TECHNOLOGY
Aaron
software engineer & bi-vocational missionary
Aaron began his career as a software engineer at Microsoft and Google, after studying computer science at the University of Waterloo. Over time he began asking a different question: what could these skills do for people who have almost nothing? That question led him to study social work at the University of Toronto, and then to World Vision Canada.
At World Vision, Aaron works on problems where the usual tech assumptions fall apart. One example: helping children in rural Kenya learn to read with evidence-based literacy software. The difficulty was the setting. The computer lab had to run offline and off-grid, and it had to be light enough to carry into the desert. Today he is working on tools that help school committees in rural Africa work out the nutrition in school meals made from local produce. The tools are designed to keep working after the NGO funding ends.
Outside his day job, Aaron is a bi-vocational missionary. He spent two years in Myanmar and still returns every year. There he saw how civil war has left many young people with little hope, and he helped start a Business as Mission: a technology company that trains youth in tech skills and offers them hope for this life and the next. He also builds software for the church there. His apps help rural house churches worship together and help church leaders in the slums coach young people who have dropped out of school toward a future.
Aaron's heart is for the young people of Myanmar, a generation growing up in a failed state. Many have lost their schools, their plans and, too often, their sense that tomorrow will be better. Aaron will share stories of what he learnt being a technologist and a missionary in a war torn country: where youth are finding hope when every system around them has failed, and how their faith holds up under pressure most of us will never face.