Wednesday morning keystory

Louise van der Werff

Good morning! And welcome to the second day of ResBaz!

Lilly Ryan presented the keystory for this morning. Lilly is both a software engineer and medieval historian.

5 years ago Lilly was a history and theology student, she was fascinated by witchcraft in the middle ages and societies surveillance and persecution of suspected witches at the time. Lilly spent several years studying witches, Latin, state-sanctioned persecution and torture, which culminated in an Honours thesis focussing on the heretic-hunting texts produced by the Catholic Inquisition in the 14th century.

In 2013 after finishing her honours thesis, she envisioned a life in academia, to work as a historian and get her doctorate, but also wanted to take a break and experience working in the ‘real world’.

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Lilly Ryan, historian and software engineer

In her own time Lilly also learnt to code, dabbled in Python and soldering, volunteered in hackathons and other tech events, and eventually landed a job in a data centre, where she got to see what the internet looked like ‘under the hood’. She now builds identity and access management systems, runs privacy and security workshops and teaches about privacy, technology and surveillance systems to lay people and other engineers. Lilly now works as a senior software engineer for a multinational consultancy.

After working in IT for a number of years, Lilly felt like she had forgotten her identity as a historian. One day though she had an epiphany, after watching the filmclip for the Aerosmith Remake ‘Walk This Way’ With Run-D.M.Cwhere two competing bands come together and combine their sound into a new style of music. 

Lilly realised that she could combine her knowledge of surveillance states in the middle ages with modern surveillance systems. This is a unique skill in the IT industry, as Lilly jokes that most IT experts believe history started in the 70s, along with the development of the modern internet.  She now runs workshops and gives talks on digital security and privacy in a hyperconnected world. She enjoys using her knowledge of technology to help others retain their human rights while using it.

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