Public Transport Reviews: Bus Éireann

This is the third installment in a four-part series about my experiences of public transport in Ireland. Yesterday I reviewed the train, day before the Luas, today Bus Éireann and the next day Dublin Bus. I won't be reviewing the DART because I haven't been on it enough to make a fair judgement. Each mode of transport will be reviewed under six criteria: comfort, speed, reach, ease of use, facilities and cost for a total of 30 possible marks.

I don't use the bus much anymore, but I used to use it every time I went up to Dublin, and I took a lot of buses for work experience. So I know buses very well, probably on par with trains.

Comfort

Buses are pretty mediocre on comfort. The seats are okay, a bit cramped, and it's nice that you're never in a backwards-facing seat (this can be disorientating on trains). Also, people aren't allowed stand and bus drivers will just turn people away from an oversubscribed bus, so it's less packed. But there's less space, no tables and less luxury than on a train. And the seats are less comfortable so it's hard to sleep. Also, since the bus goes on the road like any other car, the ride can be bumpy. It's pretty cosy though.

Rating: 3/5

Speed

Buses are slow, in my experience. Especially since they have to stop in traffic, while trains and the Luas don't. Around the same speed as trains, judging by how long it takes to get to Dublin, but the ride's not as smooth so it feels longer. 

Rating: 3/5

Reach

I'm being awfully negative about buses here, and that looks set to continue. Buses go all around the country, so they do reach far - but the devil's in the details. I find that a lot of the places buses stop just aren't useful for me, and I have to walk for ages to actually get to my destination. But in theory they do a lot, and they stop on lots of streets, so I'll give them a boost with a high rating here.  

Rating: 4/5

Facilities

The bus is nothing special with facilities, but at least it has wifi, and some buses have toilets and luggage racks. No food (often food is actually forbidden, though this isn't enforced) provided, no tables - which combined with the bumpy ride makes it difficult to get any work done. Wavering between 2 and 3. 

Rating: 3/5

Ease of Use

The bus really falls down here, because it's just so ridiculously easy to miss your stop or miss the bus altogether. Trains pull into stations predictably, whereas buses just park along the place, or somewhere in the carpark of the station. Not useful. Bus Éireann buses don't tell you what the next stop is so you have to look out the window and desperately hope you recognise something. Why don't they just call out the next stop over the intercom and/or have it scrolling along a screen?

Because it's so easy to miss your stop, I often end up in the wrong place. I have a worse story with Dublin Bus that you'll see tomorrow, but for example I once ended up going to Dundalk (one hour journey) instead of Dublin (one hour journey the exact opposite way) while commuting to work experience at the Irish Times, because both routes are called the 100X. They have the same name! That's how I was 2-3 hours late for work at the Irish Times once and had to call them from the bus station.

Rating: 1/5

Cost

The bus is probably the worst out of all four options here for cost. I can't think of the exact figure, but it's definitely more expensive than the train (at least for the ticket I get, a child day return). It might be better with the time of day thing or for adults, and I'm sure a LeapCard helps. I can't actually think of any redeeming features of the cost but I don't want to give another one-star. It's just so expensive. More than three euro for a 20-minute journey, triple the price on the Luas. Just crazy. I'm sure it costs lots to run, yes, but compared to the other options it's just bad.

Rating: 1/5

Overall:

I gave the train some extra points for sentimental value yesterday, and I'll give the bus a couple just for memories on it. First date, first CTYI reunion, etc. 2 additional points.

3 + 3 + 4 + 3 + 1 + 1 + 2 = 17/30 = 56/67 = C3

Public Transport Reviews: Intercity Rail

This is the second installment in a four-part series about my experiences of public transport in Ireland. Yesterday I reviewed the Luas, today the train (intercity rail), tomorrow Bus Éireann and the next day Dublin Bus. I won't be reviewing the DART because I haven't been on it enough to make a fair judgement. Each mode of transport will be reviewed under six criteria: comfort, speed, reach, ease of use, facilities and cost for a total of 30 possible marks.

I use the train a lot. This week, I took 8 intercity trains. Ever since I started working on my research in Trinity, I've spent at least 2 hours a week on intercity trains, and usually more. So it's the form of public transport I'm most familiar with, and thus likely to be my most reliable review. 

Comfort

I think trains are the most comfortable out of all the public transport options. The seats are soft and roomy enough (for someone my size, anyway), and there are handy tables in groups of four facing seats if you want to get some work done or have a chat with some friends. The journey is very smooth too. One gripe is the large penalty for putting your feat on the seats - doing that is very comfortable, and wouldn't do that much damage to the seats. Also, in the Dublin stops the train is often too crowded to get a seat, which is unpleasant.

Miscellaneous, but there are really good views out the train window on my usual route, since it's almost all coastal.

