This year marks 16 years since Marie started her very first adventure and spent a couple of months working in a few, foreign, exciting locations.

On June 21, 2008, she left her native Sweden and flew off to San Jose, California, for an internship at the then-biggest IT company in the world – IBM, and it’s flagship research location IBM Almaden Research Center.

It was a humbling experience. Almost everyone who worked there full-time had a PHD, many leading scientists in their fields. In the reception was the world’s first mobile hard drive, in the size of a large wheelchair. In the basement, the Blue Gene – the super computer who had been the world’s fastest just the previous year (a fast-moving race). Walking their halls, several famous inventors, such as the person inventing DB2 or the little red mouse-pointer dot laptops used to have back then.

A fire was lit in Marie’s eyes that day. In Silicon Valley, everything was possible, and anyone could become the next millionaire if you just had a good idea. Being a young undergrad far away from home, in the land of opportunity, she was inspired.

Upon completing her internship and moving back home, it did not take long before Marie moved out of Sweden towards a place that offered more opportunity in her industry – Montreal. And ever since, Marie has followed the waves of the industry and lived in Vancouver, London, Lisbon and Berlin.

Her next adventure starts in a week, and she’s going to…

Grenoble, capital of the French Alps 😍