We all have a story to share.

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The Sustainable Bridges I Didn’t Know I Was Building

I didn’t know I was building sustainable bridges.  I just wanted to contribute to making things better in my local community.

At the age of 12, I began teaching science, art, and spiritual education to children at a local orphanage.  Still a child myself, I did not yet grasp the full meaning of words such as justice, dignity, or empowerment.  However, that experience, grounded in service and community, sparked my interest in studying Law.  I wanted not only to understand systems, but to apply them in practice, particularly in ways that reflected my growing passion for sustainability and technology.
 
Years later, as General Counsel in the UK and Ireland for a leading digital security firm, and subsequently advising international technology companies and Big Four consultancies, I found myself standing at the intersection of law, ethics, and innovation.  I was honoured to be named among the world’s 100 Women in AI, but the real transformation had begun long before, in my childhood and early youth, where service provided a guiding compass for life.  Even as I continued to navigate winding roads, I was far better equipped as a result of those experiences.
 
Whether drafting contracts or designing governance frameworks, I increasingly saw how legal tools could build sustainable bridges, linking risk to resilience and policy to people. Living in rural Brazil, I witnessed women cultivating land and the power of irrigation through technology.  That encounter led me to realise that innovation means nothing without inclusion. Technology should serve those who are underserved, particularly where people are most marginalised. 
 
Today, as AI reshapes our world, we face urgent risks:
Environmental strains, cyberattacks, disinformation, and job displacement.  But we also hold immense opportunities to use technology for the betterment of the world:  to code values into systems, to embed equity into design, and to ensure that progress is not just fast, but fair.
 
So if you’re navigating uncertain ground, keep walking, relying on the forces of confirmations, science and law.  You may not see the sustainable bridge yet, but you could be building one that changes your path and the lives of those around you.