Catalysr Mentoring

One of these days, I am going to get back to my pre-COVID levels of posting. But it’s clearly not this year, given that it’s almost finished, and after the New Year’s post, I haven’t made any posts. I do have a big post coming, but I kind of want to get to the end of November before I say anything about what I have been up to for 95% of the time this year.

So let’s talk a little about the 5%. I mentioned in the New Year’s post that last year, I had the honour of joining the Catalysr accelerator with Pontinet. We are still working on Pontinet, but the progress has been slow. In the meantime, I am back on the other side and signed up as a mentor for this year’s cohort.

My photo was also used to advertise this year’s accelerator program. Which was cool. I like that picture too!

So, who am I mentoring? Train of Thought founder Ileana Koumoukelis. The pitch for Train of Thought is “Historically, women carry most of the household tasks. When, Stress, ADHD or Perimenopause are involved - Forget it -- literally, Forget IT... Working Memory is gone-- Disaster - Only 1 in 5, will seek medical help, let that sink in. Only, 1 in 5. It simply, takes too long. Train of Thought is the first Online Training/Community paired with Physical Memory Aids, designed to help fast (3 Weeks/10 min a day). We can't do the tasks. But... We can help: To remember to do it, To reassure it is done and Challenge why it is done. Based on Science and Our Experience Train of Thought, a breath amongst the chaos.”

I used to have a great memory, but age has caught up with me. My memory is deteriorating. So this is a startup trying to solve a problem near and dear to my heart!

I had my first session with her last month, and we will have another session down the track. Our session seems to have gone well, and Ileana produced a short on her main takeaways. I am looking forward to our next session and the improvements Ileana makes to her tech stack!

Welcome 2025!

Wow! It’s already 2025, and I only made two posts in 2024! One of them was the New Year post, which would give the impression that nothing happened in 2024, but in truth, a lot happened in 2024. Mostly not positive.

I would have still posted about the negative things. I am, if nothing else, a natural diary keeper, and I do see this blog more as a record for me to reflect on later down the track. Although being public, it is also here for those who want to know more about what I have been up to and what I am doing. So, let’s reflect on everything that happened in 2024 and what that means for 2025.

For much of 2024, I was quite sick. The underlying cause is Uterine fibroids that manifest in multiple debilitating symptoms, including extreme exhaustion due to anaemia. However, after much trial and error, I was put on Ryeqo, which is an extremely new and expensive medication designed specifically for uterine fibroids. It’s helped me get many of the symptoms addressed. But I was still extremely exhausted all the time.

I also had bouts of unexplained fevers and a whole bunch of other things. So my GP ordered a whole range of tests, echocardiograms, breath tests and a whole bunch of other things. But it all came back normal EXCEPT my glucose. I have diabetes. A diagnosis so anticlimactic after everything that I went through that I am frankly a bit annoyed.

I was never pre-diabetic. I think my anaemia masked the symptoms of diabetes as they are similar. So, I have no idea how long I have had diabetes. But since October, my diabetes has been managed. Unfortunately, Ryeqo increases the chances of blood clots in people with diabetes. However, the tablets have been such a game-changer that I am happy to risk the increased chance of blood clots.

So that was the big thing on a personal front, but since it's health-related, it affected everything, including my work, which did not go well in 2024 because Kyco Australia has been liquidated. I finished up my last duties as the Chief Technology Officer on the 5th of December 2024 when I shut down the last of our IT infrastructure. So that book is closed.

At some point, I will probably write another post reflecting on my time at Kyco. But it got messy and litigious by the time everything was said and done. So, I am unsure how much I could or couldn’t make public. But I will reflect and put something together that will hopefully not get me sued!

With Kyco closed, I am looking for my next adventure. To that end, I decided to do two further short courses with RMIT University to consolidate my project management knowledge. I already talked about doing Project Management for Professionals during the first half of last year. Then, during the second half, I took the digital project management bundle with Digital Delivery with Agile. After that, Agile Project Management.

I am not sure how I got through Digital Delivery with Agile because I was so unwell during it. I thought I could power through Agile Project Management, but I actually had to take a medical deferment. So I literally ended up finishing the Agile Project Management course in December, getting my badge on the 2nd of January this year!

