Interview with plamena cherneva from wondercoders

Plamena Cherneva from Bulgaria came to Denmark in 2010 to pursue her Master’s degree in Computer Science.

Now she lives in Denmark, where she works as a Business Engineer and runs WonderCoders – an organization aiming to empower, inspire and support women who want to pursue careers in IT.

presented the education in Denmark in such a way that I was inspired to give it a try. I applied at DTU and got accepted for a Master’s degree in Computer Science. I told my parents the night I got the acceptance letter in my mailbox: “So… I think I’m going to Denmark!”

How would you describe your first meeting with the Danish culture?

I was quite overwhelmed. There are a lot of cultural barriers when you move to another country. I didn’t know anyone or anything about Denmark, luckily DTU was really helpful with all matters regarding my relocation. The mentality and language were definitely the most intimidating elements in my encounter with the Danish culture.

How have you worked your way around the Danish language?

Why did you decide to pursue your education in Denmark?

7 years ago, I went to this educational fair at my university in Ruse, Bulgaria. Once a year there’s an event with representatives from universities around the world and I decided to attend, out of curiosity. At the fair I met a student from KEA (Copenhagen School of Design and Technology), who

Well, if you plan to stay in Denmark then you have to speak the language, even though almost everyone here speaks English. There will be a lot more opportunities available for you out there.

After 7 years, I still can’t say that I speak fluent Danish, but I do speak it daily and try improve. Danish language is quite difficult to learn, so my advice is: don’t be afraid to make mistakes, just practice with your Danish colleagues, classmates, whenever you get the opportunity.

Attending language school helps, but it’s not enough if you don’t practice daily.

When I started working after graduation, I was part of a team, where the majority were Danes and most of our clients Danish, so I had to speak the language and

of course it got better, as I used it more often.

How did you get into the IT industry?

I’ve always been very curious and interested in how things work. As a child, I would disassemble items and then assemble them again, only to figure out what is behind and how do they work.

Growing up, I was not the typical girl who liked to play with Barbie dolls – but rather climb trees, read books, play video games and with any tech gadgets. I was very creative, geeky and I had more similar interests with the boys, than the girls my age. I was still into fashion and style, though.

I didn’t fit in fully neither in the girls club, nor the boys. And this is what we want to build with WonderCoders – a place where everyone feels they fit in.

I was always fascinated by technology, which is why I decided to pursue career in the industry.

My parents always referred to me as the “Techie” in the family, but when I told them I was going for a Computer Science education, they didn’t know what that was or how I was going to make a career out of it. For them it was more relatable, if I was to study medicine or similar. They still have no idea what I am doing, but they are very proud, haha.

Why did you start WonderCoders?

It all started when I was studying at DTU. I was the only female among in my program and I was really surprised. This came quite as a shock to me, since I’ve never experienced anything like that in Bulgaria,

where I followed my Bachelor’s in Information technology. We had a balance with almost 50-50 male/female student’s ratio in my class. So I didn’t even realize there is such a thing as “gender gap” in the tech industry, until I moved to Denmark.

In the beginning of my studies here, I felt quite insecure. I felt like I didn’t fit in because I was the only woman in my class.

And it wasn’t for the people or the education itself – It was me feeling that this is not my place.

Learning how to code is no joke, it’s like learning a new language and there were many times where I wanted to quit because I struggled understanding the complicated curricula and was afraid of asking, since I thought it would make me look stupid. And because of the stereotype: If you are a woman, automatically you are not good with technology.

A lot of female students drop out from Computer Science programs during the very first semester of their education because they don't feel they belong there and because of the lack of support.

In my case, I had amazing classmates, all of them male, who helped me a lot during my studies, taught me to be patient, as computer programming can be very frustrating at times, to believe in myself and my skills.

Boys are introduced to technology at early age and the girls – if they are even introduced – get into tech quite late. One of the reasons why we have such imbalance in the industry. And how can you be something, you cannot see? I didn’t have any female role models that I could

look up to, because all my fellow students and all my teachers were male.

That’s why I started WonderCoders – so that aspiring female techies have a community and a sense of belonging in the tech industry. We believe in the power of mentoring and communities. At the end of the day, technology is the future, women make 85% of the buying decisions in tech, and it’s about time to stop being only consumers and start being creators of the future.

So, we have a diversity issue in Denmark?

Yes, I believe so.

How does WonderCoders seek to solve this challenge?

By building a community of people sharing the same interests or going through the same challenges you are, creating a safe place, where everyone feels like they fit in, where you can seek support, motivation and inspiration, where you’re not afraid to ask tech question, because someone may think it’s stupid.

By gathering a critical mass of inspiring female techies, we believe that we can create an environment that fosters innovation and constant learning.

WonderCoders is here to empower women in pursuing careers in techwhether as a software developer, tech entrepreneur, ITPM etc. And show them that technology is not that scary and knowing how to code is not some kind of magic. If I can do it, you can do it, too.

When we started building the community and made the option available, so they

could give it a try, they manage to create things that even they themselves, were amazed by. By featuring and creating role models for the future generations to look up to.

By building coding clubs in different highschols/academies to support female students following Computer science related programs.

By providing group and individual mentoring. It’s important to support the female students from the very first day of school, so they know where to turn to when things get complicated.

How is Denmark doing in the tech industry?

It depends on what element of the tech industry you’re looking at. When it comes to the tech startup industry, things are going really fast and Danish startups are doing very well at the moment. On the other hand, if you look at diversity in the tech industry it’s a different situation. I don’t think that companies in general have understood the problem with diversity nor have they understood the importance of having more women in their teams. You hear a lot about how strong, confident and independent Danish women are, and in these terms Denmark is ranked one of the best countries, but when it comes to diversity in the tech industry, Denmark flunks. For the past 3 years, I have been actively involved in the Danish tech and startup scene and whether as a speaker, facilitator at tech events- as a woman, I am always a minority.

With WonderCoders we’re trying to break away from this tendency and put focus on

increasing the number of female programmers and speakers at tech conferences with different initiatives like SheTech, Coding Sunday and SheTech:Speaker club. Also, we’re trying to pair companies with female tech talents, to help them get ahead in their tech careers, but also help companies diversify their teams. It’s a win-win solution.

What other initiatives could be implemented in order to support women in the tech industry?

Well, technology is here to stay and coding is becoming the most important language to speak. From an early age, I believe that children should be able to understand the basic aspects of computer programming.

Whether they want to pursue a career in tech or not, it is important that they are encouraged and introduced at an early age, so they can make a decision themselves – maybe even teach it in middle schools – that would be pretty cool!

Thanks for sharing, Plamena!