Fellow Profile: Danielle Hill

| MSNY Staff

Danielle HillWhere are you from?: I’m from Brooklyn, New York. Fort Greene to be precise. Now I live in Crown Heights. It seems like everyone on our team is from the city!

Where do you study? When will you graduate?: I graduated from LaGuardia High School a year ago as a visual arts major (it’s a performing arts school). I studied painting, color theory, anatomy, and illustration. If it was art related, I was involved.

Were you always interested in tech?: I first became involved in technology through a program called CodeNow that I found out about during my Junior year. They’re an organization that has summer fellowships and workshops designed to get high school kids programming. And in my case, they very much succeeded. I fell in love. Back at school I even started a programming club! Once I had graduated and decided to take a gap year from NYU, I ended up taking a six month course at the Flatiron School to continue learning to code.

And that’s how you ended up with the Civic Tech team?: Exactly. Frankly though, I didn’t know about the team until they offered me an interview! I’d never heard about civic technology before then. So I did some research, which confused me. There’s no real definition of civic tech! Most of the definitions I’d read would say something like “it’s good.” Which now of course I realize is kind of the point. It’s any tech which is good for society at large, which, when you think about it, is almost everything! Once I realized that, I was hooked.

What projects are you working on with the team?: I started out working on the Civic Graph. I did a lot of the front end and styling work. I’ve recently finished working with Saron and Ashley on the team to build out the Tech Jobs Academy website. It’s really cool hearing from so many people that they love what you’ve built. Working on this almost feels like I’m going back to my roots as head of the programming club! It feels great to be a part of something that will get more people coding in NYC. As of right now, I am working on a tool aimed at helping professors and teachers to be able to incorporate civic tech within their curriculum.

What is your favorite Microsoft technology? What development excites you the most?: Definitely Skype and Skype Translator. I’ve been a Skype user for a long time so that has to be my favorite product. Great user experience. The translator though….that thing is science fiction! It’s been great getting to work with that and seeing what we can build with it. Just seeing a short conversation was enough to convince me that that is going to be truly transformational. I can’t wait to see what comes of it.

What issues are you most passionate about?: Getting more people involved in coding and technology more generally. Which is why working on Tech Jobs Academy has been so gratifying!

What’s a crazy invention you would like to see made?: Oh wow, how much time do you have? Flying cars, invisibility cloaks….On a serious note I have this side project I’ve been working on which would basically be an Uber for tour guides. Essentially, you go to a city, open the app, and hire a local nearby to show you around!

What do you plan to do after this fellowship?: I would like to work for a couple more years before I go back to school, as I would like to save up enough to avoid future student loan debt. I plan on continuing my learning and growing my skills by experimenting heavily with different languages.

What has been your funniest experience on the team so far?: Probably the Tree Count on the first day. I was so anxious about what we’d be working on, getting set up, getting into the swing of things. Nope, we spent the day outside hugging trees. It was a big and pleasant surprise!

And finally, how would you find yourself on Bing without using your name?: Psh, that’s easy. Artist. Programmer. Flatiron School.

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