4. Who has been the most influential person in your life? Why?
My mother has been the most influential person in my life. She was
the first one in an immigrant family to get a college degree, and her value
system involves integrity, hard work, and education. She worked as a
teacher part-time and full-time during my childhood. She taught office
skills such as shorthand and typing, and I remember when she first starting
learning BASIC programming in the 1980's because she recognized that
computers were becoming more and more a part of office skills.
5. What lessons have you learned that would be valuable to women beginning their careers in technology?
My advice is as follows:
- Consider doing a technical degree and an MBA while you are young,
and have less responsibilities.
- Ask your manager to develop a career plan with you and to identify
the necessary next steps towards your progression.
- Negotiate your compensation plan to ensure that you get paid the
same that a man would make for doing the same job.
6. What new technology do you believe will have the most positive impact on the world in the next 20 years? The most negative impact?
The technologies that will have the most positive effect will be
technologies that link everything together - whether that is geographies,
disparate systems, home and office, data across the Internet, or otherwise.
The technologies that scare me the most are data mining and profiling
technologies and databases. This type of work and these technologies make
me want to pay cash for everything I buy!
Kara Kapczynski answers these questions:
1. What was your first job in technology?
2. Who has been your most significant mentor? Why?
3. What has been your greatest challenge and what strategies
did you use to overcome obstacles?
4. Who has been the most influential person in your life?
Why?
5. What lessons have you learned that would be valuable to
women beginning their careers in technology?
6. What new technology do you believe will have the most positive
impact on the world in the next 20 years? The most negative impact?
On the lighter side:
1. If you could have dinner with any 2 people (living or not),
who would they be?
2. What was the last book you read? What books do you love to recommend?
3. If you couldn't do what you are doing now, what profession would you choose?
4. What is your definition of success?
