What's one good experience that you've had, and one bad experience?

One good experience was being invited to go and use my technical skills to help solve social problems - helping set up a community center with loads of computers in Nhulunbuy, which is a tiny little remote community in the middle of Arnhem Land [in the Northern Territory]. So I guess the best experience for me is being able to use my skills to make the world better, rather than just as a career.

One bad experience was probably having a server crash and then having to do a 21 hour day to try and get it to install in exactly the right way so it didn't crash. That was Microsoft, and it was one of the last projects I worked on Windows. [Laughs]

Where are you currently working?

Currently, I've got a couple of gigs. First of all, I've got my own consulting practice that I run with my husband called Waugh Partners, where we do vendor-neutral Open Source consulting, industry development, strategic consulting, that kind of stuff.

I also work part-time at Macquarie University in a research position, looking at the use of open source in the research and higher education sector. So I'm sort of in both a research position and a technical position and an advisory position, so it's really awesome at the moment.

You're also quite active in the Linux and Open Source community, aren't you?

I was the first female president, and am currently vice-president, of Linux Australia. I've been involved with them for five years or so. I'm also president of Software Freedom International, which is an international non-profit group who run Software Freedom Day, looking at transparency and sustainability in technology.

I've been involved and I've spoken at loads of girls-in-IT events around Australia, and there's an event called TechGirls that I help run in the Central Coast [NSW]. TechGirls is again focused mainly on talking to school girls about IT and how it can be really fun and really exciting and completely different from the stereotypes.

I'm also involved in a project in Sydney where we're going to be going into schools and talking to girls and boys about IT generally because we think it's important that young males get to meet rocking female role models, and rocking male role models in IT. Our event is going to be kicking off probably mid-next year.