Hi, my name is Susan Ibach (aka @HockeyGeekGirl). My passion is sharing what I have learned with others to help them find their best selves and enabling others to do the same. Whether that’s helping someone learn how to code, helping someone prepare for their first marathon, or learning cross-functional skills like how to present or gain consensus in a meeting, to expand career options.
I currently work for Amazon, who provided me the opportunity to expand the Amazon Future engineer program to Canada, helping underserved and underrepresented youth learn how to code.
This site contains blogs and resources that span my career
- Tips and tricks on how to be a technical advocate or evangelist through my developer relations posts.
- I am a coder so I have been blogging about Python, Data science & AI
- I also blog about running, I started out as a 3-5 km runner who found 10kms were brutal, but somehow ended up running marathons.
My experience includes
- Establishing and managing a national program working with non-profits to achieve shared goals
- Managing national and international ambassador communities
- Creating engagement experiences at hackathons and conferences
- Organizing in person competitions, workshops, conferences, and hackathons.
- Creation of learning content including videos, and online tutorials
- I also pride myself on being a passionate, engaging, motivating speaker (Sample list of my presentations, and content.)
I was awarded the Technology Innovator of the Year Award by Women in Communication and Technology Canada, 2016.
You can reach me on Twitter or LinkedIn.
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HockeyGeekGirl 
Posted by Choy Joe Art Suson on January 22, 2017 at 8:45 PM
your such a inspiration to me eversinced watching your python introduction in Microsoft i was blown away with coding hoping to meet you in person please if you have time I’m interested in learning python with your expertise.
Posted by Margherita on October 25, 2019 at 2:54 PM
I am a woman from the Netherlands, 54 years old and just starting with coding because I discovered I like it and find it very cool and challenging to try things out in Python. What I just needed is a good basis to start with and that’s just what the Microsoft introduction offers. I find it very inspiring and helpfull before I’m going to dive in the more complexer stuff of Python.
Posted by susanibach on October 25, 2019 at 3:50 PM
Glad you found the introduction helpful!
Posted by Frank jones on March 26, 2021 at 7:33 PM
You are right on dash captain for un and Arctic best aircraft ever feels like relaxing in my front room with a fire in the fireplace. Have captained Boeing 737 and crj but dash is my fav and safest . You are very perceptive and thanks for your post.
Captain
Frank Jones
Posted by Nancy Marsillo on June 8, 2022 at 12:13 PM
Hi Susan. Just read your guide to Boston Marathon weekend and I have a question…I lived in Boston for 6 years back in the 80’s and the river between Boston and Cambridge was called the Charles River. You call in the Charlestown River….did the name change??
Posted by susanibach on October 10, 2022 at 10:52 AM
Sadly the Mud Hero in Ottawa in 2022 was also a bit of a mess (and not in the muddy mess good way), lots of changes in race directors and ownership since COVID lockdown, combined with shortage of volunteers…
Posted by susanibach on January 3, 2023 at 9:15 AM
Thank you Nancy, that was a mistake.. the river is the Charles river, but because I had been writing about the Charlestown ferry earlier in the post I got that mixed up. I’ve corrected it now
Posted by Caven on August 30, 2022 at 5:26 PM
Greetings Susan, I learned python from your Microsoft videos. You are a very good teacher. So now I want to learn SQL, please advice me how can I tackle this? Where can I start. I would be happy to hear your response. Thanks, much love from South Africa, Deep Rural Area🇿🇦.
Posted by susanibach on January 3, 2023 at 9:10 AM
Hi Caven, SQL is a fun space, I would suggest you start by installing the free version of SQL Server and the free version of SQL Server Management Studio. Then download whatever the current free sample database is (NOT the data warehouse) and install that… then you will have a fantastic set of data and tables to start learning from.
Posted by Osman Jalloh on September 6, 2022 at 9:25 PM
I really love programming, I’m very passionate about it, but I’m just a beginner. So I really need a programming coach like you that should take me through my programming carrier
Posted by susanibach on January 3, 2023 at 9:08 AM
Hi Osman, see if you can find some user groups in your area where coders are meeting in person, and find a simple coding project to build to practice. There is no substitute for trying to build something, but build something real, even if it’s as simple as a Wish list app on a website or for a mobile phone that lets you add and remove items from a To Do or wish list.
Posted by Abubakar Salihu on October 2, 2022 at 10:40 AM
Hello, I have to say the way you explain codes has a rhythm to it, it’s just a special way of understanding, I grasp concept so fast whenever you’re on the mic…Thanks for re-inspiring me I was coding before, that was back in 2019, then dropped due to some challenges and then now am all fired up and inspired again…
I would really like for you to help me in regards to Machine Learning, all of a sudden I found myself piqued to learning and building a career on that, so I am asking if you have a little or even plenty ideas on where I can start, that would be great… Thank you once more.
Posted by susanibach on January 3, 2023 at 9:07 AM
Hi Abubakar, sorry for the late reply, I’m not actively working on the coding blogs at the moment, but if you are interested in machine learning, I would check out Kaggle to find some good datasets, then learn how to use Jupyter notebooks (or some other online notebooks that support Python) and start out with a very simple linear regression or classification tutorials. Start with a tutorial, then try to reproduce it with a different dataset, you will discover very quickly a big part of machine learning is preparing the data, so best to learn that skill when you are working with simple machine learning algorithms.