Women in technology: Fighting inequality starts within yourself

I have always been interested in technology and coding. Understanding technology, to me, is like being able to read or write — it is the foundation which opens up so many opportunities for fascinating work and to make a real impact.

I completed my PhD in computer science at Mannheim University in Germany in the 90s when it was still very much a boys’ club. But I’ve always been comfortable in a male-dominated field, even at high school where most of my classmates were male.

I came to Australia in 1999 to do my postdoctorate for CSIRO, where I contributed to the standardisation and development of WebRTC, which is a web technology that enables video calls in the browser.

My time on this project eventually gave birth to Coviu, a cloud-based video consultation platform for health professionals. We recently participated in CSIRO’s ON Accelerate program, where we were taught how to refine our idea and walked through the process of launching a startup with mentors and experts who had been through it all before.

One crucial part of launching a complex technology startup is securing investment. Investment permits us to scale Coviu and further embed ourselves into the primary healthcare space by partnering with other health systems as an enabler of video consultations. Read more

Sylvia Pfeiffer - SmartCompany-  15 November 2018