Award-winning Influencer of the Year, Data & AI expert and Founder of “Girls in Tech Nordics”, Vanessa Eriksson joins us to share her thoughts around everything AI, Girls in technology Tech and her insights to being all you can be……
If the epitome of being all you can be is packaged in one way, then Vanessa Eriksson is this the whole package. Award-winning Influencer of the Year, Data & AI expert and Founder of “Girls in Tech Nordics”, this mom, wife, daughter, sister has created her success from sheer determination and beliefs in her own self.
It was a truly humbling experience to sit with Vanessa and listen to her stories of where she started her professional journey, the ups and downs and what she sees as the future. Originally from India, Vanessa has lived in Sweden for more than 27 years. Her career track is not of the traditional making and she has carved out her career through her own learnings, curiosity and passion for the topic around data & AI. Vanessa describes herself with three E’s, “Eager, Enthusiastic, Energetic” and “I usually describe myself as an Eager Beaver, ready for whatever life has to offer me. Enthusiastic because that comes from within – its linked to my confidence and Energetic that’s cause mum says I’m a monkey on hot bricks!”
Work life balance is equally important, but her passion however has been to get more girls into Tech. This passion led to her starting Girls in Tech Nordics almost 6 years ago. Since then Vanessa has built up a network of more than 500 girls and interest from well-known company brands wanting to contribute towards her initiative in getting more girls interested in tech. Today they run various networking events across the Nordics in connecting businesses and future tech stars to build the future for Data & AI. Her biggest challenge is getting the girls at school level more engaged and interested in the topic of tech, more could be done with influence from the politicians and support from the schools governing bodies. For more information about this wonderful initiative, visit their homepage https://girlsintechnordics.org/
As a key note speaker within AI, what does Vanessa see as the future for AI?
“people choose to focus on the negative impact of IA” but we have journey ahead of us. Humans will always be needed. She sees the biggest challenge is about data governance and who owns the data. AI governance is going to the next big topic and especially now since many of us are using ChatGPT by default we are now interacting with IA, so what is the corporate responsibility of managing IA governance. McKinsey have recently written a report about the speed in which companies want to push out their products and this will lead to shortcuts and miss the biases or chose to ignore it. IA Governance is seen as “unsexy” and not attractive or boring but more people need to talk more about.
Reviewing Vanessa’s background, she has represented some great companies and created her position as a thought leader in her field, but we cannot hide the fact that she is not formally educated but self-taught. Perhaps in those earlier years the focus on education was somewhat different to current times, of course we should not ignore the importance of a good education, but it also shows that just simply applying yourself and having a passion, you can create success!
Research shows that within the Gig economy people are moving more towards flexible working, more project based worked and the need for ongoing challenges, meeting new people and ever changing environments, asking Vanessa what she would advise to a consultant wanting to come into this environment, “ you have your knowledge”, “don’t be shy, because you are there for a certain task”, “deliver your best” and be who you are.
We are looking forward to seeing the success of Girls In Tech, but also closely watch the path Vanessa will follow. Watch this space for our podcast with Vanessa where we will dig deeper into the AI, Data and digital topics.