I’m a hobby farmer. Farming is an adventure where you can have a lot of success and a lot of failures. The failures can either cost your family food or time, or money. I grow between 30 to 40 different crops on a very small scale, but managing all those different ecosystems is very challenging. Every year comes with failures. I’ve had to learn over the seasons what works best.

It’s like working in technology; it’s always changing. Every season there’s a new challenge or something new to forecast for. Is it going to be a wet or sunny year? Did we have a wet or dry spring? All these different factors come into it, and you must adapt.

I am a Smart Hula-Hooper. My hula hoop is an internet of things (IoT) LED hula hoop that creates light images while you’re using it. I use code to make the light modes and the remote control to change the settings. The hoop also gets software updates from the manufacturer when plugged into a PC.

I had a sales coach who told me that I had the gift of gab and that I shouldn’t be afraid of it but rather that I should find power in it and use it to my benefit. Before in my life, I always feared speaking up, especially as a young woman working in tech. This advice helped me find my own and it helped me come into myself as a person and recognize that my opinions matter and what I say has value.