This week I’m at the Canadian Undergraduate Software Engineering Conference (CUSEC) in Montreal. So far, I’ve been to two of the opening day keynote speeches. First up was Leah Culver, a stunning software engineer from San Francisco, arguably most famous for founding the social networking site Pounce, which unfortunately, recently  shutdown.  Leah is an enthralling speaker, and I found her advice energizing.  She suggested that we need to take risks, get out there, push ourselves, and to use the tools we have available.  I’ve been a fan of Leah for a while, because of her use of Django, and success with her free laptop project.

It’s too bad Pounce wasn’t successful, but I’m confident she’ll have a lasting influence on the software industry, as evidenced by her involvement in open source projects, such as OAuth.  Not to mention, she knows quite a few other famous people (some more than merely “internet” famous), to whom I’m now only seperated by two degrees!  I was lucky enough to speak with her for a few minutes before her presentation, but hopefully I’ll have a chance to ask her advice about building a website before she leaves.

I’ll have more to report in the coming days.

Posted on January 22, 2009 at 9:58 am
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Categorised under : meta , programming
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