Microsoft Reactor

The prevalence of technology in the world is growing every day, and with it grows the need for more and more tech savvy engineers to build the tech of the future.

Come along to hear from our next-generation tech experts Isabella (16) and Sam (17) Hogan, about their learning journey with coding and see some of the stuff they built along the way. Get their perspective on what it's like to learn to code in school, and how we can help more students get involved with technology.

We'll be taking questions from the audience, so think about what you want to ask these talented techy teens on the topic of setting the next generation of coders up for success!

Your Speakers
Renee Noble

Renee is the Regional Cloud Advocate for the Sydney Reactor and the Australia region. She's passionate about technology, education, community, and bringing them all together in-person and online.

A self-proclaimed "Jane of all trades", Renee has worked in sectors across tech, outreach, and education. She's worked in ML and web development in the past, dabbles in embedded tech, and is always keen to learn more!

Renee is a passionate women in tech advocate, spending her spare time leading the Girls' Programming Network to support women and girls in tech. She also teaches CS in a high school and runs her own business, ConnectEd Code, working to bring exciting coding opportunities to kids and teachers.

Beside teaching and tech she loves swing dancing, cats, and having a ridiculous number of plants

Sam Hogan

Sam is a 17 year old student doing Year 12 at Bradfield Senior College. He started learning coding Python at around 8 years old, and has been hooked ever since, taking a strong interest in computers and how they work, and learning more languages for school or fun. He has presented at the student showcase for PyconAu twice, and loves to fiddle around with strange projects in his free time.Other than mucking around with computers Sam enjoys excellent socks, hiking and bouldering and is obsessed with music - almost all of it.

Isabella Hogan

Isabella is 16 and going into Year 11 this year at Concord High School. She has been programming since she was 7 years old starting with Python. She aims to do software engineering at the University of Sydney after finishing the HSC. She has some experience with Javascript and Web Development but finds JS challenging. She enjoys art, music, and baking. She likes coding because she feels that it is a very broad field, so she can accomplish a range of projects from machine learning to image manipulation to animated web games.