I have previously included the videos I produced for these courses as part of these posts. However, I was so out of it for Digital Delivery with Agile and so stressed to get everything done for Agile Project Management that these were not my best work. Still, the courses did what I wanted. I was able to verify my experience and knowledge. I also learned a few things I hadn’t had to use yet. All in all, I feel like I updated my knowledge base and closed some skill gaps.

Presenting for PontiNet at Catalysr Accelerator Demo Day

So what’s next? Well, even before Kyco was put into liquidation, I started to work with Dr Jonathan Chernilo on Pontinet. Pontinet is a social enterprise that aims to improve access to Specialists in underserved communities.

It’s a cause I am invested in, given I have seen how underserved folks in places like Bangladesh are outside of the capital. But the venture is in very early stages.

That’s why it was a great honour to be included in the 2024 cohort for the Catalysr accelerator for migrants and refugees. I have previously worked with Catalysr as a chapter lead for their pre-accelerator program and as an IT mentor. But this time, I was on the other side as a participant. My co-founder Jonathan had to take the lead in relation to the accelerator program as a lot of it overlapped when I was at my lowest healthwise. But I ended up presenting on my own at Demo Day in Melbourne in December as Jonathan had to be in Europe.

It was a great day, and I am glad I could finish such a challenging year on a somewhat high note as I look forward to the future and what 2025 brings!

Tinni in Japan!

A lot of things have happened in the first 4+ months of this year. Including my trip to Japan!

Before going to Japan, I undertook a six-week course on Project Management for Professionals with RMIT. I have been doing project management for the last 10 years, but I felt that it was good to do a formal course to plug any gaps in my skills.

This is the second short course I took at RMIT. Two years ago, I completed a course on Business Analysis to consolidate my knowledge on that front. But unlike last time, we had to bring our own project to manage for this course.

Most of my current projects have an element of confidentiality and were not suited to the waterfall management methodology we were supposed to apply. So, instead, I did my final assessment on a planning project for my trip to Japan!

I had to submit the project a week early because of my planned trip since the last two weeks of the course overlapped with my trip. So literally the day before I was flying off, I was finalising the documents and recording the presentation.

I got the results back shortly after the Easter holidays, and I, unfortunately, had to redo the budget sections to demonstrate more clearly that I knew what I was doing. So that sucked, but I redid the project schedule and other documents and re-recorded the presentation. And I passed!

Tinni in Japan

In between my RMIT submissions, I, of course, went to Japan to try and catch some cherry blossoms! I succeeded to an extent, but the bulk of the blooms were delayed due to the weather still being wet and cold.

I had a lot of fun. I experienced a Tokyo earthquake and missed my flight on the last day because of how much fun I was having. I spent way too much money, but now I am back!

I am glad to get a bucket list item of seeing the Sakura bloom in Japan, checked off and now on to the next thing!

New Year, New Me... because I got COVID!

So I actually googled “How long can you see Happy New Year” for this post because it’s already the 26th of January!

The answer seems to be that after the first week, the greeting sort of wanes. Well, in my defence, I spent the first week of 2024 suffering from COVID! I managed to avoid it for almost four years, but I attended one board game day with my brother, and suddenly, I had COVID!

Good thing I was vaxxed. I can’t imagine how much worse it would be if I wasn’t vaccinated. Unfortunately, I still have a cough, and some of my friends have said that cough might last for awhile. I hope not because it hurts to cough!

Anyway, I am getting better and ready to face 2024. It is going to be a year of change, no matter what. Hopefully, I will be back to 100% soon and so I will be able to face what the year brings without much issue.

New Year, Still Me!

Happy New Year to all, and to all, a sincere wish for prosperity. 2022 was a year of great uncertainty for us all, and I don’t foresee a lot of stability in 2023. All we can do is think carefully, plan well and do our best!

For the immediate future, I am looking forward to the upcoming launch of the Kyco advertising campaign and the upcoming Kyco information webinars. We have a lot of things planned, and I am looking forward to helping make them a reality.

I am still keen to reboot my podcast, especially since I think I can add value to people looking to switch careers, plan their education and other next steps in a recessionary environment. But beyond that, I am keen to take things a day at a time!