 

Comfort: 4/5

Speed

The train is generally a pretty slow mode of transport, and artificially so. It takes an hour to get to Dublin normally, but only about 34 minutes on the express. But the express trains are quite rare, and I don't remember ever landing on one without specifically planning it. You can drive to Dublin in about 75% of the time, assuming light or no traffic.

Speed: 3/5

Reach

Let's be real here: train stations are in the middle of nowhere. There's only one station in most towns (loads in Dublin, but that's Dublin) so they're unlikely to be near your specific location. Usually I have a ten- to twenty-minute walk to my destination after getting the train. Their reach is obviously longer and further than the Luas, DART and Dublin Bus, but not as detailed.

Reach: 3/5

Ease of Use

The train loses out here in comparison to DART because missing your train or your stop is a big problem and can be catastrophic. Trains between Drogheda and Dublin (my route) usually go once an hour, so if I miss one by a couple of minutes I'll be late for my meeting if I wait for the next one. There have been tears. Stops are further apart too, so missing your stop is a big deal. Tickets make little sense - at my station, tickets cost about a third more if you buy them before half nine, and my ticket always stops working on the return journey so I just wave it at the security guard. 

Ease of Use: 2/5

Facilities

Trains are relatively luxurious, so they score highly on facilities. Wifi, luggage racks, desks to work on are standard. Some trains also have plugs and food carts, which make me feel like I'm in Harry Potter. Not much to it, really - trains are great here. Quality.

Facilities: 5/5

Cost

Train cost is great if you can get a child ticket, €7 for a return trip to Dublin without even having a leapcard. But an adult ticket often costs literally double what the child ticket does, which is crazy. For 2 weeks in July, people 18 and under can travel free with a LeapCard, which I think is awesome. I really need to get a LeapCard. So I'm conflicted here. Better than bus, but worse than Luas. 

Cost: 3/5

Overall

When I totted this up originally the train got 20/30, but I have too high a sentimental attachment to it to allow that, so I'm bumping it up five points for the enjoyability of train rides. Bam. I'm God of this blog. 

25/30 = 83.33% = B1

Public Transport Reviews: the Luas

This begins a mini-series about public transport, since I've spent almost every day in the past few weeks commuting. I'm going to review the Luas today, the train tomorrow, intercity bus the day after and Dublin bus the day after that under six criteria: comfort, speed, reach, facilities, ease of use and cost. Each criterion holds a maximum of five points, so at the end I can add them all up and compare the public transport options with marks out of thirty. 

Source

Comfort

The Luas has a mixture of seats and standing room with rails. You can usually get a seat at some point in your journey, and while they're not the most comfortable there's no real problem. There's lots of priority seating for people with disabilities (which people sometimes abuse). Also, the Luas usually travels pretty smoothly at any speed thanks to its rails. 

Verdict: 3/5

Speed

I rarely notice the Luas travelling fast, but it gets me places quickly so I can't complain on this front. It doesn't have to keep stopping for traffic like a bus does, but obviously it does have to stop to drop people off. Overall, I'd say the Luas is very decent for speed (good, since Luas means speed) so if you're worried about being late I'd take the Luas. 

Verdict: 4/5

Reach

The Luas is only designed to run in Dublin, which is obviously a big limitation but one I think can be excused since that's its purpose. I think the Luas has very good reach within Dublin, in that there are Luas stops all over the place, not just in the most popular destinations. And Luas stops are located beside the street, unlike train stations. I need a Luas to get to St. James' Hospital for my research, and it's very convenient to just get the Luas from Connolly. No other service goes there, to my knowledge. 

Verdict: 4/5

Facilities 

The Luas is severely lacking in facilities, especially the most important: wifi. Everything else has wifi, why can't it? I don't think it has toilets either, and there's no food on board (there is on some Enterprise trains). Probably because of the short journeys. Seriously, though - get wifi. 

Verdict: 2/5

Ease of Use 

My favourite thing about the Luas is how easy it is to use, it's totally stress-free. If you miss your Luas, just wait at the stop and there'll be another one in a couple of minutes. You can't miss your stop, because every stop is announced twice to give you plenty of time and there are clear signs at each stop.  I love this because it means I don't have to constantly check out the window to see where I am. 

Verdict: 5/5

Cost

I don't have a Leap Card (I should do that ASAP), but the Luas is still very cheap - I can get a 20 minute journey return for €1.70. Cheaper than the dart, I think, and definitely better value than intercity train tickets.  I'm sure it could be a bit cheaper though. My high rating takes leap card holders into account. 

Verdict: 5/5

Overall verdict: 23/30 : 76.67% : B2

Dublin Pride

Hello! So, today I went into Dublin for a reunion with my CTYI friends and ended up going to Dublin Pride for the first time. It was great fun. This post has a ton of photos so I won't write much. 

So, Jerry was to meet me at the train station an hour before the reunion to hang out for a bit, but he was late so I went to my old, pre-Christmas research-lunch haunt - the Centra Westmoreland Row café. We chatted on the way up to Stephen's Green to meet people, 'twas nice. I have a lovely photo of us but sadly he won't let me put it up so you'll have to make do with your imagination. 

