[Applause]
so if you had told me a few years ago
that I’d be standing in front of you
today self-employed and pregnant I would
probably say you were quite insane
bonkers we’re all mad here right but it
just so happens that I am and I stand
here in front of you happily independent
blissfully pregnant and living the kind
of life that I only thought I had dreams
that I would be able to do so where did
I find this rebellious spirit how did I
find my entrepreneurial capability well
I’m gonna blame my mother as we all do
from time to time right so this is my
beautiful mum and one of her favorite
expressions for me is see him off calf
go and do it be yourself see him off so
this is 1973 she’s 21 years old beaming
a smile out of her face because she’s
just landed a job at a car plant run by
British Leyland now British Leyland was
the British state-owned car factories
back in the 70s but you’ll know their
brands Jaguar Land Rover the mini right
so this is like big stuff and one of the
things that I remember her telling me
about this job was that when she got the
offer of the less the letter of the
offer for her job it basically described
to her her pay and conditions for that
position and in that letter there was a
table with how much she was going to be
paid and in that table there were two
columns one mister the rate for men and
the other was the rate for women while I
went online and I found something
reasonably similar well my mom and I
dude the fuss over this for quite some
time and we both came up with the idea
well at least they’re being honest
you know when we get swallowed up with
these ideas of you know nowadays it’s
all the gender pay gap it’s all
unconscious bias this Blarney Blarney
leaning harder this way rah rah when I
worked in the corporate world I was
leaning in so far I was horizontal
I was literally spiritual corporate
planking but it made no difference it
made no difference at all
and around the world right now there are
women who are being paid less than men
for the same work there were women that
are being paid nothing at all it’s still
a huge problem and here in Australia we
have our workplace gender equality
agency and every year they produce a
bunch of statistics that show us just
how far we haven’t quite got yet so this
year the gender pay gap for all
employment across Australia is about
fifteen point three percent if you’re a
full-time worker it’s actually more like
twenty one point three percent which is
the equivalent of about 27,000
Australian dollars per year that women
are earning less than men how many
full-time working women in this room
would like 27 grand right now excellent
I’m not Oprah sorry it’s not actually an
offer but in all seriousness when you
look at the statistics about how we
haven’t changed I actually think they’re
a bigger marker because in the last 20
30 years that gender pay gap has not
statistically significantly changed 20
years ago it was around the 16 percent
mark so it’s that statistic I find
actually tells us more that the law that
we’re putting in really great
legislation we’ve had law from the 60s
the 70s the 80s even as late as 1999
with the equal opportunities for women
in the workplace act here in Australia
we still haven’t made any change
significantly
so maybe the law isn’t the problem
maybe it’s the system that the law is
being applied to that’s the problem now
I work in stem and so women in stem for
example we have this issue that you know
some graduates in STEM careers that
science technology engineering and maths
of this subject matter is about a 50/50
percent graduate ghost about 40% female
60% male and then goes to about 13% at
senior professorial level so you go from
PhD at forty percent to senior profit
around thirteen percent
I call that the gaping jaws of
disappointment graph and it’s just not
getting any better so now we talk about
let’s do 50/50 on boards by 2030 let’s
look at having gender equality by 2050
let’s look at 2100 it’s gonna take 180
years before we actually make any
difference with this stuff and I just
want to know why it can’t be 2017 like
why can’t it be 2017 so glad you’re all
clapping and not booing but there’s one
thing I know about change because I’ve
been living it the last few years
there’s only one thing you need to do
with change and that is actually
instigate it seems quite simple right
well JFK once said conformity is the
jailer of freedom and the enemy of
growth I like JFK he put people on the
moon he had vision right the problem is
all of my life I’ve been taught to
conform I was a good girl I went to
school I got educated I went to
university I studied environmental
science I did a PhD my education has
been my wings’ education is something
that everyone should have a right to to
allow you to reach your full potential
I spent nearly ten years in tertiary
education I then spent nearly ten years
in a corporate job various different
corporate jobs all across the world from
the UK to Australia and in those ten
years in that corporate world they said
all you’re climbing the corporate ladder
but for me it was more of a greasy pole
or maybe barren flat land so you know
you’re working to fill a timesheet on a
Friday with a sense of panic you’re
working so that you can pay your bills
you’re working so that you can just keep
your head above water just
keep your head above water just survive
but we get told to do these things so we
can get mortgages we get told to do
these things so that we can actually
live the life we were supposed to live
well unfortunately for me the corporate
career really didn’t held hold much love
until I fell across something that I
really did get very passionate about and
that is something called drones for good
so one of the things that I have really
enjoyed working in for the last five
years is this idea that you can take
