Ambitious, resilient, determine and driven, I constantly strive to make a difference with young people.
I want them to be the best possible version of themselves that they can be and everything I have done in my career to date has been with this focus. At school I was labelled average and so for the first years of my career, I focuses on proving the doubters wrong and now have a masters in Communications, a postgraduate diploma in Biomedical Engineering, two degrees (Computer Science & Drama) and a teaching qualification.
Currently, I am the Education Outreach Manager for PwC Northern Ireland and have over ten years experienced within the technology and educational sectors. I specialise in the design creation and deployment of the technology educational programmes which are internal and external to the firm covering topics such as coding, cyber security, artificial intelligence, VR and AR. I have an in-depth understanding and awareness of the national curriculum and business training requirements allows me to create education and training programmes that cater to an organisation purpose as well at the educational sector as a whole. Since joining PwC NI I have designed, developed and deployed Hive Academy – an education outreach program aimed at inspiring young people into careers in technology. I have directly taught more than 6000 students in 112 schools since the programs creation and upskillied over 350 teachers at the same time. I coach and train my team members in all programmes and the programme has been so successful that it now being rolled out in the Channel Islands (April 2019), Manchester (May 2019) and Isle of Man (summer 2019). The learning content I designed is now embedded into the national student recruitment offering and into the new joiners programme for the firm.
Previous to PwC I was a lecturer in Queen’s University Belfast, where I taught programming fundamentals and Android App Development to classes of up to 400. This was challenging and rewarding, especially due to the fact I was only one of two females in a heavily male dominated department. During my time in Queen’s I championed a lot of causes, including women in tech, the SWANN initiative and brough new and innovative ways into the department on how to deliver enriching learning experiences. During my time a Queens I also designed, created and delivered a teacher upskilling course in C# educating all the teachers in northern Ireland on programming concept. The material is now integrated into the GCSE curriculum within NI schools.
Prior to Queen’s University Belfast, I was a lecturer in Belfast Met, where I again worked with a high number of young people, often those on alternative pathways and those who were disillusioned with education. I strived to inspire them to believe in themselves, and coached and mentored them to succeed. I was the blended Learning coordinator tasked with improving the use of ICT within the classroom. I facilitated professional staff development workshops (June 2013) which involved the delivery of two formal staff training sessions on blended learning to all colleagues within the department. I was also the Barefoot Trainer(2012-2013) project manager (a programme by the British council focused on upskilling people on blended learning techniques for the classroom) and was responsible for the management of the project ensuring end deliverables were achieved, liaising closely with partner countries (Greece, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Hungary, Ireland) to ensure all objectives were met and created learning resources and content using Adobe Captivate for an ONC accredited course.