We met up with lots of people, including Thomas and Gabi, at the arch. It's been ages since I've seen them, so that was great. John Joe, Steven, Fez (other Thomas) and Kat were there too. It feels like years since I've seen Kat, and months since Steven. 

How cute are we? Very.

Anyway, soon enough we headed to O' Connell Street for the pride parade. Unfortunately, John Joe and I lost everyone else and couldn't contact them, so we wandered up and down the parade for a while before giving in and joining it. Turns out they saw us and joined the parade (carrying the flag) too.

That was fun. We walked for ages all the way to Merrion Square carrying the flag. At one point some CTYI friends and I were carrying the whole back of the flag, very special. There was a great atmosphere. It was so exciting when we saw people, especially Ogden whose enthusiasm is contagious. 

There was a woman at the side handing out anti-gay leaflets and when she went to give one to me I leaned at her, slowly swept my arms out and sang "Gaaaaaaaaaaay" then walked on. Very satisfying.

I'm really proud of having taken that photo, it's great quality. Also, this was from earlier today but I love it:

The parade ended in Merrion Square where there was a festival vibe going on. We chilled for a while, met a lot of new people, took selfies, I got carried around (ily Jerry), listened to music, and danced. 

Sean said hi (well, called me a faggot, same thing right?) but really the big surprise was seeing him there. 

Kat and I danced a ton and were altogether very gay, it was lovely getting to know her. Here's me with Scott, whom Kat convinced to do a very interesting dance move.

Also saw this fabulous friend, and another of whom I sadly don't have a photo but who had the most amazing and intricate Edwardian dress ordered from Japan.

We eventually left, singing and dancing the whole way down the road, and went to Burger King as is the norm at CTYI reunions. It was a very joyful time, dancing with John Joe and linking with Jerry and Gabi. Jerry bought me chips as a surprise at Burger King because he's great.

After Burger King, we all gradually split up. John Joe, being the darling he is, walked me to Tara Street Station and waited with me for the train. Shoutout to John Joe for being great.

Shoutout also to the lovely Micaiah, who appeared very briefly at the end. 

On the train home, I had a nice chat to this random seventeen-year-old guy also on his way home from Pride. I was reading The Devil Wears Prada and we very enthusiastically discussed it. I love friendly people on public transport. 

So yeah - my first Pride was a great experience, but then Reunions always are. I'm definitely missing out on details but in my defence I'm tired. Anyway, enjoy.

Summer Exam Results

It's been an exciting and tiring week, so in this post I'm just going to discuss the exam results I got in my school end-of-year report. Gotta be boring sometimes. I might mention teacher comments but I won't name names in case people somehow get offended. 

Overall

This report was a lot better than February's. In February I got straight Bs (and a C in PE). Then there was a parent-teacher meeting where the teachers knew me alarmingly well and had copped that I was just getting by on natural talent instead of studying. So I studied a good bit from then on, but only for the subjects I love (Physics and Chemistry) and a bit for one I abhor but must do (History). Here are the results. I'll do them in descending order. 

Physics: A1

I was delighted with this result, but to be fair I was expecting it since I answered every single question on the paper, when you're only supposed to answer about half of them. I love the class. The teacher's comments, apart from saying that I'm lovely to have in the class (cheers), said that my frequent absences (for research) are affecting my work. I got an A1! Come on, give credit. I'm also quite offended that I only got a "Good" in the Behaviour column, as opposed to "Excellent" or "Very Good". What exactly did I do? Surely you can't call going on question tangents bad behaviour. 

Chemistry: A1

Same with Physics above, I answered all the questions except one very tiny one about the anion tests, which I hate and find impossible to keep straight in my head. Again, love the class and subject. Very glad to have the A1. Excellent Behaviour and Effort, woot. 

History: A2 (86%)

Wow, the studying trend really is showing. I thought I'd done pretty well in History, so the A is nice. I do need to work on the research project, and I'd like to push it up to an A1. Then again, that would require paying attention in History, which is soul-destroying.

English: A2 (85%)

We didn't actually have an English exam, so this was based on the creative writing thing we had to turn in as what should've been a small portion of the mark, plus maybe some work throughout the year. This was a bummer because I do well in exams and I hadn't really tried hard on much of the coursework, so I'm confident I can do better than this in a real exam. Then again, the awful thing about subjects like English and History is the subjectivity of the marking. Generic but positive teacher comment.

Irish: B1 (84%)

Just 1% away from the A! I only studied for this on the morning before, so if I improve my study habits for 6th Year I can probably pull off an A. But that's a big if. Nice teacher comment but I feel like he doesn't want me to miss any more class for research.

