While Renee always loved science and maths she had no idea what coding was during school. It was once she got to university that she stumbled across computer science and realised that was what she wanted to do and what she was particularly good at, so she added it to her degree engineering/science degree.

Renee enjoyed a career as a software engineer working in a variety of industries; from manufacturing, to bioninformatics to machine learning, but her true passion was found in education technology making coding education available online.

While working as a software engineer during the week, Renee spent her weekends involved with outreach to make coding education accessible and approachable to girls. As the National Director of the Girls’ Programming Network she spent 5 years transforming the the program from a small single site operation teaching 150 girls a year to a national program teaching 1500 girls across the country. She’s now renowned around Australia for her pedagogical approach, project-driven learning materials, and making technology accessible to students and teachers.

But students always asked “what’s next” and “what can I do until the next workshop”, whilst teachers would ask how they can use her approach in the classroom. From there Renee looked at what she could do with her knowledge of technology and education, her network of passionate educators and her passion to make coding accessible to everyone. From here she founded ConnectEd Code in 2020 with the aim to connect coding with context, communities and curriculum to make coding achievable and fun for students and teachers.

Along Renee’s journey she’s attracted a few acclaims such as being listed on the AFR 100 Women of Influence, ICT Educators NSW Leader of the Year, Women’s Weekly's 9 Women of the Future, and Create magazines emerging women in engineering.