Evening Standard features Marija Butkovic, CEO of Women of Wearables
As co-founder of the women in tech support group Women of Wearables, Marija Butkovic believes in the future more of us will be using smart watches and smart jewellery to track elements of our everyday lives.
Alongside the development of IOT, or “internet of things” devices which can connect to the internet, she predicts wearables in the future will not need to connect to a phone or computer screen, and will be able to connect with each other instead.
“Maybe with this technology you will have a hub for wearable devices where you are basically able to pair all your wearable devices and see how they interact and interconnect with each other. You can see what kind of data you can pull out from all of them and what you can use it for.
“That will be interesting to see, because at the moment all wearable devices are separate entities […] you cannot pair them in any way and synch them. Maybe it will be possible in the future to allow people to use wearables in a much better way, by enabling this interconnectivity. Maybe it will also bring mainstream production of wearables,” she said.
“One device would need to be a hub, then the other devices would report, interact and communicate with that main hub device. For example, maybe your smart home device would connect to your wearable device and then, based on your water intake during the day, it would alert your smart home device and your smart fridge, to say you need to buy some water because you haven’t drunk enough water today. These scenarios are really possible.”
Despite running a global network of women’s leaders, she admits: “I did have imposter syndrome when I first started out because I don’t have a computer science degree or any kind of degree related to technology.
“But very soon you realise that there’s so many of us in the same boat. You don’t need to have a degree in order to succeed in the world of technology. And over time things get better, especially with support networks like WoW.
“Whoever is starting out in tech, especially if you’re a woman, there’s a huge difference if you have a support network. One of the things I’ve realised is that there actually is a lot of women in the wearable tech and IOT space, but they never get visibility because the industry is so male-dominated. Male investors will usually invest in male founders, male journalists will usually write about male businesses.”