Ickx Tessa
Data Scientist – Cegeka
Tessa Ickx (2000), Data Scientist at Cegeka, profiles herself as a builder of both software and educational hardware. Her nomination is anchored in her technical creativity and her hands-on commitment to fixing the gender gap in STEM education at the grassroots level.
Her love for technology started early. While others were playing outside, she was sitting at the computer. From watching games on her mother’s lap to accidentally installing a virus and then spending hours trying to fix it herself. When she was sixteen, Tessa Ickx took her first steps in programming through CoderDojo. Once a month was not enough, so she taught herself Python through online courses. Programming did not feel like studying to her, but rather like solving puzzles.
Despite a relatively short career of three years, Ickx has made significant technical contributions already. She is a driving force behind ‘Milo’, Cegeka’s AI accelerator framework now utilized in dozens of projects, and she presented the company’s internal chatbot project at the Flanders AI Forum. However, her most distinguishing achievement lies in ‘Pixiboo’, a hardware project she conceived to teach children programming concepts.
Ickx combines her data science role at Cegeka with extensive teaching activities at CodeFever, where she instructs over 50 students in programming and AI. Motivated by the lack of female role models during her own youth, she aims to be that figure for the next generation. Her ambition is concrete: to develop Pixiboo into a widely used product in European schools and to grow into a team lead role where she can guide young graduates, proving that technology is accessible to everyone. ‘Within Cegeka, I want to grow into a team lead role so that I can mentor and inspire new young graduates. With Pixiboo, I dream of creating a real product that can be used in schools and associations across Europe. Ultimately, I want to build my own company around educational STEM technology and make girls worldwide feel that they are more than worthy of their place in technology’, Tessa Ickx states.