Tea & Bytes with Dr. Laine Powell

It's the last day of Women's HERstory month and we couldn't be more grateful for all the contributions of women! As we think what this month means to Tech Sassy Girlz, we celebrate and honor those who have come before us and paved the way. This entire month on our social media platforms, we highlighted women who have made significant contributions in STEM. As we continue to move the needle in diversifying the STEM pipeline, we recognize the importance of these historical moments. 

Hats off and cheers to you, Queen! 

It's National Engineers Week and we are celebrating Novlet Mattis, Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Orlando Health. In this episode, Novlet shares why she became a “Coder Girl”. 

As Orlando Health’s CIO, Novlet provides executive leadership for information technology and systems that advance clinical and business strategies and optimize operational processes.

Prior to joining Orlando Health in 2018, she was with Ascension Information Services in St. Louis, where she served as vice president of information technology, supporting more than 125 hospitals across the U.S. as well as international joint ventures.  

Mattis began her career with AT&T and started as a COBOL programmer for billing systems. She later ended up working for Dell, and after working in a couple other verticals, she was placed on a healthcare account in Texas. That is at that very moment she was introduced to healthcare IT. Mattis shares that healthcare is a unique vertical in that, even as part of IT, you feel connected to the mission of caring and healing. At Dell, Lucent and AT&T, she was able to develop great technical skills, but now in this current position she truly feels that the projects she works on are making a difference in people’s lives.

Mattis earned a bachelor’s in business administration from Howard University and an MBA from George Washington University, both in Washington, D.C. She is a Certified Healthcare CIO through the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME).

It's National Engineers Week and we are celebrating Novlet Mattis, Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Orlando Health. In this episode, Novlet shares why she became a “Coder Girl”. 

As Orlando Health’s CIO, Novlet provides executive leadership for information technology and systems that advance clinical and business strategies and optimize operational processes.

In this episode, I spoke with Jaife Rainelli, Business Development Manager at Ford during our ninth annual Tech Sassy Girlz Day Conference in 2020. She shares her awesome experience in riding in an autonomous vehicle and why she’s passionate about working in transportation. 

Ali Anderson is the Assistant Director of Strategy and Analytics with the Orlando Magic. In this episode, Ali and I discuss her background in marketing and how it played a critical role in her sports career. She also shares her first internship experience and how it helped shape her passion for numbers and sports! 

In this episode, Rita Dieckman shares her story in coming to the United States from Columbia, why Billie Holiday is one of her favorite jazz artists and the importance of never giving up!  

Rita is an IT Business Systems Manager at the Orlando Magic with over 20 years experience in Information Technology.

Prior to joining the Orlando Magic, Rita had worked for Datamax O’Neil in Orlando, Nortel Networks, Photon Dynamics and other startup companies in Silicon Valley.

She holds an AAS in Mechanical Technology from Union College in N.J. and a BS degree in Industrial Technology from Kean University in N.J., and Data Communication Program at University of UC Santa Cruz Extension, CA and several other certificate programs related to technology.

In this episode, Anna Zhao spills the tea on the most challenging aspect of working for an NBA team, why learning Python is an important language, and getting out of your comfort zone to create your own luck. 

Happy Women's HERstory month! This month's episodes will be focused on "Women in Sports". My first guest as part of the series is Anna Zhao. She is a Data Scientist and Full Stack Developer in Basketball Operations with the Orlando Magic. 

In this episode, I have the pleasure of speaking with Anna as she spills the tea on how she "fell" into sports, created her own luck, and her favorite Magic moment. 

It's Tech Sassy Girlz' 9 year anniversary. February 23, 2012 will forever hold a special place in my heart. In this episode, I give thanks to Jeanie Floyd, Michel Champagne and Dr. Robert Spooney for supporting us from day one! 

In this episode, we continue our conversation with Courtney Powell, President of AceApplications, LLC. We learn what scares him about being an entrepreneur, what it's like working with is wife and how he became an overnight success in just 20 years! 

Driven by a passion to succeed and become a successful entrepreneur, Courtney Powell founded AceApplications as a provider of top tier technology solutions including software, web and mobile application development and IT consulting and staffing services to businesses, schools, public and government agencies. AceApplications, is a certified Minority-Owned Business Enterprise  and DBE certified in 11 states.