Yasmine

Yasmine is a Muslim, British Somali and Program Project Management professional.

Completing her early education in Sheffield, UK, Yasmine went on to graduate from The Nottingham Trent University with a degree in IT, in 2009.

In March 2010, through a Tech Recruiter online, Yasmine received an offer from Thomson Reuters to work in the capital on their global IT change programme.

She would later have the opportunity to experience over a decade long career working in business change and transformation on some of the most high profile, large scale programmes and projects. Covering subject matters such as IT network, hardware and software change, departmental process optimisation, financial crime and regulatory compliance change, learning and development, sales and marketing, and data management.

She’s worked for companies across various industries such as Technology, Information Services, Business Change Consulting, Oil & Gas, Transportation, Financial Services, Media and Retail.

So, why iEMPOW3R?

Regardless of what the project or initiative was going to be called, Yasmine has always leaned towards purpose-driven work.

She spent some time as a volunteer, through supporting her mothers community group in her early years and later volunteering at other charities whilst working in London.

In January 2020, Yasmine formed a Meet Up group called EMPOW3R 2020 to bring together volunteers around London who were interested in giving back to communities.

Around 130 people across London signed up, there was a sense that people wanted to engage in community work and causes, but didn’t know where or how to start.

This platform later took various other forms before becoming what exists today, an independent digital hub established to BUILD UPLIFT MOTIVATE and EMPOWER people.

Q&A

If someone were to ask 'who is Yasmine' how would you describe yourself?

Founder and building iEMPOW3R and NASO @ Home. Program Manager by profession.

Human and humour. Self-motivated, independent, enjoys proactively looking for new subject matter/topics or skills to learn (Future Learn, Udemy, Coursera, a good ole YouTube video etc). Understands the best investment is in self. Has been very fortunate in the life she’s been blessed with. Loves her mum.

What was your first paid job, how old were you and what did it teach you?

Claire’s Accessories. Two week work experience in Year 10, and they asked me to join as an employee when I turned 16, which was cool, loved this shop growing up. It also taught me to work for what I want and I’ve done this ever since.

What did you study at University and what did it cover?

My higher-education choices were between Technology, Business or Law - and I went Tech.

It was a new course that The Nottingham Trent University were trialling (I think we were the first batch). BSc Information & Communications Technology.

It was a concoction of modules over 3 years, with a 1 year in industry option - here I worked as a 1st Line Service Desk Analyst at an IT outsourcing company called Computerland based in Nottingham.

We did everything from electronics (soldering and making computer parts), physics and equations, developing games using C++ (Tetris and I may have lost hair in the 1st year because of it), SQL (was more my calling), AutoCAD, Flash & Dreamweaver, SoundForge (so much fun!), TCP/IP stuff (the communications part of the degree), VoIP systems (we were tasked with designing and coding an automated telephone system), display technology (at the time LED TVs and Plasma’s were like… woah!), MatLab (this graph system thing) and information systems management.

I did well in the information systems management module in my final year, and this ended up aligning to how I’d spend the next decade of my career. I genuinely enjoyed it and having a really great professor contributed to my learning. Anything I've enjoyed in my studies or excelled at, I attest to the teacher I had at the time. Likewise, if it wasn't for Mr Appleton in Secondary School, I probably wouldn't have pursued my passion and fascination of computers.

Notable mention; it was a really odd time to be doing a tech degree and to be a student in general. Everything was evolving at such a rapid pace.

My CD player became obsolete between the switch from Sixth Form to 1st year. I’d soon replace my mini bright pink MP3 with an iPod Nano in 2nd year. By the time I was in my 3rd year and on placement, the Service Delivery Manager at my job was walking around with this iPhone thing. For anyone in tech at the time, things were changing fast and we haven’t seen it slow down since.

And at the end of my degree, our flawed global financial system would be exposed and the world would suddenly crash. Finding a job post uni was really difficult. The client I supported during my placement year (Egg Banking) was no longer in business. This is why I kept telling grads during peak pandemic to keep their head up, keep applying, that the job market would get better but just needed to be patient. It was like deja vu.

What’s the one thing you want to achieve through iEMPOW3R in your lifetime?

We positively impacted lives.

Where do you see yourself in 5 or 10 years?

The vision I have for my future includes more of what I’m doing now. At my own pace and in my own way.

The sky’s the limit.