Maths: B1 (80%)

Just scraped the B+ but I'm really delighted, I had been bracing myself for a D or something. I felt like the exam had gone really badly (I couldn't get the clarity I usually have) and in fairness it's HL Maths. Teacher comment says "An excellent result, well done", and I really appreciate it. I have to pull off the HL Maths A1 in my actual LC, but this is pretty good for fifth year. Very encouraging, I like it.

PE: B

This isn't a real subject but I guess you get graded for effort. This went up from a C in February, and I'm happy with the B in PE. 

French: B2

This is my lowest grade, but I think I have an excuse in that I did large portions of it in the car on the way home and in my bedroom rather than in a quiet exam hall, since that's the day a teacher in the school died. Also, I didn't do French homework that whole year. I'm amazed she gave me good teacher comments. I do feel kinda bad about it, but she gives homework in such a rapid stream that my brain just shuts off after the first thing in protest. 

Conclusion

This is a nice school report. It's funny to think how devastated I would've been with it in first year, when I got 10 A1s and 2 A2s and was so upset about the A2s. Since other people seem to think about points all the time, it adds up to 575 points. 

Which is definitely a good start. And hopefully it'll make teachers give me a bit of leeway when I leave class to do things that are important for my future. 

Interview with Harry McCann Part 2,

Yo. This is the second half of my interview with Harry McCann, founder of the Digital Youth Council. All views expressed are our own, and you can find the first half of the interview here.

What kind of challenges and difficulties have you had with the Digital Youth Council over the past year?

Time, it's a lot of time and effort and work, especially everyone who's played a really big part in [...] setting it up. It's a big thing to try and run an organisation completely youth-led - finding funding, finding partners, finding backers, finding advisory board members [ed note: just today, Harry announced that Margaret Burgraff, global Intel VP, will join the DYC advisory board for next year], spaces for meetings. Trust me, the list goes on. And it's - it's tough doing that sometimes, it's hard finding time [...] I was up 'til half one last night and I'm still doing stuff.

You could have a time of radio silence, like "don't contact me at this time"

No, I don't, and that's the funny thing - I'm very, very weird in a way that most people are 9 - 5, I am 8 o' clock or even sometimes 7 o' clock if I'm on a bus, to 9 or 10 o' clock or 11 o' clock at night, or even on a Saturday or Sunday. And I think it's because, I don't think students or young people have a time of day, I get emails from students [...] I was messaging people on Facebook last night at 12 o' clock [...] There's no time of day, there's no 9 to 5. Which is good in a way, because it allows you to get things done, but it's an awful lot of work as I said. You have to commit a lot of time. Travelling is huge as well ...

And what have been the highlights of the past year, do you think?

Highlights of the last year ... that's a tough one. Lord David Putnam was very cool to me. Met Lord David Putnam in the Shelbourne hotel which is obviously a very nice, nice hotel, pleasure meeting him and speaking to him, and pleasure meeting the Taoiseach, it was great [...] Going to Google, going to Twitter, going to Facebook. [From the] Digital Youth Council perspective, would have to be, this year in particular I'm very impressed - we said it earlier in the day, for InspireFest, and somebody we work closely with is Silicon Republic [...] The highlight would have to be that we did get a 50/50 gender ratio this year.

What was it last year?

It was 60/40 or 70/30 [...] It was a big achievement because there's such a big push for it, and the thing is we're very keen on equal opportunity. We're not for guys, we're not for girls, we're equal opportunity for everybody. Getting Twitter involved was a big thing as well, it was good to get one of the big tech companies behind us ... It was a very enjoyable experience getting to go to Twitter, getting to go to all these places. It was a very unforgettable experience. I guarantee if you ask anybody on the whole council, the best thing about it would have to be the places, the events and things like that. The Web Summit, the BT Young Scientist. It's not a celebrity lifestyle, but it's the closest thing that most of us will get to it. And then also watching Émer, Sophie and Ciara win every award, every award under the sun. Just sitting there like "Awh yeah, I know them." Or Sky News, "Ah yeah", CNN "Yep", we get the point, you won it. They win everything.

I know!

That is really good though in fairness, it's good to see the Council - and Ireland - being well-represented worldwide, not just in Ireland. But yeah, it was really good fun.

When you're in schools, does the Digital Youth Council see a difference between kid boys and girls in what they're interested in? Is it all the same, or is there a point where that starts changing?

Yeah, younger kids - I think a lot of people are reared in a way that the difference between a little boy and a girl, and I think it's probably a problem, is guys are Legos and army men and all that rubbish, and girls are Barbie dolls and all that rubbish. Boys pick blue and girls are pink and all that rubbish. But I think at primary school their interest in STEM, it's something everyone can share, I don't think it's a guy or girl thing, there's definitely opportunity for people to be involved, which is the great thing about STEM - even when you look at professional sports and such, football, if you look at men's soccer versus women's soccer --

It's kind of a disgrace how --

Yeah! It's underappreciated, they probably don't even earn half as much. Although in STEM they talk about the unequal opportunities, there still [are] enough equal opportunities out there that it has potential. It can change and one day it definitely has the ability to be equal opportunity. Unlike soccer, because soccer will take a long time or all these sports will. But they young people don't even see this problem, they don't even recognize that oh this girl can't do this or this guy can't do that or whatever. 

