What makes ThoughtWorks so awesome? ThoughtWorks is MORE THAN JUST A TECH COMPANY.
ThoughtWorkers truly do advocate passionately for
SOCIAL and ECONOMIC JUSTICE.
I officially joined ThoughtWorks about two months ago, and the experience has by far exceeded any expectations that I had coming into the junior consultant program. I have not only learnt and developed awesome new technical abilities in Java, Test Driven Development and Agile (still only scratching the surface) but I have also had the priviledge of exploring cultural nuances from around the world first handed.
Of about 34 students that were at ThoughtWorks University in India, there were students from USA, Canada, Brazil, Spain, England, Scotland, Germany, Italy, Australia, China, India, Uganda and the Philippines (WOW!), half of which are men half of which are women. Some pretty serious diversity has been achieved in hopes of aligning the representation of the tech industry with the rest of society. This is also the first time I have been part of a team in my field that consisted of 50% women.
GLOBAL EXPERIENCE and diversity are just a couple of the many things contributing to the awesomeness that is ThoughtWorks. The second weekend at ThoughtWorks University, we had the opportunity to visit Maher, a shelter for women, children and men across India. We were greeted with hugs, songs and tea from the children of the orphanage.
It was inspiring to see how accomplished some of the children were, and how, despite how little they had, they were so grateful and happy to be living in such a supportive community.
What else is ThoughtWorks doing? ThoughtWorks is working on many SOCIAL IMPACT PROJECTS around the world, some of which are pro-bono. As ThoughtWorkers we are encouraged to contribute to the open source social impact projects. For example OpenMRS is an open source software platform built to manage and customize medical system records in developing countries such as Nigeria.
Another project ThoughtWorks is working on is RapidFTR, a family tracing and reunification app. It is designed for families that get separated in cases of natural disasters and emergencies. By using mobile devices to collect information and photos about a lost child, and posting this to a central database, this can greatly speed up the family reunification process.
Something unique about ThoughtWorks is that as developers, we aren’t just developers. This idea helps minimize the bus factor in a team, meaning we are not only responsible for developer tasks, but we are also taught to be consultants, business analysts, designers, quality assurance ect. At ThoughtWorks University it is also just as important to learn about ThoughtWorks business model, how sales and finance works, how recruiting works ect…
Beyond all of this, the most unique thing offered by ThoughtWorks are the ThoughtWorkers themselves. Simply put, the people here are SUPER AWESOME. Everyone is extremely passionate about life, passionate about social responsibility, passionate about software excellence! Everyone is bringing different skill sets and global perspectives to the table, coming from computer science backgrounds, business backgrounds, math backgrounds, physics backgrounds.
ThoughtWorks Social and Economic Justice mission is:
“to be a proactive agent of progressive change in the world. Aware of our own privilege, we strive to see the world from the perspective of the oppressed, the powerless and the invisible.”
On that note, I am thrilled and so grateful to be given this opportunity to contribute to ThoughtWorks' mission in a meaningful way, and am looking forward to growing and learning with other ThoughtWorkers from around the world.