bio
Wording
I’m frequently asked for biography wording, so to make it easier this is provided below in word counts to help suit the required purpose.
Kathy Reid works at the intersection of open source, emerging technologies and technical communities. She has held several technical leadership positions, including roles in web and apps development, video conferencing and digital signage. She was previously Digital Platforms Manager at Deakin University, Director of Developer Relations at Mycroft.AI, President of Linux Australia, and a voice open source specialist at Mozilla. In 2019, she was one of 16 people from across the world to be chosen to help shape a new branch of engineering at the Australian National University's 3A Institute, where she is now a PhD candidate researching voice data and ways to prevent and respond to bias.
Kathy Reid works at the intersection of open source, emerging technologies and technical communities.
Over the last 20 years, she has held several technical leadership positions, including roles in web and apps development, video conferencing and digital signage at Deakin University in Geelong, and more recently has run her own technical consulting busines. She was previously Director of Developer Relations at Mycroft.AI, President of Linux Australia, and a voice open source specialist with Mozilla.
In 2019, she was one of 16 people from across the world chosen to undertake a Masters Program in a brand new branch of engineering at the Australian National University's 3A Institute, where she is now a PhD candidate researching voice data and bias in technologies like speech recognition.
Kathy Reid works at the intersection of open source, emerging technologies and technical communities.
Over the last 20 years, she has held several technical leadership positions, including roles as Digital Platforms and Operations Manager at Deakin University, managing platforms such as WordPress, Drupal, Squiz Matrix and Atlassian Confluence, technical lead on projects involving digital signage and videoconferencing, and has worked as a web and application developer.
More recently, she has run her own technical consulting micro-business, and been engaged on a variety of projects involving data visualisation, certification applications and emerging technologies workshops.
She was previously Director of Developer Relations at Mycroft.AI, an open source voice assistant startup, and President of Linux Australia, Inc, a not for profit organisation which advocates for the use of open source technologies and runs technical events such as Linux Conference Australia. She brought GovHack – the open data hackathon – to Geelong in 2015 and 2016 and in 2011 ran Geelong’s first unconference – BarCampGeelong. Most recently, she worked as a voice open source specialist for Mozilla.
Kathy holds Arts and Science undergraduate degrees from Deakin University and an MBA (Computing) from Charles Sturt University, a Master in Applied Cybernetics (MAppCyber) from Australian National University, as well as several ITIL qualifications.
In 2019, she was one of 16 people from across the world chosen to undertake a Masters Program in a brand new branch of engineering at the Australian National University's 3A Institute, where she is now a PhD candidate researching voice data and ways to prevent and respond to bias in machine learning systems that use voice and speech, like speech recognition.
Headshots
Photography credit should be Donna Squire / Deakin University
Previous speaking engagements
- linux.conf.au 2012, Ballarat – “The Best Software Freedom Day in the world – and how you can have one too“
- Pivot Summit 2016, Geelong – “Jobs of the future”
- Joining the Dots 2017, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute Melbourne – “GEEmap – mapping Geelong’s entrepreneurial ecosystem“
- VAA AGM 2017, Melbourne, “Dystopia, science fiction, women and you“, guest presentation
- VALA Tech Camp 2017, Melbourne, “API Workshop“
- Girls Leading Advanced Manufacturing, Geelong “Your Digital Future“, end of year guest presentation
- Technology Geelong, 2018, “IoT and Big Data masterclass“
- MAVTech18, Geelong, – “From data hacks to Smart Cities” with Matthew Szymczak, City of Greater Geelong
- linux.conf.au 2019, Christchurch – “Beach Wreck Ignition: Challenges in open source voice“
- linux.conf.au 2020, Gold Coast – “Good, better, breast: Building a sensing mastectomy prosthetic with open hardware“
- linux.conf.au 2020, Gold Coast – “Professional quality layout design with Scribus“
- PyConAU 2020, Online – “Ensuring Black Voices Matter: Why your voice assistant is racist, and what we can do about it“