commercial drone technology and apply it
to some of the world’s hardest problems
we can use drones after a cyclone for
example to rescue people to find out
where they are to find out where the
roads are down we can use drones to
monitor power lines so people aren’t put
in danger anymore we’re able to use
drones for pretty much anything that
takes boring long driving or flying or
any kind of activity and I love the fact
that I could take my environmental
science background and my PhD and really
start chewing into this subject matter
and we had some great wins
we did some world-first work here in
Australia that I’m still so proud of and
people haven’t repeated but I had a
problem I was doing this not in an
academic environment I was doing it in a
corporate world and I was also ahead of
everybody so next to these big audacious
goals that I had for what we could use I
was ahead of my peers I was ahead of the
competition I was ahead of my clients I
was too far in front and so I ended up
streaming these ideas into a vacuum
where no one was really listening
couldn’t really relate and it was really
hard work so unfortunately my enthusiasm
started rotting into frustration and
eventually one day I felt a force within
me that I can only describe as when an
immovable object gets hit by an
unstoppable force
I had mentally left the building I had
walked through a one-way door I decided
I didn’t want to keep working in the
system that I had been working in well
what does one do when one decides to
leave everything one has never been
trained to do well my advice to you
there is there’s only one thing you can
rely on that’s actually yourself so for
me I took
brains and I took my brand and I created
a little consulting company but I wanted
more than just to be a replica of the
thing that I just left
so I took my brains and I took my brand
and I took my heart and I took my gut
and I took those gender statistics and I
took those ideas about how I wanted the
world to be a better place and I managed
to find myself on a very windy windy
bumpy road to creating a number of
businesses one of which is called she
flies now she flies is all about what
the world could be rather than what we
think it actually is I co-founded she
flies with dr. Karen Joyce who’s an
incredibly smart scientist who uses
drones to monitor the Great Barrier Reef
hearing Australia up in Queensland so
Karen and I had a good conversation one
day about the drone industry because the
drone industry for me is like the most
egalitarian and accessible technology
that pretty much anyone can get their
hands on how many people in the room
here have a drone great we need more
women putting their hands up for that
one because the first thing that Karen
and I found out when we called across
our global networks was that women make
up fewer than 1% of the commercial drone
industry globally take it to another
level all of the drones that are aimed
at children are very very gender biased
towards boys
there’s no drones that are gender
neutral you don’t have to have drones
covered in pink glitter for them to
actually appeal to girls you just have
to have them not looking like they’re
appealing to boys so Karen and I put our
heads together we try to think what else
can we do and so we went online and
tested the pulse of the internet now if
you go to Google you can actually put
into Google Images not suitable for work
be very careful where you do this drones
and girls you can imagine right lying
underneath them holding them their
skimpy shorts trying to sell them there
are lots sexy for me they don’t have a
uterus the size of a basketball I
currently have you know just lying there
with the drones well anyway the converse
story is if you go and you put drones
and boys you get Father’s Day you get
cool toys you get cool sports to get
search and rescue and so there’s this
massive difference in the narrative that
coming out of the internet and we were
just like that’s not what I do for a
living don’t want people to see that for
a living and so Karen and I decided that
we were going to try and change the
narrative by actually engaging young
women and girls across Australia and so
what we do now is we run camps for girls
and we’ve been running them across
northern Australia we go in to schools
we teach trade teach teachers we train
at parents we even teach boys we’re not
drunk men or gender bias and we’ve been
getting girls into drone technology all
the way across Australia we’ve now
gotten straight instructors based across
Australia and volunteers clawing at us
to try and get involved with what we do
so we get on something values lead
trying to change what we saw was the
problem you see it you own it right and
so the best thing about she flies is now
is we’re going global and so we’re going
to be rolling out across the states and
Europe and across Asia Pacific in 2018
[Music]
she who dares learns and so the biggest
thing for me now is that I have been
able to step outside of the system that
I was finding so constricting I was able
to and you are also able to start your
own businesses based around your own
ideas we can create change from outside
the system that influences the system
people don’t argue with success I know
for a fact in my businesses there is no
gender pay gap you can create change
from the outside in but of all of the
five or six businesses that I’m
currently running there’s one thing that
I’ve noticed that’s key and that is the
most successful ones I have are the ones
are where I’m collaborating with other
people so if there’s one piece of advice
I can give to any of you that are now
thinking about that’s startup that idea
that buzz you’ve got going in your head
that thing that you fear or you want to
change is that if you want to go fast
you go alone but if you want to go far
go together thank you
[Applause]
so if you had told me a few years ago
