Ted's advocacy journey

Ted Neward: I'd always been interested in programming, ever since my dad brought home an Apple II Plus in 1978, but I never really thought of it as a career path until college.

I was scouring the paper looking for jobs and I found one company that was looking for a programmer. My roommate basically double dog dared me to interview for this position. I said, "You've got to be kidding me!"

He said, "What's the worst that could happen?"

So, I interviewed and actually almost got the job, which really surprised me because out of 35 candidates, I was one of four finalists and I didn't have a CS degree. I had been working in C++ for a couple of years at that point. That was really where the light flipped on in my head. I realized that I could do this professionally. I could, in fact, make a career out of this. That was something that I had never really thought was possible. I'd always assumed that I had to be a...