Inspiring the Next Generation of Female Technologists

“I think it is very exciting to see the often unconventional results of people with different perspectives aiming to solve a problem and work for a common goal.”

Name: Dora Palfi
Title:  Co-Founder of ImagiCase

What is your connection to SSES, and how has it influenced or affected your journey?

As part of the organising team of create squared last year I became familiar with SSES and the place available for ambitious students to work on various initiatives. Later, we applied to the SSES fellowship with ImagiCase when we just had an idea that we wanted to make happen. Initially, just being able to be in the space and getting to know others who were working on their startups was very exciting and inspiring, and having a workstation as well attending relevant workshops has pushed us to move forward. Even after the end of the fellowship we kept in touch with the community and are continuing to receive support and mentorship from the SSES team.

When do you feel most creative?

Creativity might strike me at the most unexpected times, often when I am traveling. Counterintuitively I usually feel more creative under pressure.

How would you define success?

To me success means setting meaningful goals and living up to them. To not only striving to create value and impact in the world but achieving that through actions.

Do you enjoy working in interdisciplinary groups? If so, what are the benefits?

I have been lucky to be exposed to diversity and interdisciplinarity during my studies and I really enjoy, safe to say prefer working in groups that have a variety of backgrounds and skills. I think it is very exciting to see the often unconventional results of people with different perspectives aiming to solve a problem and work for a common goal.

What’s your favorite word, and your definition of it? 

My favorite word is Grit, it is a concept more or less standing for “perseverance and passion for long-term goals”.

How would you describe your company and what is your vision?

At imagiCase we want to inspire the next generation of female technologists and increase the proportion of women studying and working in the STEM fields. imagiCase started as a research project where we co-created ideas with young girls and where we learned that self expression is extremely important to teenagers, as well as their cell phones. This is how the idea of imagiCase was born: we are creating a mobile platform for coding education coupled with customisable hardware devices. The learning content of coding concepts is combined with visual representations, making the experience more tangible. Our first prototype is a phone case with embedded LED lights that can be programmed to display any text, design, color through programming with the imagiCase mobile app.

What’s one trend you’re most excited about in the next 5 years?

What I am most excited about is technology penetrating various areas of our lives in order to help our work and daily tasks. While I tend to get excited about new technologies just for the seek of their innovation to me the most significant achievement is when they can be applied to truly aid humans.