Hi Carmen and thank you for your time and the chance to hear a bit more from you and your talk on “Neural Nets and Machine Learning over a big jar of Skittles” at the JS Kongress in Munich. Can you tell our audience a bit about yourself, your passion, what motivates you and your everyday work?
Thank you very much for having me!
Sooo…I am Carmen :). I work as a front-end developer and I am currently based in Amsterdam. I am also a dancer and choreographer, but that’s something I only do in my spare time anymore. Since a while I have become very interested in Neural Nets and Machine Learning, which is why, right now, most of my spare time goes into studying and working on that. I think it is an amazing field and I have a lot of respect and admiration for those who work and innovate in it. It is my dream to be able to one day make a contribution to some of this work. That would make me very happy 🙂
Munich is known as one of the most beautiful cities in europe and with the Alte Kongresshalle we secured us a very unique venue, is it your first visit in Munich or do you travel extensively?
Yes, I do travel quite a lot. It is one of my favourite things! Some of my friends call me a world traveller, which is partially true. But no matter how much I enjoy travelling, one of the most important things for me still remains having a home to come back to.
As for Munich, this is the second time I visit it, but first trip happened a long time ago, so I am very curious to discover it all over again.
What encourages you to give talks at conferences, is there any special Reason why you applied for the call for papers at the JS Kongress?
Talks are a great learning resource not just for those attending the talks, but also for those giving them. I have learned a tremendous amount of things just by preparing mine. And in this particular case, the topic I’m presenting is something that I am incredibly excited about, which makes me even more eager to share it with everybody.
However, I think giving talks is, or should be, ultimately, about helping and inspiring other people. If we as speakers can do that, then we probably did something right.
JS Kongress is trying to go ahead of other conferences by switching the focus from Web and Mobile to Games, Hardware & Web. Do you believe there is a future of JavaScript outside of the Browser?
Absolutely! …and we have so much to prove that. I have a few friends who are doing amazing things by combining JS and Hardware for instance, and that is so great to see! Uri Shaked is one of my personal heroes in this regard ^.^
Many JavaScript Projects are Open Source and “made with love” what is in your opinion the best Part about JavaScript, what do you enjoy the most about JavaScript?
You’ll probably laugh about this one, but the thing I enjoy the most is JS itself. I still have lots of fun writing Javascript code, every single day. Maybe it’s nostalgia, since it’s the language I started my career with, or maybe it’s my comfort zone, or both…. All I can say is that, to this day, coding JS and discovering small bits and pieces of the language during my every day work, is fun
What will be the major benefit hearing your talk, what will the audience take home from your words?
One thing I’m hoping to bring across and have people take with them is the excitement and enthusiasm. And not just for Neural Nets and Machine Learning, though it would be great if that happened! But for technology and computer science in general. CS is such an extraordinary science, that allows us to shape and build amazing things, and I’d be happy if I could inspire others to see that too.
Thank you very much for your time, Carmen!
We’re looking forward to meet you soon in Munich!?
We got your interest? Take a look at the full schedule and join us before it’s to late!
