-Tricks
• Shop Talk Podcast
• The dark side of .io: How the U.K. is making web domain profits from a shady Cold War land deal

Bio

Chris is a web designer and developer. He writes about all thing web at CSS-Tricks, talks about all things web at conferences around the world and on his podcast ShopTalk, and co-founded the web coding playground CodePen.

The conversation begins with Kevin talking about his early childhood and how he ended up in the technology field. The conversation then turns to what he’s learned by authoring books and the difficulties in writing them. Kevin then talks about speaking and how it has made him a better professional. The conversation wraps up with Kevin sharing the problems he encountered while leading the community organization PASS.

Links

• Kevin on Twitter
• SQL in a Nutshell
• Cecil on Channel 9 about Away From The Keyboard
• Cecil on Channel 9 about languages

Bio

Kevin Kline is a renowned database expert and software industry veteran. A long-time
Microsoft data platform MVP and noted leader in the IT data management industry,
Kevin is a founder and former president of PASS and the author of popular IT books like
SQL in a Nutshell. Kevin is a principal program manager for SentryOne. Kevin is a top-
rated speaker at industry trade shows worldwide. He tweets at @kekline.