Laneway Analytics helps super funds identify and visualise the data they need for great business and member outcomes. Almost half of our team is made up of female computer science, visual analytics, operations and marketing experts. This is a pretty amazing statistic given the average in the IT industry is less than 30%. We know it impacts what we do positively and so we asked our full stack developer, Youyou Cheng what she thinks.
Youyou headed to the Tonsley Innovation Hub, Flinders University – part of Australia’s first innovation district, as part of her commitment to share her experiences and inspire the next generation of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). This was part of the International Women’s Day program.
Inspiring Women in STEM
Inspiring Women
‘Nowadays everything is connected. I want to encourage young women to consider computer science as a career. I believe someday, they will find a way to combine the things they are passionate about in their careers with technology’ said Youyou Cheng.
Here at Laneway Analytics whilst we are focused on creating innovative analytics solutions, we need a well-rounded team of innovative thinkers to work together to combine their diverse experience, skillsets, and ways of thinking to really innovate.
Diversity
A recent Access Economics study found that women make up just 27.8 percent of the IT workforce. And despite a recent rise in employment growth in the IT sector, ABS figures outlined women make up only a quarter of those jobs.
For Youyou having so many female colleagues making up nearly 50 percent of the team is something she considers to be an amazing statistic in tech.
“This is really something to be proud of as we haven’t had to hire to meet any diversity program requirements, instead we have hired for the best talent and cultural values. This is a great reflection our diverse culture – it’s open, inclusive and totally focused on hiring the best minds,” she outlined.
Youyou’s IT career began in 2005, when she enrolled in a Computer Science degree, initiated by Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in China. Analytical thinking saw Youyou build a skillset in
problem solving and computer programming – which all led to her role today where she designs innovative software.
“For me moving to Australia and overcoming the challenges of a new country made me even more determined not to give up. My persistence gave me the confidence to be creative and this gave me the spark to solve many problems. ”
Today Youyou leads the development of LUCI, Laneway’s innovative analytics portal. LUCI’s goal is to make the analytics experience easier, personalised, and more useful. LUCI is based on a complex range of technology capabilities including performance management, interactive visual analytics, search, natural language query (NLQ), collaboration and engagement.
The goal for LUCI is “to inspire new data users to enjoy exploring their data and to begin using data on a daily basis. Not all data users are data scientists, so this is how we turbo-charge the adoption of analytics across organisations. For CTOs and CIO’s, they gain a much higher return on their investments in data and analytics platforms with this creative approach.”
We asked Youyou what she enjoys the most about working at Laneway Analytics:
- I have had a great opportunity to work alongside really talented people and learn from them
- I feel part of a diverse team that works well together because we all want to challenge the status quo in data and analytics. But we all realise that to truly innovate, we depend on each other’s different skill sets, experience and ways of thinking
- I have built new skills to find creative ways to solve problems
- I am always encouraged to put my learnings into practice, which is always fun and self-rewarding.
If you would like to learn more about working with Laneway Analytics, and how our unique way of working might suit you, please send a short, clever, personalised email to jobs-analytics@lanewayanalytics.com.au. No agencies please.