Sarah's Story
What technology, business, or product has really wowed, surprised, or delighted you lately? Why?
It has nothing to do with storage but the Sony Nex-5 camera. I wanted to learn more about photography without having to carry a huge SLR. Sony was able to mix the size and weight of a basic digital camera with the advanced functionality and quality of an SLR. Also they created a menu so easy to use full of tips and guidance that I could start playing with it right away.
What’s your favorite project you’ve worked on? Explain why and what you learned from it.
The favorite project I worked on was back in Engineering school in France. With the school computer science club we have gathered 250 computers from companies that we fixed, cleaned, re-imaged, shipped and distributed to 73 non-profit organizations throughout Morocco: my home country. For companies it was a way to recycle their office computers for a great cause and for the non-profit organizations it was a chance to modernize and help their villages. It was amazing to see smiles on children faces as we were delivering the computers!
This project was a great opportunity for me to learn about logistics, about re-using and recycling to be greener, about different regulations around licensing, shipping and customs and about leveraging contacts and connections.
What contributes to you being innovative?
I had the chance to grow up in Morocco, study in France and work in the United States. Being exposed to so many different cultures and traditions really opened my mind.
And how do you define innovation?
Coming up with simple ideas to improve what already exists.
So Cleversafe. What is it about this company that you love?
Cleversafe is an amazing environment where employees are really empowered to make a difference. Everyone is listened to and invited to bring ideas and implement them.
What do you predict for Cleversafe’s future?
I have always believed that once Cleversafe breaks through it will be the biggest revolution in storage and will become the leading example.
What’s your favorite thing about working at Cleversafe?
My favorite thing about Cleversafe is working in a company full of smart, young and dynamic engineers.
And what cool concept have you been working on at Cleversafe?
One cool challenge I am involved with at Cleversafe since the very beginning is the introduction and enforcement of processes and quality in this fast pace environment. From adapting new methodologies such as Scrum, to introducing build quality criteria or moving from traditional testing to continuous testing, it is very interesting to think about ways to introduce new behaviors without adding too much overhead on engineers.
And, please tell us a little known fact about yourself.
After High school and before Engineering school, I did one year of medical school. As part of the 1st week of class, there is a sort of hazing period where the older students take the newbies out to do all sort of things. This was in Strasbourg (a city North East of France). I had to sing in the street at the entrance of the Notre Dame Cathedral (main tourist attraction) the med school anthem which is as you can imagine full of bad words… ;-)
