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Awesome Foundation Books Career Education

Strengthsfinder 2.0

I’m taking a leadership course at work just now, and one of the exercises was to take the StrengthsFinder (Amazon) test. At first I took the test and thought it was a bit rubbish. I didn’t really have strong preferences for a lot of things (much of which came from me being very ambivert) and so […]

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Awesome Foundation Books Career Education email inspiration life Presentation

Engineering an Interesting Life

Abstract: In a world where computing power doubles roughly every two years, the goal is no longer efficiency, but effectiveness. The education system prepares students for efficiency, but to be successful when we go out into the world (or before!) we need rather to learn to be effective. In this workshop, we’ll discuss more useful things […]

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Awesome Foundation inspiration

Awesome Foundation KW Meets Kwartzlab

This week we had yet another amazing pitch night for Awesome Foundation KW. It was a tough decision, but we decided to fund Kwartzlab’s “Hacky Halloween” project. I’m really excited about this project, and I think this paragraph from their blog post shows why: We live in a world of electronics. Learning a simple skill like […]

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Awesome Foundation inspiration life Networking Reflections

Authenticity

My friend AY and I were out for dinner, and we got to talking about authenticity, and correspondingly, inauthenticity. It was interesting, because we were talking about how everyone seems to see through people who are fake, and how it ultimately comes back to bite you. A while ago, I subscribed to this blog, about, […]

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Awesome Foundation inspiration

Why Do You Awesome?

Nathaniel of the soon-to-be-launched Awesome Foundation Seattle wrote a charming post about why he’s excited for it to happen asking people why they are involved in AF. Here’s why I love AWESOME! I was Instigator of Awesome @AwesomeOttawa and am currently a Co-Conspirator @KWAwesomeFound. I’m a software engineer, so I just need a computer and […]

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Awesome Foundation

Awesome Foundation KW

When I was apartment hunting in KW, I went to see the knit the bridge project in nearby Cambridge. It was a really awesome project, and it made me excited to move to KW. The energy I felt here from the first time I visited – coincidentally when Ignite was on – has just been […]

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Awesome Foundation Relocating

Stepping Down from Awesome Ottawa

The last few weeks, I’ve been thinking about what it means to be an Awesome Foundation trustee. Yes, it’s putting our money where our mouths are; not just saying “that would be a cool project” but putting the money on the table to fund it. More than that though, for me it’s been about being […]

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Awesome Foundation inspiration Networking Reflections Relocating

Ottawa, a Love Letter

I received something in the mail last week, and it made me really happy. It was a copy of What Would Google Do? (Amazon) and a hilarious card from the wonderful Ian at the Code Factory. It really made me think about how I changed as a person during the two years I spent in […]

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Awesome Foundation inspiration Organization

In Pursuit of Awesome: The Perils of a Reactionary Workflow

I got an amazing response to my In Pursuit of Awesome post, here and on Geek Feminism. It’s inspired me to write a series of posts where I explore some of the tips I wrote about and related topics in more depth. I ran into my manager from IBM the other week. He gave me some really good […]

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Awesome Foundation Presentation Reflections

In Pursuit of Awesome: The Difference Between a Vision and a Goal

I got an amazing response to my In Pursuit of Awesome post, here and on Geek Feminism. It’s inspired me to write a series of posts where I explore some of the tips I wrote about and related topics in more depth. I don’t have a bucket list. Nor do I have a 5-year plan. I just keep […]