The older ages - as you go to secondary school, everyone's still equal. It is, I see it in STEM all the time, even the BT Young Scientist, you look at it - everyone's equal, everyone has an equal ability, they understand that there's obviously inequality in the area of STEM, but they completely ignore that so there's definitely - it's quite an equal gender ratio, everyone appreciates everyone ... I think it's a positive thing as well, especially compared to soccer. Women's sport doesn't get anywhere near as much publicity as men's does, even in Ireland or anywhere in the world. So it does have potential to be a really, really special thing, STEM does. 

[We chatted a bit here, I'll spare you.]

What exciting things does the Digital Youth Council have coming up in the next while?

That's still to be decided. TBC - to be confirmed. The case is we elected a new Council in, so in August the new Council will meet, and what'll happen is they'll decide what happens from there. It's not a person decision, it's a group decision. Personally, I'll be pushing for more opportunities for young people - things like internships, opportunities in STEM companies. Honestly the thing is, there are a lot of things that can be changed in STEM. I think the gender ratio was one we looked at this year, we done that --

Done?

Well not even done, there's still work on that but from our perspective we've done our part, and we'll still push for it to be done in other places. Young people giving young people a voice, we've done our Have Your Say app, our Have Your Say website where you can just log on and give your opinion on anything at all, that's something we tried to work on and we done. There's different things we achieved this year ... Nothing is impossible - we have the companies, we have the people, we have the advisors. That's from a business perspective. From the management end of the Digital Youth Council, there'll be some really cool new advisors coming in, like really, really cool. It'll be really good to see those people come in, and hopefully it'll make sure that the council does some really cool things. But you'll have to wait and see. 

OK, I'll wait. How does Ireland compare to other countries for STEM, teenagers especially?

So yeah, among young people especially it's by far the best - one of the best if not the best. Personally, I might have a slight bias - I run a digital youth council and I'm an Irish teenager. But yeah, I attended the BT Young Scientist, I attended the Eircom Junior Spider, I didn't go to the Coolest Projects this year but I went to every single possible event for young people in STEM and  there's definitely a lot of potential there... At the BT Young Scientist, every single idea there could've won it easily. I spoke to some people from BT and they said it was unpredictable who could've won it this year and a great project won it. We do have a really large pool of talent - you can see with the girls who've done really well not just in Ireland but on the international stage. They're not the only ones, there's loads of people. We win the EU Young Scientist year in, year out.

They must be sick of us.

Like, it's no longer the EU Young Scientist, it's basically just Ireland's Young Scientist -

- Again.

Yeah, whoever won the BT Young Scientist is pretty well in-there. But we do compare with - definitely, we're in the top two or three. I don't even know who could be against us, I'm just saying that in case I'm wrong. The States I'm sure would probably give us a run for our money, the UK don't, I can definitely say that. We definitely have more talent, I'd say that more than happily. But the US probably do, considering their size they're bound to have the same amount as us. 

Okay! Thank you very much.

Coolio boolio. 

There was definitely a lot of information in that interview! Make sure to check out Harry and I on Twitter @TheHarryMcC and @frizzyroselle respectively. Thanks again to Harry for doing the interview, and InspireFest 2015 for providing the swanky VIP venue.

Highlights of InspireFest 2015

On Thursday and Friday, you read about my experience at Day 1 and Day 2 respectively of InspireFest 2015. Since I was tired, I basically just dumped everything I'd experienced that day indiscriminately onto the page, so here's a wrap-up with some highlights and a little reflection. 

Reflection

Overall, I'm very glad I took the opportunity to attend InspireFest. I met a lot of really cool people, was on both sides of the interviewing process, heard talks from some really inspiring women (and men), tried new things and assuaged my horrific case of FOMO. 

To give some criticism: I think the emphasis on gender inequality was a bit too strong. It was nice to have lots of female speakers, but as someone who hates the idea of gender quotas and positive discrimination, you get sick of constantly hearing about how oppressed women are. Maybe I'll experience it in the workplace, but I've been fine so far so this was just depressing. I did like the personal testimonies on sexism, like Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell's, I just wasn't the biggest fan of people constantly going on about diversity. It felt like diversity was the overall takeaway from the conference, like Evolve Biomed's was translational research. Also, the food was absolutely unnecessarily fancy and inedible. Broccoli salad was weird but okay, the huge bread was unpalatable and I literally couldn't bear the drink. Don't worry though, Silicon Republic, it's an easy thing to fix - just buy in McDonalds or something basic. Cheaper for you and more people will like it.

(Okay, criticism complete. Back to the good stuff!)

