When Stefanie came to the meeting, I was answering an e-mail, so I greeted and asked the first question mechanically, just to start a conversation with a 20-year-old girl who studies Software Engineering at the Technical the University

If you were given a year of time and a budget, what kind of start-up would you build?

A start-up dealing with health insurance. An application to keep track of how much money you have in this fund, what it is spent on, in general, to control your funds in this area.

At this point I put the e-mail aside. It became immediately interesting how at the age of 20 such ideas came to the head of a student.

Why such a business for a start-up? Not a store or bike rental, but health insurance?

I’ve been working as a tester at Noction Moldova for over a year now. When they began to charge me for health insurance, it became interesting to me how to monitor how much money I have there.

I’m curious. You are studying and working. This is in any case a double load. What is the motivation? Money?

Money is important, of course. It’s nice to be independent at 20 years old. Now I can buy clothes for me, go abroad with friends every 2-3 months, and I don't need to ask my parents for money. By the way, although my mother is a teacher and my father is an engineer, it was they who prompted me to study IT. But more important than money is that working I can develop myself as a specialist.

How did you came in Noction Moldova?

A friend of mine worked here, he proposed me to pass the internship in this company. After the internship, I decided that it would be interesting for me to work here. I’ve been working five days a week, six hours a day, so if I add my studies at the University, then there is almost no time left.

Nevertheless, you have joined the TechWomen Program and you are still the Lead Ambassador at Girls Go IT. Do you have enough time for this?

I really want to inspire and motivate girls to study and work in the field of IT. This opens up enormous opportunities for self-development and independence. What could be better than independence?

How will you inspire? With your own example?

Not only. I have recently applied and won a grant to hold a competition for girls in the field of IT start-ups.

And what ideas did you have in the competition?

Twenty-four girls participated. They were divided into seven teams that competed in two sections - hardware and software. The winners of the hardware section made a prototype device that cleans the water surface so that the fish in the pond would not suffer from its pollution. And the winners in the software nomination offered their own version of platforms that are now popular for performing one-time assignments, which makes it possible both to earn extra money and to place one or another assignment for which you are ready to contract a temporary employee.

Was there a continuation of these developments? Or did they remain at the prototype level?

The girls with the platform for work participated in the Hackathon with it.

What are your immediate plans besides studying and career growth?

I think about registering my NGO. I want to continue working for the motivation and development of girls in the field of IT. On the eve of the holidays, you can do without advertising. Only the warmest wishes from the Tekwill team.

Pavel Zingan