What is your story? How did you get to where you are today?

I’ll start off by saying RPA really did fall into my lap, but to give you a full background, it all started when I was in university. I got a science degree, so it really didn’t have anything to do with technology by any means. However, I did do a couple of classes in computer science, and I really enjoyed them. I was going to switch majors because of this but seeing as though I was two thirds away from my degree, I couldn’t change it. This is when I really started gaining an interest in technology. With my elective classes and doing more research, I started trying new things, learning new subjects – I really wanted to dive headfirst into this world. Once I graduated university, the pandemic hit and I was exploring my options, trying to see where I could fit and find a place where I could explore my technology interests freely. Then, I stumbled upon Reveal Group! Their business philosophy and the company as a whole really spoke to me – it reminded me of the passion I felt when doing my computer science elective courses. The work that I do here within RG almost felt like I was playing a video game; you’re enjoying the experience so much that you don’t realize how much time passes! Being in this zone is what I find happens a lot when I’m developing solutions or just working on a project. It’s nice to feel like I’m making an impact while enjoying it at the same time.

I will note that in a past life, I was a ski instructor. I love skiing in America and can’t wait to get back over there, hit the slopes, and say hi to my fellow US Revealers in the future!

What are some of the most exciting automation projects you have worked on?

I have worked on one that I found to be extremely intriguing although it was also the shortest one I worked on (only two weeks) – I wish I could go back! It was an implementation project where we created an automation to reduce the manual processing time of nurses in a COVID vaccination clinic. This was around the time last year (2021) when the COVID vaccines were coming to Australia. There wasn’t a huge rush on vaccine needs as COVID cases spiked over here later on. As the vaccination drive started in ernst and it became more prevalent, I felt very proud of the work we were doing. It felt great to know we were helping these nurses who were under pressure to vaccinate a huge amount of people in a short time span. In the technical sense, the automation we utilized was copying data from one system to the other; otherwise the nurses had to type out all of the patients’ personal information and check through the patients forms. Our bot automatically filled out the personal information and check list forms for the nurses. It allowed them to spend their valuable time vaccinating other patients or focusing on any other higher priorities they had. It was also a great example of working efficiently with their teams by setting up the automation software in a short time span, and then seeing how successful the software is for months, even years down the line. It doesn’t need to be a headline grabbing project. I feel we all are just wanting to share our wealth of RPA knowledge to any company, within any industry.

Are there any common misconceptions about adopting automation in the workplace?

You know I was actually thinking about this question earlier this morning and I thought to myself, “Am I really going to give the stock answer of how we get rid of jobs?” because I knew how everyone has probably given that answer. But in my experience so far, all of the projects I’ve worked on have really highlighted that it doesn’t necessarily have to be automation that costs jobs; every automation that I’ve done so far has been done in concert with one person or a team of people to complete this mundane task everyday and it’s not taking away time from them. It’s not taking away their jobs, its freeing up time for them to focus on more pressing matters, or just more time for them personally. I think that is the dream when people implement automation; having more free time to focus on items you want to indulge in or want to enjoy!

What advice would you give someone looking into a career in Intelligent Automation?

Okay here’s my main advice for those of you reading this: you should do your research and choose one tool that you want to become an expert in. I would advise this to anyone starting in any sort of career as well but specifically for RPA. There are a lot of options out there and so many potential roads your career can go down. In this industry, there are a lot of big players in the game and they all want you to use their specific tool because they want you to be able to sell their tool. If you try to appease everyone, you run the risk of stretching yourself too thin and not being at the forefront of the newest automation tools. You want to be the master of one instead the jack of all trades. Flowing into this, my additional advice would be for you to keep up-to-date with the latest industry news in terms of product offerings of the major players. There’s constant room for growth and new enhancements pop up all the time so if you consistently have exposure and knowledge of these new updates, you’ll absolutely stand out amongst the competition.

What are the driving forces that keep you intertwined in the automation space?

Being a part of an industry that is moving rapidly and is fairly new to the market are the two main forces keeping my interests way up. I really enjoy the fact this industry has the potential to free up people from tasks that are draining to them and allowing them to focus more on their career goals and making a personal impact in the world. The future of the work force is headed straight towards automation processing and it’s not slowing down anytime soon. It’s similar to a utopian view but one can only hope that it frees up everyone to be able to do whatever they want to do in this life. Being able to focus on what makes us unique and what increases our hearts rates in a career aspect is the ideal scenario I would want for the future generations. RPA is only the beginning of this uphill swing.

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