The conference/festival setup was a very good idea. While sadly I couldn't go to the festival part each evening due to being under strict parental orders to get home early, it seems like a really great way to mingle in a more relaxed environment. 

I'll put all the other good stuff in the highlights coming up next. I just want to observe that - in my limited experience (n=2) - leaving conferences is sad and there's this sense of missed opportunity. There were a lot of people there I wanted to say bye to or get a selfie with and didn't get a chance, and events with this many cool people don't happen often (you'd better invite me next year, Silicon Republic, okay? I'll speak about Outbox or whatever, just invite me. One of your editors said I might be coming back as a speaker in 2016 jokingly, and I fully intend to do that).

Highlights

Meeting Twitter people

I suppose I have to start calling them real people now, since I met lots of people I've been talking to on Twitter for the first time at InspireFest. I met Catrina, Harry and Émer on Thursday, and Christine and Vanessa on Friday. It was cool, but a very weird experience connecting their Twitter handles to their presence right next to me.

Lanyard

Not much to say here, I just love lanyards.



Lessons in Leadership

I just really loved this session. You can read about it here but I want to emphasise how cool the speakers (Bethany Mayer, Margaret Burgraff and Shelly Porges) were. They are, respectively, CEO and President of Ixia, global Vice-President of Intel and the former advisor to Hillary Clinton.

Super inspiring. Bethany and Margaret had great points, and Shelly had some fantastic quotes and stories from Hillary. I'll be mentioning Margaret again later in the post (I'm doing this chronologically, because I'm me).

Interviewed by Silicon Republic

This was a surprise. I was just sitting with Catrina at lunch when Elaine Burke of Silicon Republic DMed me and asked if I wanted to do a video interview for Silicon Republic about my experience of the conference. So I did. As I've said, I'm a bad interviewee but it was fun. 

Catrina time



Hung out with Catrina all of Day 1. Hey girl.

Next Generation Panel

This was my favourite panel at InspireFest. It was cool hearing from Émer and Lauren, but awesome hearing Anne-Marie Imafidon, head Stemette, talk about what we'll be doing at Outbox Incubator. She said Microsoft is lending us laptops, there'll be a room with wall-to-wall trampolines, the house will have a dozen bedrooms, the Salesforce Foundation are paying for all our flights, food and accommodation ... there's also going to be a documentary made about us. Not sure how I feel about that part. 

Very exciting panel. 



Twitter

I was flattered a lot on Twitter at the conference. I got a mention on the national Twitter, and people I don't know tweeted things about me. It was interesting to see how they view me.

So I was interviewing @frizzyroselle, @EdelBrownie and @CNiCharragain and now watching a keynote from @laurenboyletech. #inspirefest2015

— Ireland \ Elaine (@ireland) June 18, 2015

A personal perspective on the @OutboxIncubator from @frizzyroselle https://t.co/Pi9kbLIHLh Hope to meet you at #inspirefest2015

— Elaine Burke (@CriticalRedPen) June 18, 2015

@frizzyroselle Check out http://t.co/bTZNIs5oi0 Elle is also accepted to @OutboxIncubator @Stemettes into Nano and Biomed #inspirefest2015

— Declan Holmes (@sciencedeclan) June 18, 2015

Why grab a Fri ticket to Day 2 #inspirefest2015? http://t.co/9wXQ6DO4VG Because this post by @frizzyroselle on Day 1 http://t.co/P9cmQPOWRF

— Cindy Gallop (@cindygallop) June 18, 2015

#Irish #teen accepted to @OutboxIncubator for #startups Congrats @frizzyroselle @Stemettes @WomeninSTEM https://t.co/WoiqFu9Gzm

— Aoife E. Butler (@AoifeEButler) June 18, 2015

Blog Readers

Strangers came up to me saying they read my blog and recognise me from it. I thought that was just so cool. These people came up to me in person, but for the sake of pictures, here's one on Twitter.

@frizzyroselle just read your #inspirefest2015 blog posts - nice job :)

— Daisy Downes (@daisydownes) June 20, 2015

@frizzyroselle met @marycarty at #irishbloggerconference and heard about Outbox. Really interested in your blog. Enjoy London!

— Daisy Downes (@daisydownes) June 20, 2015

Reaching for the Stars

Adored this session. Read about it in my Day 1 post, but Leo Enright, Susan McKenna Lawlor, Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Ariel Waldman and the author of "It's only rocket science" were all awesome. 

And yesterday I got a selfie with Susan McKenna Lawlor! 




Christine time

I Tweeted so many Christine quotes yesterday and I am not one bit sorry.



Google Floor

Christine and I enjoyed trying on Google cardboard and talking to some Google Dublin employees.



Interviewing Harry McCann

Harry is great craic and the interview went well, expect to see the interview post tomorrow. It was nice to meet him after so long.

