WITGBG Portraits: Eva Garcia-Martin

The Woman in Tech - Gothenburg is a community of remarkable women of diverse backgrounds and experiences. In our Women in Tech Portrait series, we take an intimate look into fabulous and talented individuals, inviting them to answer a few questions.

We welcome Eva Garcia Martin. She is a Machine Learning Researcher, Data Scientist, and recently became a Tech Advisory Board Member for the WIT Venture Studio. Her passions in life are climbing, machine learning algorithms, and baking pizza or bread. You are most likely to meet her in Hönö climbing those pretty boulders.

How would you describe yourself and how do your friends/colleagues describe you?

Social, curious, nerdy, a little bit weird, and a little bit crazy. A mix between a Spanish nerd and a Swedish short climber.

Tell us about your journey into tech? What is fascinating about working in tech?

It started when I was interested in every tech device that was at home. The Amiga vintage computer, video game consoles. Some years later I learned about machine learning and I thought it was so interesting, that I had to do a PhD on it. Imagine, algorithms that are able to learn and make accurate predictions without specifically being programmed to do so. How cool is that?

What is the best and the most challenging part of your job?

Being able to wear different hats everyday.

If you could go back in time and give yourself a piece of advice at the start of your career, what would that be?

🎶I can see what you're going to say to me If I don't explain it away I'm in the band And I deserve to be here and I do anyway [..] Girls make music We're here to stay🎶

Remember Bratmobile and the Riot grrrl movement, remember that you're already in the band.

Oh, and that it's cool to be weird. Also, that girls can do math, let's erase that bullshit stereotype once and for all.

How do you define success?

As feeling I learn a lot of tech stuff at work that gets out into production + having time to climb and go out in the forest + spending quality time with my partner and our cats.

What is one of your super powers?

I know how to exit Vim👩‍💻 . Oh, and I’m able to understand people pretty well, plus communicate all these technical nerdy ML stuff in an easy way.

What is the biggest dream for yourself and the industry?

That people will actually understand why diversity is important. Not only on paper but in reality. That people get out of their old mentality bubble and understand that a diverse set of people will bring so much more to the table than people that think exactly the same way. If they even listen to those people and take their opinions into account, that would be, wow, dreams come true.