What is your professional background?
I always had a passion for software and technology. Back in school I joined the IT interest group, where I worked on setting up school homepages and learned to code basic applications. When I realized that you need more math skills to study Informatics, I shifted down a gear and switched to marketing. After university, I started at Logitech where I was responsible for consumer electronics goods in gaming and home entertainment and from there I moved to Neo4j to dive into enterprise software.
What are you currently doing, what experience do you bring along?
I work for Neo4j as EMEA Marketing manager. Neo4j is the leader in graph database technology. As the provider of the world’s most widely deployed graph database, we help to reveal and predict how people, processes and systems are interrelated. At Neo4j I take care of various marketing activities in different countries in Europe and make sure that the graph message sticks.
I enjoy collaborating with different people of different backgrounds on projects so that I end up getting to see more of the amazing work that is done here.
Do you have a special hobby/passion - what do you like to do most in your free time?
Besides all kinds of technology as a topic I can geek out on, I am a passionate cook and enjoy hiking. I am always ready to try new recipes and have friends over as guinee pigs (they rarely complain 😊). Besides that I enjoy playing games - no matter if it is a video game on PC or console or a good old-fashioned board game with friends together at a table.
Why did you join the project - what motivated you and still inspires you today?
Soon after the project started I heard about it from Alexander Jarasch and started to read some more about it. It sounded very interesting and I was keen on joining the team to see if I can support the project. Working together with the team and seeing how a graph project becomes reality from first ideation was a great insight and an amazing experience for me.
I soak up every article written about the project and get excited and proud every time I see a magazine or blog writing about CovidGraph and highlighting how unique and sophisticated the project is.
Have there been any “uh-huh moments” or surprises during the last months (since the project started)?
Both positive and negative for me.
It was great to see how quickly a core team formed and how passionate everybody involved is about the project even after many months. For me, it was particularly great to see how graph technology can make an impact and really help solve crucial problems.
Unfortunately getting acceptance for funding the project was a much steeper hill to climb. It turned out that even though the acknowledgement of CovidGraph’s benefits was there, the will to fund the project so that it could fully grow into something more wasn’t.
What are the challenges of the project for you?
It seems to be very hard to get medical researchers and doctors to step out of their well-trotten paths to try out new software tools from which they could benefit greatly. Even if the existing tools are a bummer and don’t even achieve what the researchers need, they have such busy schedules and little time to explore new tools that they rather stick with what they know.