Other Keynotes I liked

Cindy Gallop is such a good speaker, with great confidence. She RTs my tweets a lot too, which helps. I enjoyed and was impressed by Laura Browne with Powerscout, and the Germinaid and Lauren Boyle talks were cool, though most people know their stories already.

Outbox Incubator Selfie

There were a good few of us Outbox Incubator acceptees at InspireFest, including Catrina, Christine, Émer, Edel, Vanessa, me and organisers including Anne-Marie, Mary and Yann.

Margaret Burgraff

This is more Twitter stuff. So, as I said I enjoyed Margaret's talk and admired her. So it was very cool when she read my blog posts of her own accord and talked to me on Twitter quite a bit, giving me awesome compliments. I'm sure she compliments everyone and is very practised at it, but it was great to hear. Thanks, Margaret.

@frizzyroselle waiting for life to just happen is not a good plan! :) keep up the great work!!

— margaret burgraff (@margaretburgra1) June 20, 2015

@frizzyroselle I love people who take action, you are already a leader and I'll be proudly watching you!

— margaret burgraff (@margaretburgra1) June 20, 2015

@frizzyroselle let me know if I can ever help you. My work with Harry will be just me, not intel. Ask him :)

— margaret burgraff (@margaretburgra1) June 20, 2015

@frizzyroselle we will meet some day and get that selfie :)

— margaret burgraff (@margaretburgra1) June 20, 2015

@frizzyroselle @TheHarryMcC I love your critical eye Elle, your honesty, integrity and challenging the stays quo. You have a new fan!

— margaret burgraff (@margaretburgra1) June 20, 2015

So yeah ... That was crazy. Crazy awesome. When did I become American and start saying awesome all the time?

Laura and Caoimhe train surprise

Okay, not strictly InspireFest, but it was awesome to bump into Laura and Caoimhe on the train back home. They're from school, so it was a very fitting way to go back down to earth. They're great. They seem to think I have it made, though, which I assure them is untrue. I mean, is there ever an exact threshold where one has it made?



It's been a very good two days. Another big congratulations to Ann O' Dea, the Silicon Republic team and all the partners, sponsors and speakers, and I hope everyone is enjoying the Fringe Festival. 

InspireFest Day 2

Today was, as the title suggests, my second and last day at the InspireFest sci-tech conference in Dublin. Today was, for me, more social and less informative then yesterday, but there's a time for everything so this was good. I attended fewer talks and sadly took no notes, so it'll be a shorter post. What a relief, am I right?

Did I hear someone say chronological? Let's go.

08.20 

Catch the early train in hopes of not being late for my interview with Harry, and seeing Christine. Maybe catching the Taoiseach's speech too. Have to take two trains, but all goes well. Arrive at the BGET around 9.30.

9.30

Enter BGET, find out I've missed the Taoiseach's speech. Am told it wasn't particularly good, and that he quoted a lot. Watch the "CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap" panel.

10.00

Sneak up on Harry and jump on him - maybe not the best way to greet someone in person for the first time, but he's good craic. We go up to the VIP lounge to do the interview, very fancy indeed. I've been pretty nervous about how it'll go as this is the first face-to-face interview I've done, but he's a great interviewee and communicator so it goes well. I'll have a post up on Sunday with the interview in it. He tells me he thinks I could definitely be on the Digital Youth Council and it's a big pity he didn't know me when I was going into fifth year. I agree, but it's very nice to hear. Not to add to the already huge Harry fandom, but I really do think that boy is a great leader and people person.

10.36 (ish)

Sit outside the auditorium and message Christine until she finally comes out to me. When she comes out, we wander around for a while (unfortunately missing Sue Black), paying a visit to the Google floor and trying on Google Cardboard. It's pretty cool, I like the rollercoaster experience. We also talk to some people who work in Advertising at Google Dublin, which is awesome. Seems like a great job. They said the best thing about it is the people there. 

11.15

Christine is an artsy person, so we go back in to watch the design lectures, starting with "Putting the A in STEAM" (Science, Tech, Engineering, Arts and Maths). I'll be honest, I don't get the point of STEAM - STEM promotes one set of things and has been very effective at that, but if we include Arts you're effectively promoting everything, which is the same as promoting nothing at all. Imagine telling schools to focus on, well, everything. That's not focus.

11.29

Costello Quote: "Is there any normal people food?" upon seeing all the vegan and gluten-free food. 

11.30

"D-STEM, STEAM and Design Thinking" panel begins, with the President of IADT and some other people. This is fairly interesting for a topic I don't have much interest in, and I like how passionate the President is about IADT and how it brings together psychologists, designers, English students and technologists to solve problems and merge design and technology. 

12.15

Global Intel VP for the Internet of Things (IoT) hosts this next session. He gives a bit of a presentation, then MCs as others give theirs on similar topics. Jessica McCarthy from Intel and some kids from the Trinity Walton club give talks, then Laura Browne talks about how she won the Intel Galileo competition with her really awesome tool. I really admire the way she solved problems. 