that I’d be standing in front of you
today self-employed and pregnant I would
probably say you were quite insane
bonkers we’re all mad here right but it
just so happens that I am and I stand
here in front of you happily independent
blissfully pregnant and living the kind
of life that I only thought I had dreams
that I would be able to do so where did
I find this rebellious spirit how did I
find my entrepreneurial capability well
I’m gonna blame my mother as we all do
from time to time right so this is my
beautiful mum and one of her favorite
expressions for me is see him off calf
go and do it be yourself see him off so
this is 1973 she’s 21 years old beaming
a smile out of her face because she’s
just landed a job at a car plant run by
British Leyland now British Leyland was
the British state-owned car factories
back in the 70s but you’ll know their
brands Jaguar Land Rover the mini right
so this is like big stuff and one of the
things that I remember her telling me
about this job was that when she got the
offer of the less the letter of the
offer for her job it basically described
to her her pay and conditions for that
position and in that letter there was a
table with how much she was going to be
paid and in that table there were two
columns one mister the rate for men and
the other was the rate for women while I
went online and I found something
reasonably similar well my mom and I
dude the fuss over this for quite some
time and we both came up with the idea
well at least they’re being honest
you know when we get swallowed up with
these ideas of you know nowadays it’s
all the gender pay gap it’s all
unconscious bias this Blarney Blarney
leaning harder this way rah rah when I
worked in the corporate world I was
leaning in so far I was horizontal
I was literally spiritual corporate
planking but it made no difference it
made no difference at all
and around the world right now there are
women who are being paid less than men
for the same work there were women that
are being paid nothing at all it’s still
a huge problem and here in Australia we
have our workplace gender equality
agency and every year they produce a
bunch of statistics that show us just
how far we haven’t quite got yet so this
year the gender pay gap for all
employment across Australia is about
fifteen point three percent if you’re a
full-time worker it’s actually more like
twenty one point three percent which is
the equivalent of about 27,000
Australian dollars per year that women
are earning less than men how many
full-time working women in this room
would like 27 grand right now excellent
I’m not Oprah sorry it’s not actually an
offer but in all seriousness when you
look at the statistics about how we
haven’t changed I actually think they’re
a bigger marker because in the last 20
30 years that gender pay gap has not
statistically significantly changed 20
years ago it was around the 16 percent
mark so it’s that statistic I find
actually tells us more that the law that
we’re putting in really great
legislation we’ve had law from the 60s
the 70s the 80s even as late as 1999
with the equal opportunities for women
in the workplace act here in Australia
we still haven’t made any change
significantly
so maybe the law isn’t the problem
maybe it’s the system that the law is
being applied to that’s the problem now
I work in stem and so women in stem for
example we have this issue that you know
some graduates in STEM careers that
science technology engineering and maths
of this subject matter is about a 50/50
percent graduate ghost about 40% female
60% male and then goes to about 13% at
senior professorial level so you go from
PhD at forty percent to senior profit
around thirteen percent
I call that the gaping jaws of
disappointment graph and it’s just not
getting any better so now we talk about
let’s do 50/50 on boards by 2030 let’s
look at having gender equality by 2050
let’s look at 2100 it’s gonna take 180
years before we actually make any
difference with this stuff and I just
want to know why it can’t be 2017 like
why can’t it be 2017 so glad you’re all
clapping and not booing but there’s one
thing I know about change because I’ve
been living it the last few years
there’s only one thing you need to do
with change and that is actually
instigate it seems quite simple right
well JFK once said conformity is the
jailer of freedom and the enemy of
growth I like JFK he put people on the
moon he had vision right the problem is
all of my life I’ve been taught to
conform I was a good girl I went to
school I got educated I went to
university I studied environmental
science I did a PhD my education has
been my wings’ education is something
that everyone should have a right to to
allow you to reach your full potential
I spent nearly ten years in tertiary
education I then spent nearly ten years
in a corporate job various different
corporate jobs all across the world from
the UK to Australia and in those ten
years in that corporate world they said
all you’re climbing the corporate ladder
but for me it was more of a greasy pole
or maybe barren flat land so you know
you’re working to fill a timesheet on a
Friday with a sense of panic you’re
working so that you can pay your bills
you’re working so that you can just keep
your head above water just
keep your head above water just survive
but we get told to do these things so we
can get mortgages we get told to do
these things so that we can actually
live the life we were supposed to live
well unfortunately for me the corporate
career really didn’t held hold much love
until I fell across something that I
really did get very passionate about and
that is something called drones for good
so one of the things that I have really
enjoyed working in for the last five
years is this idea that you can take
commercial drone technology and apply it
