Inspiring Women: Julissa Mateo

Meet Julissa Mateo—Managing Partner of STEMería Maker Space and founder of the Mujeres Tics community.

Continuing with our initiative to interview outstanding women in technology, #WomenInpiringPeople, this time we will meet Julissa Mateo.

Meet Julissa Mateo

A Dominican Managing Partner of the company STEMería Maker Space, Julissa is an Information Technology and Communications Engineer graduated from the Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE) in the Dominican Republic.

She founded the Mujeres Tics community, which is the largest community of girls in technology in the Dominican Republic. Through this community, Julissa is responsible for motivating other women to continue contributing to the creation and development of systems that improve people’s quality of life.

She was introduced to technology at the age of 14, but at the time she didn’t like it. As she grew older and saw the wonderful things you can build, she learned to love technology.

Julissa has been awarded with different prizes that make her an example of overcoming struggle and professional improvement. Among these prizes is her recognition as Wonder Woman by the elDinero newspaper and as an Outstanding Young Person by the Santo Domingo Este City Council. She has won hackathons internationally and has also been a speaker, mentor and organizer of conferences around the world—on topics such as digital transformation, gender equity, female inclusion in tech, programming, data, among many others that this superwoman gives us!

In this interview, Julissa shares with us some important tips that could work for you, who are reading this post, to continue being successful!

Julissa, tell us a phrase that describes you as a professional.

As a digital transformation consultant, I lead transformation through people, their processes and technology, which ultimately results in improvement outside and inside.

Define what technology is for you in a word.

“Transformation.”

Tell us some curious information about yourself that you want to share with us.

Learning new languages and walking with my dog, Lola, are among my favorite pastimes. I also like the outdoors and disconnect from time to time in the countryside to appreciate what I have experienced even during challenging times.

In your tech career, what has been your biggest challenge? Could you share with us a bit?

At the beginning of my career, one of the biggest challenges I faced was overcoming my fear of change, not feeling part of the tech industry or, in other words, feeling that it was so vast that I had no way of learning everything I desired before I would begin to work on what I liked. I had to start overcoming my own fear and become comfortable with making mistakes and learning as I went.

What learning did that challenge leave you?

Understanding that not everybody at the beginning has all the knowledge and that we need to be consistent to see progress. My fear was just a fear, and—I’m not lying to you—sometimes the great changes that this career makes make me scared, but I am ready to face them, learning to love the new beginnings.

What would you recommend to a person who is undecided whether or not to start a career in STEM?

If you are still unsure about whether this is for you, spend some time learning about different parts of technology through a movie or YouTube video. See people already working in this career field, see how their work impacts society and economy, and I recommend talking to some people already participating in this race and asking anything you are concerned about or having doubts about.

When you decide to enter STEM, you will be able to change many aspects of what we do today for the better, as this career is transversal. So no matter whether you want to be a doctor, lawyer, police officer or even an astronaut, you can use your STEM knowledge to excel in all of these fields.

Give us a tip for people who are currently working in STEM.

You are on the other side—you have already traveled a path of becoming a tech enabler—and it is time to use your knowledge in a project that excites you. We are at the perfect moment to create the future. We can help our families, communities, countries and so on. Spend a few hours volunteering in something that you are passionate about and put your skills to work in the service of others. This allows you to improve and perfect all that you have already learned, thus improving your career prospects.

What advice would you give to a person who wants to have a successful profile like yours?

I recommend that you be persistent in what you want, that you give your ideas time to mature, that you try to see how what you enjoy fits into what you are deciding on, and, at the same time, try to use as little time as possible to experiment with new things and see if you want to pivot into something new or stay where you feel comfortable. Trying to locate a role model, contacting that person and finding out what challenges they’ve faced in that career, how they overcame them and how you can follow in their footsteps sounds almost impossible and challenging. But it’s possible. Most people are available either through LinkedIn, Instagram or a common contact. So don’t be afraid—write to them when you are ready to take their recommendations seriously.

Finally, I would like you to give some advice to readers on how you organize your time, especially when you have large projects and with a high profile like yours.

I like to make notes the day before of the five most important things that I need to accomplish the next day. These can be tasks, calls that I need to make or even moments to rest when it is a difficult week. The process is repeated on Sundays, but in this list I place the tasks I have to accomplish in the week. I never put an exaggerated number of tasks to be able to complete them all.

During the week, as more ideas come to me, I write them down on paper. I admit that I am a technophile, but I still try to keep my ideas to paper and pencil.

Wrapping Up

Did you like the interview? You can follow her on LinkedIn.

Don’t forget these great tips from Julissa. I hope you enjoyed and are inspired by this interview! See you in the next article! 💚💕