Virtual Planet Girl Geek Dinner – Lightning Talks, Networking!

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📺  You can watch the YouTube video!
📖  Prefer to read? Here’s the full transcript.
🧠  Check out Planet talks & speaker details below:

“Not Business As Usual: How Tech is Rethinking Diversity & Belonging in 2020” by Adria Giattino-Johnson, People Partner

We are all feeling the effects of a chaotic year. From personal to professional, this year has not only reshaped the way we think about connection, but also the way we think about diversity, equity, and inclusion. For many of us, large portions of our days are spent at work. How do we ensure that those work environments are safe and inclusive spaces for employees during this time? How do companies take measures to amplify diverse voices? Many tech companies, including Planet, are radically rethinking diversity programs and are working strategically to create sustainable, lasting change throughout the organization. Tune in to discuss these efforts and how tech companies are working to shatter “Business as Usual” in DEIB.

“Time for another career pivot? To infinity and beyond!” by Lisa Huang-North, Product & Program Lead

Did 2020 throw a spanner in your career path? With change as the only constant, how do you stay resilient and adapt to unplanned pivots? As an experienced “pivoteur”, Lisa has taken the path less traveled – from mutual fund data analyst to food writer; startup founder to aerospace product management; USA to South Africa to Taiwan; and other divergence along the way.  In this talk, she will share 3 lessons learned from Planet’s satellite commissioning team on navigating career pivots in times of uncertainties. 

“Welcome to Remotesville, Population: You” by Sara Safavi, Head of Developer Relations & Software Engineer

In March of this year, nearly all of us here were suddenly inducted into the club of remote workers in tech. For many of us that shift turned how we experience our workweek completely upside down. For myself, though, not much actually changed: Sara has spent the last five years of her career working as a full-time remote employee, at a variety of companies with teams of all shapes and sizes. In this talk, Sara will share her experience as a long-term “remoter” in tech: she will talk about what works, what doesn’t work, and what she’s learned to do to make our work-from-home lives a little easier.

“Agile Development and how it doesn’t need to be stressful” by Barbara Vazquez, Software Engineering Manager & Developer

This day and age, if you’re working in a Software Organization you’re most likely doing Agile development … or trying to. Agile doesn’t always have the best reputation, but when done “right” it can actually help you be more organized and actually have a work-life balance without pulling all nighters because there is a deadline or the sprint is ending. Barb will talk through some of her lessons learned while adopting Agile, from cadence to estimation to even negotiation.

“Inbox Full: Handling Big Data in Space” by Kelsey Doerksen, Space Systems Engineer

We are at a time in tech where companies are collecting enormous amounts of data, and don’t know what to do with it. Data can lead to incredibly valuable insights, but how do we extract information from 0s and 1s? What can 1000s of pictures of the same thing tell us? Kelsey will share her experiences and challenges working in Machine Learning on projects for Mars, in space, and on Earth.

“Needing Space: Operating Satellites from Bed” by Deanna Farago, Engineering Manager, Satellite Operations

When you think of a ‘Mission Control’, you may picture something from a movie: a room full of white men all staring at multiple computer screens with nonsensical data flying across the reflection on their glasses. The ratio of people to spacecraft is about 60:1. From the beginning, the Mission Operations team knew that in order to image the entire planet every day, we would need to invert that ratio. In this talk, Deanna will discuss the milestones and missteps taken towards scaled satellite operations at Planet and what it’s like to operate satellites from bed.

“The challenge of making the right professional and personal decisions” by Elena Rodriguez, Account Executive, Latin America

Elena will speak to the complexity of making decisions especially when they can have a long-term impact or when they can affect family, society, etc. She will explain her own process and how it has resulted in great benefits for her personal and professional growth in the last 25 years — how her interest in technology led her to the right people, to the right jobs and to the right decisions. She will also talk about the common elements that she had considered in the most important decisions that she has made, as well as those cases where she had not decided for herself — and how she turned what seemed to be the end of everything into an opportunity.

“Storytelling in tech: How data becomes a narrative” by Sarah Preston, Product Marketing Manager

Memorable stories are an important part of supporting any project pitch, sales strategy, or personal brand. In our data-driven world, a great story is driven by emotion and balanced by fact. Sarah will share her experience in the aerospace industry and how good stories have transformed the business.

“COVID-19 As Seen from Space” by Brittany Zajic, Business Development Analyst

We are all in this together. As millions of people around the world began working from home, many looked to Planet for answers. Can satellite imagery help during a pandemic? Brittany talks through the real world applications of satellite imagery in the midst of a ‘pause’ on life. From monitoring halted commodities, the now quiet streets during rush hour, to the environmental impacts, this ongoing public health crisis is being documented by the largest commercial fleet of earth observing satellites, because you can’t fix what you can’t see.

Planet is partnering with Girl Geek X for a virtual Girl Geek Dinner online event with lightning talks, Q&A and networking!

Join us on Zoom and we’ll start off with intros, followed by the feature presentation of lightning talks, followed by Q&A. The closing credits will feature attendees getting a chance to share their stories! After the main program, there will be 1:1 facilitated virtual networking so sign up to join us today – it’s FREE!