For most of my life, I’ve had more ideas than places to put them.
I’ve spent my career building businesses and turning creative visions into reality. Most people know me for my pink and sparkly self, but you might not know that I’ve always been an undercover nerd. I love exploring the latest technology, and my mind is constantly racing with new business ideas, products and creative concepts.
But for years there was one frustrating reality when it came to tech: I could imagine almost anything. I just couldn’t always build it.
When most people think about creating technology, they picture engineers and developers — people who speak a language most of us were never taught. A select group of people got to build technology, and the rest of us were expected to use what they gave us.
But what if technology started somewhere else?
What if it started with creativity?
I’ve been an Android user for years, and when Google invited me to become Android’s first icon in residence and explore the future of tech creation with Gemini, I expected to learn about new tools.
I didn’t expect our partnership would completely change how I think about who gets to build.
The more I experimented, the more I realized that technology doesn’t have to be intimidating or limited to people with technical backgrounds.
For the first time, I felt like the distance between imagination and execution had become dramatically smaller.
And that’s what being icon in residence is really about: helping more people see themselves as creators of technology, not just consumers of it.
