coding Archives - Don't Stop Us Now

Teaching the World AI – Annie Liao

October 8, 2025October 9, 2025
by Claire

What happens when a group of friends gathering at Starbucks on Sundays to experiment with ChatGPT evolves into a global movement spanning more than 40 cities?

That’s the journey of Build Club, and its founder Annie Liao has some compelling insights about what it takes to actually make AI adoption work—not just in theory, but in practice.

Annie, who recently raised over $1.7 million and relocated to San Francisco, has a front-row seat to how AI is reshaping work. From her early days in data science at Westpac to strategy consulting at BCG and venture capital, she’s now solving what she calls the “AI adoption problem” that enterprises are struggling with worldwide.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

Why Annie’s “AI Champions” approach has been Build Club’s most successful way of helping companies embrace AI
How she struck partnership deals with big names like Nvidia and Lovable
Annie’s prediction we’re all likely to have agents working overnight on our behalf and what that means
The AI tools Annie uses in her daily workflow, and
What makes San Francisco’s AI ecosystem fundamentally different from Australia’s

From her vantage point in the Bay Area, Annie shares what excites her most about seeing people use AI for the first time, why there might be too many no-code tools flooding the market, and the practical steps anyone can take to position themselves for what’s coming next.

Enjoy this episode with the indomitable Annie Liao.

Useful links:

Build Club website

Annie Liao on LinkedIn

Top Tips

How Others Are Using AI – Claire and Greta

April 24, 2025April 24, 2025
by Claire

Our episode this week tackles that quiet question many of us ponder: are others using AI more effectively than we are?

We explore some fascinating new research just published by Harvard Business Review that reveals the top 100 AI use cases based on actual user reports. It shows some dramatic changes in how people are using AI compared with just one year ago. We know it will give you new insights on how you could be using AI right now too.

What’s particularly interesting is that the top five use cases have been completely reshuffled. Entirely new entrants making their debut straight into the top five spots. From deeply personal uses to professional applications, we were surprised by the findings.

The research has a unique approach which we explore in this episode as well as:

Explore the top 5 use case types and share prompts and experiences
Share personal examples of how others are using AI to save hours organising their lives
Discuss why certain uses have skyrocketed in popularity, and
Examine a thought-provoking observation about why AI is unfolding completely differently to any other tech.

If you’ve been fretting that your workplace is falling behind in the AI race we share exactly why this might be. And if you have been wondering how your use of AI compares to other peoples’, then this episode may answer that question too.

If you’re looking for inspiration on how to use AI then stay tuned for a wealth of practical ideas. Enjoy this episode.

Useful Links

Full list of HBR’s Top 100 AI use cases below:

Harvard Business Review article on Top 100 AI use cases

Andrej Karpathy’s blog post on consumers as AI power users

Subscribe to Don’t Stop Us Now – AI Edition wherever you get your podcasts to stay in the loop on what you need to know to remain relevant in this fast-changing world.

Image: Created by ChatGPT

Future Proof Me Mini Episode

Future Proof Me – Future Proofing Your Skills

March 23, 2021March 23, 2021
by Claire

This week’s mini episode focuses on staying current with your skills in the fast changing world of work. Something that’s relevant for all of us given the pace of technology change!

In this episode, we hear from drone and tech expert, Dr Catherine Ball, whom we featured on the show about a year and a half ago. She’s a real dynamo and a passionate believer in accessible lifelong learning.

Cath is a strong believer in how important it is for corporates and individuals to think about re-training in order to keep up with where technology is taking us all. Plus she shares some great resources as well and you can see links to those below.

Our take is this: don’t get overwhelmed with the full spectrum of change that’s happening in technology, take it one SMALL chunk at a time. Think about what one new skill or piece of knowledge would be most useful for you right now in your current role to help you to continue to grow and progress? Then find a short course or expert you can learn from – it might be as simple as a free 2 hour course.

Cath also shares great advice on how networking and linking in with industry associations to help you learn and make your next career step.

So what are you waiting for? Enjoy this mini episode.

Useful Links

Dr Cath Ball’s website

Dr Cath Ball Linkedin

Kaggle (free cyber security and coding courses online)

Harvard University’s Introduction to Computer Science, EdX

Learn to Code by Dash, General Assembly

Email Marketing Crash Course, Hubspot

How to Start a StartUp with Sam Altman at Stanford University

Product Design by Google, Udacity

Competitive Strategy, Coursera – uses game theory

Interview

Hayley Markham – The Unflappable Entrepreneur

July 14, 2020July 14, 2020
by Claire

Our guest this week is one of the co-founders of an international venture all about teaching the younger generation to code.

Hayley Markham is co-founder and COO of Code Camp, which to date has reached 90,000 children with their holiday and after school camps, and online programs, in Australia and also the UK.

Hayley co-founded Code Camp seven years ago and as you’ll hear this hard working pragmatist and efficiency queen got started in the business when her third child was just two weeks old! Little did she know what she was getting herself into then but there’s no doubting Hayley is an unflappable master at juggling life and building a startup.

Code Camp was named one of Smart Company’s top three, fastest growing businesses in Australia in 2018 with 510% revenue growth. It was also nominated as a Deloitte ‘Fast 50 Rising Star’ in 2019 and Hayley herself is a recent winner of Australian Mumpreneur of the Year.

In this episode you’ll hear:

How Hayley found her forte and niche in people leadership and operations after years of trial and error in different jobs not knowing what she wanted to do,
The career advice she has for others who aren’t sure what their dream role looks like,
How Code Camp overcame the challenges involved with scaling the business,
And the one thing Hayley credits with helping her juggle running a business and having a busy family life.

So if you’re looking for inspiration on how to tackle the challenges and juggles in your life, then you’ll love this episode with the unflappable and humble Hayley Markham.

Useful Links

CodeCamp website

Hayley on LinkedIn

Interview

Cecilia Tham – Predicting the Future

February 11, 2020
by Claire

If you’ve ever wondered about what we’ll all be eating in 10-15 years time then this is the episode for you!

Our guest is Barcelona-based Cecilia Tham, a Social Technologist and Futurist. She happens to have the coolest day job working for Alpha, which is Telefonica’s innovation arm briefed to build moonshots to address some of society’s biggest problems, including the future of food.

Cecilia was raised in Macau, attended high school and Harvard university in the US, and then found herself in Spain having to start from scratch, language included. She describes herself as an entrepreneur by heart, a designer and biologist by training, and a maker for life.

On her journey to working at Alpha, she founded and co-founded 3 separate ventures including a Maker cafe, a co-working community, and a coding and tech academy for women.

We think you’ll find Cecilia’s life and career lessons really inspiring. In particular you’ll learn:

How Cecilia’s former husband’s gift of a sewing machine first insulted her and then led to her uncovering a passion and her first entrepreneurial venture
What ‘Trim Tabbing’ is and why it makes her more productive
How Cecilia managed to turn her mindset around and be comfortable being different to everyone else in the room
And…. how she and her colleagues are looking at future scenarios where you’ll be able to grow an entire meal, including meat and veg, with the one plant – yes you read that right – grow your dinner!

Enjoy this episode with the multi-talented and dynamic Cecilia Tham.