Saadia Simon

Background

About Saadia Simon

I've been passionate about computers and tech from a young age and have always enjoyed exploring new technologies and skills. At the same time I've also been consistently drawn to the human side of tech, viewing technology as a powerful tool to enhance people's lives and bring efficiency to people, processes and businesses. For the past decade I have been involved in the nonprofit sector initially in an Operations role where I brought tech-literacy to a department that had been running on outdated processes and technology for far too long. Subsequently I have moved to a directly tech-oriented role in the same organization, remotely servicing our head office and multiple field offices across North America. In this position I have played a pivotal role in helping staff become data-literate and enabling data-informed decisions at all levels of the organization. I enjoy discovering new tools, techniques and technologies, including those that take me back to my Computer Science roots, to problem-solve across the gamut of IT work. On a daily basis this might include fixing a colleague's malfunctioning laptop, creatively using SQL to make data accessible and actionable, and replicating and troubleshooting bugs in both production and dev software, to name just a few. My dedication to the human factor means that customer service is always first and foremost in my mind. In particular, working in the nonprofit world with its unique challenges, unconventional hours and resource constraints has required an extra measure of dedication, creativity and occasional diplomacy, in particular when interfacing between end users and our in-house developers.