Diem Do

Diem Do grew up in Emmen, a little village in the eastern part of The Netherlands. It’s an area with high unemployment rates. While studying Public Administration, she found out it didn’t make her happy. Because she’d already started her last year, she decided to look for a job anyway. But nothing came up. Further reflection on a possible career path led her in a different direction. ‘I was always interested in IT, but it didn’t feel like I could start a career in that sector. My background wasn’t relevant at all and I never stood out in math class.’

Since every newspaper and job seeking platform was crammed with IT job openings, she thought: I have to do something with this. There are so many opportunities here. I’m gonna learn this. Diem dropped out of college and in the little attic at her parents’ house, started teaching herself the basics of development with online tutorials. Whilst doing so, she realized that she probably wasn’t the only one trying to hack her way into a development career. This insight created an urge to make this bigger, to turn this problem into a solution that could benefit a lot of people careerwise. The idea for CodeGorilla was born. ‘I found out there was so much to gain. Lots of companies - not only in IT - are very old fashioned when it comes to hiring people. Such a shame. Lots of talent and potential never reach the labour market, simply because not everyone is given the same opportunities.’

Every company can benefit from employees with different backgrounds. Go figure. Female programmers? Of course, half of the user group is female! An application developer in Health Care, that has a background in Biomedicine? Makes sense! And how much can a museum gain by hiring an IT specialist, with a degree in History, that digitalizes the archives? ‘We are stuck in that straight forward vision of what a typical developer looks like, while the diagonal perspectives have so much more to offer. Let the IT sector be a true reflection of society. It will benefit everyone, eventually. Not only in regard to politics, but also in regard to the economy.’