This week's bitesize episode features highlights from interviews with Data and Computer Scientists Tolúlopé Ògúnrèmí and Aminat Amoo. Tolúlopé is a Research Scientist and Founder of the award-winning organisation Coders of Colour, and Aminat is a Data and Cloud Infrastructure Engineer. Tolúlopé and Aminat introduce you to their line of work, what inspired them to get into tech, the skills and specialised roles they have gained experience in and what their goals are going forward.
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If you know a group of students who would like to interview one of our role models, please get in touch by emailing podcast@untappedinnovation.com
Likewise, if you know anyone who would be a great role model, let us know by emailing podcast@untappedinnovation.com
Follow us on Instagram @STEMUntapped
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Check out our website
Student interviewer 00:07
What got you interested in STEM?
Tolúlopé Ógúnrémí 00:09
I think I was interested in STEM before I knew what STEM was, I've always been interested in, I just had like a natural inkling as a child. I can remember this vividly, you know, four years old or something. And I didn't get introduced to the term stem until I must have been in my early teens. So I would say just a natural inkling, unfortunately, nothing, nothing spectacular.
Aminat Amoo 00:33
So my name is Aminat Amoo. And I'm a cloud infrastructure engineer at permitir, which is a startup. So I didn't actually do computer science. When I went to university, I studied chemistry. And by my fourth year, I decided to pivot into tech. So I met someone else who had gone to the same university as me, and she had done a STEM degree. And she ended up being a software engineer at bank. So that was the first time that I realised that this was a career path that was viable for me. So data engineering, in the context of what I was doing at BT was essentially, the main tasks that I was assigned to doing was building a data pipeline for my companies. So I was involved in somewhat designing the architecture, so the actual pipeline, so deciding what tools we were going to use to get it from one place to another place. But I wasn't doing this all by myself, the really cool thing with working in tech, I think there's a stigma or like a myth about you just being by yourself and just coding away. That's not the case, you tend to work in teams. And different people in your team might have specialised roles.
Tolúlopé Ógúnrémí 01:43
Don't have to just be a software engineer, to be in tech. But I personally think that coding is a really good skill to have, and can really change your kind of trajectory and how comfortable you are in life. Because you never know where it's going to come into play. And just the ability to code a code well, can go a long way.
Aminat Amoo 02:02
I wouldn't say I use maths directly. But I think you kind of use maths in everything you kind of do. So in there, actually I use mathematics, then I use software engineering. So I'm coding everyday, like I mentioned before, so something that I use to help build stuff in the clouds. So in the cloud, you have the servers, but then the cloud also has other resources. So coding software engineering, still apart, I do, this is going to be more of a soft skill. So it's not a hard skill, but actual teamwork. And communication is a massive, massive part of what I do.
Tolúlopé Ógúnrémí 02:40
Because I like computer science, I wasn't, you know, waking up in the morning, like, physics is the blood that goes through my veins and that I need to do this. I was more like, Okay, this stuff is kind of interesting. When we did Astro, when we did Medical Physics, that was so interesting, because I was like, I know how an MRI scanner works. I know how an ultrasound like, you know, stuff like that was cool. But it was never something that was just amazing. Now I look back, little did I know the matrix multiplication that I was doing in year 12 was gonna be integral to everything I do from day to day now.
Aminat Amoo 03:16
Data is kind of becoming a new currency. It's the new it thing, the thing that everyone talks about. And so I wanted to be involved in any of the data that we were doing within that team. So that was the push for me to go into data engineering. Also, most importantly, to me as mentoring other engineers that might join my team as well. Because I in my, first of all, I had a really great mentor and people that I could work with that really helped me learn how to code and contribute to my team. So I want to be able to provide that
Tolúlopé Ógúnrémí 03:51
This is your sign that you can do it and you should just go for it doesn't matter which circumstance you're in or who you're around, or who you're not around. If you want to do it. I personally believe in you and I think you can do it. So that's the main thing.