"I want to encourage and inspire women to code!” says Vanja Tufvesson, recently named Chief Technology Officier (CTO) at Tengai AB. She is the co-founder of the female-focused community Pink Programming and in 2019 earned the title “Female Founder” by established Swedish magazine DI Digital. The Tengai-team is excited to have Vanja on board and here is a chance to get to know her better!
Tengai AB is expanding internationally and the first person to join the team is Vanja Tufvesson, who will facilitate Tengai’s technical development.
“I am very passionate about diversity, equality, and inclusion, and feel like Tengai’s purpose really aligns with my personal values! To be the first in the world to work on a robot-like Tengai feels so cool! I also love working in a startup environment that is intense and creative. Altogether, I felt like this is a perfect match for me!”
“Throughout my carrier, I have worked in consultancy and as a software developer, which has given me a broad technical skillset. My involvement has been in many different areas, in small and big companies, using a bunch of different programming languages and techniques. Working with Tengai will require that I use a lot of different skills and my broad experience will help me to understand the complete picture. I am interested in both technology, developing the company and in team-building. In addition, I hope my knowledge and involvement will get Tengai to its goals during this start-up phase.”
“I also learned a lot as a co-founder at Pink Programming, which today is Sweden’s biggest female coding community where women can learn and develop their coding skills. The most recent professional commitment I had was as a Backend Developer at online health startup Engaging Care. Together with my colleagues, we developed a working MVP (minimum viable product) from scratch in less than six months. This experience taught me invaluable lessons not only around technology but about creating a functional development process and making priorities and take decisions.”
“Only 20% of all the programmers in Sweden are women. And only ONE percent of CTOs at startups in Scandinavia are women… There are many factors that together create this unequal environment. And yes it does affect the outcome of the product. So to me, ethical algorithms and unbiased code will be crucial as we move along in the development phase.
I am constantly working on changing that stereotype by inspiring women to start coding and educate to create awareness. I want to see more diversity among software developers. And in the tech industry in general, and also in my team. I hope that my work with Tengai is a step in the right direction. And that robot technology can be an example of how we can create change through AI. Which is very exciting!”
“Being this early in the process I feel like I would limit the possibilities if I articulate where Tengai will be in a couple of years. But I do think we have a product that can be extremely successful and competitive in the recruitment market. I am picturing a future where Tengai is available in different languages and can be effective around the world. And we have an amazing team and a company culture that is inspiring and fun. That is important to me! I am envisioning a busy future for Tengai that will require a lot of work, so it is important to have fun along the way!”