to some of the world’s hardest problems
we can use drones after a cyclone for
example to rescue people to find out
where they are to find out where the
roads are down we can use drones to
monitor power lines so people aren’t put
in danger anymore we’re able to use
drones for pretty much anything that
takes boring long driving or flying or
any kind of activity and I love the fact
that I could take my environmental
science background and my PhD and really
start chewing into this subject matter
and we had some great wins
we did some world-first work here in
Australia that I’m still so proud of and
people haven’t repeated but I had a
problem I was doing this not in an
academic environment I was doing it in a
corporate world and I was also ahead of
everybody so next to these big audacious
goals that I had for what we could use I
was ahead of my peers I was ahead of the
competition I was ahead of my clients I
was too far in front and so I ended up
streaming these ideas into a vacuum
where no one was really listening
couldn’t really relate and it was really
hard work so unfortunately my enthusiasm
started rotting into frustration and
eventually one day I felt a force within
me that I can only describe as when an
immovable object gets hit by an
unstoppable force
I had mentally left the building I had
walked through a one-way door I decided
I didn’t want to keep working in the
system that I had been working in well
what does one do when one decides to
leave everything one has never been
trained to do well my advice to you
there is there’s only one thing you can
rely on that’s actually yourself so for
me I took
brains and I took my brand and I created
a little consulting company but I wanted
more than just to be a replica of the
thing that I just left
so I took my brains and I took my brand
and I took my heart and I took my gut
and I took those gender statistics and I
took those ideas about how I wanted the
world to be a better place and I managed
to find myself on a very windy windy
bumpy road to creating a number of
businesses one of which is called she
flies now she flies is all about what
the world could be rather than what we
think it actually is I co-founded she
flies with dr. Karen Joyce who’s an
incredibly smart scientist who uses
drones to monitor the Great Barrier Reef
hearing Australia up in Queensland so
Karen and I had a good conversation one
day about the drone industry because the
drone industry for me is like the most
egalitarian and accessible technology
that pretty much anyone can get their
hands on how many people in the room
here have a drone great we need more
women putting their hands up for that
one because the first thing that Karen
and I found out when we called across
our global networks was that women make
up fewer than 1% of the commercial drone
industry globally take it to another
level all of the drones that are aimed
at children are very very gender biased
towards boys
there’s no drones that are gender
neutral you don’t have to have drones
covered in pink glitter for them to
actually appeal to girls you just have
to have them not looking like they’re
appealing to boys so Karen and I put our
heads together we try to think what else
can we do and so we went online and
tested the pulse of the internet now if
you go to Google you can actually put
into Google Images not suitable for work
be very careful where you do this drones
and girls you can imagine right lying
underneath them holding them their
skimpy shorts trying to sell them there
are lots sexy for me they don’t have a
uterus the size of a basketball I
currently have you know just lying there
with the drones well anyway the converse
story is if you go and you put drones
and boys you get Father’s Day you get
cool toys you get cool sports to get
search and rescue and so there’s this
massive difference in the narrative that
coming out of the internet and we were
just like that’s not what I do for a
living don’t want people to see that for
a living and so Karen and I decided that
we were going to try and change the
narrative by actually engaging young
women and girls across Australia and so
what we do now is we run camps for girls
and we’ve been running them across
northern Australia we go in to schools
we teach trade teach teachers we train
at parents we even teach boys we’re not
drunk men or gender bias and we’ve been
getting girls into drone technology all
the way across Australia we’ve now
gotten straight instructors based across
Australia and volunteers clawing at us
to try and get involved with what we do
so we get on something values lead
trying to change what we saw was the
problem you see it you own it right and
so the best thing about she flies is now
is we’re going global and so we’re going
to be rolling out across the states and
Europe and across Asia Pacific in 2018
[Music]
she who dares learns and so the biggest
thing for me now is that I have been
able to step outside of the system that
I was finding so constricting I was able
to and you are also able to start your
own businesses based around your own
ideas we can create change from outside
the system that influences the system
people don’t argue with success I know
for a fact in my businesses there is no
gender pay gap you can create change
from the outside in but of all of the
five or six businesses that I’m
currently running there’s one thing that
I’ve noticed that’s key and that is the
most successful ones I have are the ones
are where I’m collaborating with other
people so if there’s one piece of advice
I can give to any of you that are now
thinking about that’s startup that idea
that buzz you’ve got going in your head
that thing that you fear or you want to
change is that if you want to go fast
you go alone but if you want to go far
go together thank you
[Applause]
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