12.50 - 13.00

This is essentially a keynote for the sole purpose of revealing a Hunger-games-transforming dress. A mix of design and tech, the metal butterflies on the dress fly away if someone's hands come too near. This is popular with the audience. 

Lunchtime

I tell Christine about the very dubious food so we go to a nearby Spar to get some cheap food, since the conference catering insisted on being so fancy yet unappealing. Christine gives me donuts because she's great. 

Seriously, what is this drink?

Excitingly, I get a selfie with Susan McKenna Lawlor! She's really cool, she designed the mission-critical ESS for the Philae lander on the Rosetta-to-67P mission and gave an excellent speech yesterday on it. People I wanted selfies/an autograph from: her, Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Bethany Mayer, Margaret Burgraff. 

We soon bump into Anne-Marie Imafidon, head Stemette and organiser of Outbox Incubator. We need to take a selfie, she says, so I get going rounding up Outbox acceptees. Outbox praises how fast I did it later, which is nice. Émer Hickey arrives in the nick of time and we have a selfie with Catrina, Christine, Émer, Edel, Vanessa, me and the organisers. It's one of the very first times I've ever not been in the front row of a photo, since late arrivals were arranged haphazardly. 

The photographer has yet to send me the group selfie so here's a picture of Christine and I. 

Brianna Wu keynote - GamerGate/Spacekat

I know very little about GamerGate, only that there was a Zoe Quinn, someone's boyfriend and a lot of angry and irrational men sending death threats. Not really sure how Brianna fit into that, but over the past ten months she's received 106 full-on death threats, with lots more harrassment online. At the start of her keynote, she plays a compilation of some of the Tweets sent to her and it was very disturbing. Like, "I want to murder you and rape your corpse" disturbing. I'm messaging this guy I know during and he's extremely contemptuous of her, so I don't really know what to think.

Brianna gets a standing ovation. Now, while the harrassment she went through is horrible, Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell didn't get a standing ovation, nor did Bethany Mayer or Susan McKenna Lawlor or Shelly Porges or Margaret Burgraff. So, in protest, I remain sitting down. I do clap, but it looks like I'm the only one in the place not standing. Gotta maintain integrity, you know?

The Founders

There are five speakers here, from four companies. GenderGap Grader have two people who used data science and designed a website to teach people about the gender gap, I gather. Laetitia Grail displays MyBlee Math, which is a cool app to help kids learn maths, and then Ciara Clancy shows us her startup Beats Medical, which aims to help Parkinson's patients who suffer from gait freezing (like Edel's project). I really like Ciara's presentation, it's very polished. There's then a talk from the Dublin Commissioner for Startups.

The Investors

Sharon Vosmek of Astia speaks well here, saying we don't need to develop or fix girls any more, we just need to invest in them. Good call. Let me keep my development things like Outbox Incubator though, k?

16.25 (approx)

Christine and I leave during the panel, as we're getting tired of hearing about gender inequality. We find Edel and Caitlin Donnelly (DYC) outside too and have a chat. It's sad to see the floors being dismantled.

17.01

We return to watch Cindy Gallop give the closing address. She's a very powerful speaker and not afraid of her opinions - it takes guts to go up and talk about her website where people upload, essentially, amateur sex clips. The idea is to reduce the stranglehold of the porn industry that's so harmful to women (etc., etc.) and stop teenage boys getting such unrealistic "sex ed". People are to upload the normal, funny, awkward, messy, human bits of sex to reduce the stigma. She says women should do two things: make a shitload of money, and do a shitload of good (her words). She really emphasised the making money. She reminded us every business plan should be unique.

Even if it did promote women a bit too much, it was a spectacular keynote. She said that, since the dawn of time, women have been "sharing the shit out of everything in a way that don't". She reminded us that women are the world's greatest consumers and consumer influencers in every sector, and yet car ads are still targeted to men. Her solution to gender inequality is money, as she says "All those barriers will fall away from all of us when we can prove that women can make a shitload of money." Again, great keynote. 

17.30

People come up to me separately and say they recognise me from my blog. Awesome. 

17.40 (approx)

Christine and I leave the building and hug goodbye. I make my way back to Pearse Station. I never really knew where I was going but I always knew where I was and found the right turn just in time, so I didn't get lost. I think I live in a permanent state of "pre-lost". 

18.13 

I catch a train and feel super jealous of everyone who got to go to InspireFest Fringe. I've been under strict parental orders to get home before eight, so I can't. I hope you all enjoy yourselves tomorrow though. 

There was very little Silicon Republic action today, weirdly enough. I'll have a post up tomorrow with highlights and my reflection on the past two days, then my interview with Harry will be up tomorrow.

Going home

I have a lovely surprise on the train in the form of Laura and Caoimhe from school. We chat and catch up the whole way home, it's great. I also have a nice chat with David at Scotch Hall.