Meet The Code BEAM V America Program Committee

Short bio - please tell us your background including any noteworthy achievements or career highlights that you’re happy to share.  

Anna Neyzberg is a San Francisco native who has done a lot of work in the ruby community in SF and sat on the board of RailsBridg. She has taken this community organizing experience and several years ago co-founded ElixirBridge in SF- an organization that offers free weekend long workshops, with the goal of creating an inclusive welcoming space for underrepresented populations in tech to learn elixir. By day she works as a Senior Developer at Carbon Five. When not in front of a keyboard, she is trying to get better at climbing rocks.

Why do you love the BEAM - briefly re-share why you love using Erlang or Elixir.

From pattern matching to OTP - Elixir gives us the tools to become better developers. Elixir does not solve the problems posed by developing distributed systems - but it does provide the tools (thanks to Erlang) to make building such systems much more accessible. 

Why are you excited to be on the Code BEAM program committee?

This conference always brings together an incredible group of speakers that have interesting and insightful things to share about working within the Erlang and Elixir ecosystems. I am always excited to see what each year holds. 

Code BEAM is committed to encouraging diversity and inclusion in the tech community - what are your thoughts on this important issue?

I think that being committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion is imperative in the tech community. A mentor of mine once said they believe that “someone may have finite knowledge but infinite potential. And just because someone doesn’t know something now does not mean they will not know it in the future”.  I agree with this. Everyone deserves to have access. And everyone who already has access to the industry needs to do their part to make sure that folks that don’t have access can gain access. 

What excites you about this edition of Code BEAM? What opportunities do you think the virtual format may bring?

I am really excited about the virtual format because it allows for so much more accessibility. While I know we all love to gather in person - I am excited that folks from all over the world will be able to attend.

Bonus questions

What are your must-haves for a working environment that is conducive to writing great code?

The most important thing for such an environment is a collaborative team that communicates well. I believe that writing code is all about getting people to communicate and collaborate effectively to bring an idea to reality. 

What tech innovation will have the biggest influence on our lives in the next 10 to 20 years? - I don’t think we know what that is yet.  I think we will continue to see huge issues in the world due to a warming climate and access to clean water - and we will be forced to reckon with and try and solve some of these challenges.

Apple or Android? -Apple

What career advice would you give to your 18-year-old self? - Don’t sweat the small stuff so much. Even if something is hard and you don’t get the result you want initially, keep at it. It will eventually pay off.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT CODE BEAM V AMERICA 10-12 MARCH 2021