Summary
AI Becky
Jill Binder, based in Vancouver, opens up about her pre-COVID life as a digital nomad, spending 10 countries over 11 months exploring the world while working remotely as a web developer. Along the way, she developed a genuine passion for caves and twinkle lights, describing a particularly memorable “cavey” experience in Budapest where she and friends explored underground bars turned into caves. Her chronic illness and the equipment-heavy nature of her current work have since made that kind of travel impractical, though she still occasionally travels for keynotes.
She traces her coding roots back to 1990, in 10th grade, when a teacher strike led her to pick up both poetry and programming – two pursuits she says share a philosophy of efficiency and intentionality, or “code is poetry.” She later became a competitive slam poet, coming close to nationals three times, while building a long career as a web developer and, more recently, a WordPress community advocate through her WP Diversity work.
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Jill also shares candidly about being single by choice, explaining that she’s discovered she’s happiest not dating, partly because she’s found dating within the tightly-knit WordPress community complicated. She reflects fondly on the WordPress community’s warmth and camaraderie, even as she’s personally shifted away from WordPress-specific work in recent years.
The bulk of the conversation centers on her current venture, Tech Differently – a speaker accelerator and conference (techdifferently.com, event on October 27th) designed to help people from diverse backgrounds develop authentic, well-structured talks about making tech better. She describes a five-module curriculum covering imposter syndrome, topic-finding, speaker packaging, talk-writing, and stage presence, with radically accessible pricing (starting at $5, with a pay-what-you-can option) subsidized by sponsors like Neocode.
The episode closes on a lighter note, with Jill discussing her hobbies – digital art, Rubik’s Cube speed-solving as an ADHD fidget outlet, and making friends in her Vancouver neighborhood – before recommending WordCamp Asia organizer O’Neil Rosero as a future guest for the show.