Meet Dr. Jacqui Taylor: “The future of tech is female”.
Dr. Jacqui Taylor is a #15 Most Influential Woman in UK Technology and #21 Most Inspiring Women in Cyber. Dr. Jacqui was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science in recognition of her international web science work on inclusion for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). One of the 250 Founders of Tech City, in 2016 Dr. Jacqui pivoted her company FlyingBinary to meet the challenges of the Metaverse and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) with spectacular results.
Dr. Jacqui is recognised as one of the 100 Global Leaders, is a Top Ten Global IoT innovator, and an independent industry analyst for IIoT. An Expert Advisor to the European Commission in a Fire-Starter role for the Future Digital Economy, with a specific focus on innovation and improving the health and well being outcomes for 450 million citizens. Most influential UK web scientist in 2021, Top 34 IoT Influencers on Twitter. She was also invited to speak in Davos on the future of the Cyber Security Industry.
Globally recognised as a Smart City Tsar, and a Strategic Advisor to the UK Government, Cities lead on Digital Built Britain, Principal UK Expert lead for BSI international team for Technology, Smart Cities and AI. As a Science Diplomat she is working across the world to connect nations with her IoT innovations.
She has recently taken an appointment back in the UK’s Cabinet Office to create the Open Standards for the UK Government and is an Expert Advisor to the United Nations for the 2030 plan.
She has founded the Empathy Economy to share the secrets of her global success plan with entrepreneurs via a unique membership offering. The Empathy Economy Online launches in 2023. She has personally committed to support 1 million entrepreneurs with resources to meet the challenges of a post Isolation Economy and transition them to grow their companies in the IIoT.
Women in Tech Webinar
Dr. Jacqui Taylor kindly supported our first Women in Tech webinar which ran as alive event on Wednesday 7th December 2022. Here are some insights Dr. Jacqui shared.
Zoe: Hi Jacqui, welcome, please can you introduce yourself and your career?
Dr. Jacqui: I’m absolutely delighted to be here and and delighted to see you all. I’m Dr. Jacqui Taylor, I’m CEO, and co-founder of Flying Binary we’re a websites company that changes the world. We dig deep tech and so far we’ve positively impacted over half the world’s population. We have a single mission of inclusion to create and build enabling technology so that we leave no one behind. We founded on that mission in 2009, based on years of research. Our technology industry is structured and the empathy economy was founded in December 2016 when that was not working. And so since we developed this new business model with new approaches and over 10 million entrepreneurs in 172 countries. But it’s my work in the United Nations that really is going to move the needle.
Zoe Haydn Jones: How has the tech industry changed for women over the past 10 to 20 years?
Dr Jacqui Taylor: Well I’ll just jump in with something first to frame what I’m going to say. I don’t do stem. I do steam science technology, engineering, arts, and maths. Because in the industrial Internet of things, the arts is the missing component in the economy. Arguably, you don’t need it, we generally haven’t got it. But in the Empathy Economy and the industrial Internet of things, it’s the differentiator because there’s no human in the loop. So, that’s the first thing I want to clear up. I’m an aerospace engineer. I lost my career having designed revolutionary, new airframe for new engines technology, and came back to the company to find out that there wasn’t a job because the first aircraft were from Saudi Arabia. And they didn’t want a woman on their books online. So my MD was a pilot friend of mine and he said, you could solve a mystery for me, he said you go into that computing department, find out what they’re doing and and what I need to do and what happened was for six weeks? No, software was shipped. And I became part of the team in our aircraft industry and that actually created the software engineering movement.
So I was very much a junior member of that team, but the the reality of it is is if I’d have done what they were doing in computing, planes would have fallen out of sky and we would have deaths on our hands that was not okay.
I’m visually disabled which I believe is my superpower. I’m a dyslexic thinker and the technology we build unlocks that inclusion agenda. And for my entire career, the tech industry’s got worse. As a woman in tech I’ve always done a give back program. I’ve always dedicated time to do things like this Jobs for Women, Women in Tech webinar to encourage, more women to come in. There is a bit of me that says actually know what you’re coming. This is because it’s not a welcoming environment and engineering particularly not. So I’ve largely been the only woman anywhere for the last 40 years that’s done any of this in the rooms I’m in. And when I think about the, the United Nations, 293 member states. And literally, the only woman as well, and EU and not so much G7, but essentially the tech industry has focused too much on what I call shiny and tech has been the outcome. Whereas, for me back to that aircraft that I helped design it was to solve the problem of the noise pollution our aircraft industry was creating in in the UK. So it was a societal initiative. Yes. I got to do all the cool wind tunnel testing and all of that stuff but actually it was about how can our industry think about the impact it has on our population, how can we do better? And that really hasn’t moved on as much as as it needs to be.
I’m predominantly working in this space now because I believe the future of tech is female and I’ve got the data to tell you why that is. The reality of it is, I’ve been physically and verbally attacked. We’ve had IP stolen and some of the ways I’ve been treated are appalling so I’m very aware in encouraging women to come into our industry, it’s important we support them to deal with those situations. It’s not got better, it’s got worse and so really I think that events like this webinar are the key. If you know somebody that can mentor you that’s done what you’re trying to do. Make sure they’re female. I run an event every week on LinkedIn to do that mentoring for free because I’m really aware that access to people like me, is paid generally, and obviously, I’ve got quite a wide global agenda, but I make sure that I put at least two hours this week, three hours to one side to make that happen, the future of tech is female.
Zoe Haydn Jones: Dr Jacqui, you are number 15. most influential woman in UK technology, 21, Most inspiring women in cyber, you were awarded an honorary doctorate of science, and recognition of your international website’s work on inclusion, for the industrial Internet of Things. Do you feel like you’ve got to a point in your career, where you’re finally getting recognised?
Dr Jacqui Taylor: It’s the outcome. It’s not actually making change in our world and it can. So what we should do is be the expert, you should work out what that looks like. In 2018 I spoke on stage at Davos to 3,000 world leaders. And I thought, they’re never going to invite me back. So, I’m gonna make this a good one, and I did. And one of my NATO colleagues, that was in the audience, said, I’ve seen you do some things but when will the ripples stop and they never have.
If I hear the imposter syndrome thing – well, we can’t afford to have that because the women behind us have it, and we need to show how we’ve overcome it. I only found out I was an empath three years ago and that explains an awful lot – now I see what was going on. And when I was writing my 12th book discovered, I was dyslexic because my Japanese interpreter told me. #
I do a weekly mentoring for free and they were like that was just so powerful. I believe I can do it and I think sometimes it’s about that. I never had a lack of belief but I didn’t have the vehicle. The empathy economy was the vehicle technology that enables societal change? What is that and being able to define that? And it’s brilliant because lots of people, don’t believe in it, they’re for profit only great, they’re not my people, they’re not building you know the change.