Each month we sit down with women across our community to talk innovation, impact, and what fuels their drive to shift the dial in their industries. This time, we caught up with Kristine Nga to hear what's keeping her focused right now!
Tell us about what you are working on?
I'm in a deliberate transition period, taking time to go deep on AI and build things that actually solve everyday problems. My background spans data and analytics at Google and YouTube, community building at WeWork, and scaling internal tools and platforms at The Mom Project and Reddit. I've spent my career focused on scaling go-to-market teams by building tools and automations that power their work.
Right now, I'm channeling that energy into my own life and using AI to show others that the barrier to building useful products is even lower than ever. Recent projects include a recycling finder, a language learning app, and an entertainment recommendation engine. My current focus is expanding an eco toolkit to help households swap out common products for nontoxic, plastic free items and to reduce waste, which, funny enough, connects back to my roots in environmental science. These are all ideas that I didn’t think I could bring to life without developers, but AI has made it possible.
Why is innovation important to you?
Innovations like AI make technology accessible and allow everyday users, like myself, to solve challenges in our own lives. For example, my daughter came home one day upset that she doesn’t speak Khmer. I can speak it conversationally with my parents, but teaching another person is another challenge that I didn’t feel prepared for. Khmer isn’t a supported language in many learning apps so I decided to build an interactive flashcard for my daughter with a simpler design for a 5 year old. My next version will include the Battambang dialect, which is where my family is from, so that my daughter can start to communicate with her grandparents more regularly. Prior to AI, this would not have been possible without either a lot of development time or money. I built it within a couple hours with Claude.
What drives you to make a difference?
My family are refugees from Cambodia who survived the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s. Many educated people, including my own family, were targeted and died as a result. My parents never got to complete their own education, so they ensured that once we immigrated to the US, that it was our primary focus. We were fortunate to go to IB (international baccalaureate) schools, where some of the core values were curiosity, service and international-mindedness. This became central to who I am and is why I am continually looking for ways to connect with others and to give back.
What are your goals for 2026 and beyond?
I'm focused on deepening my AI skillset and figuring out how these tools can help companies and everyday users scale in ways that actually stick. I'm also really invested in growing the AI community here in Australia. There's so much happening globally and I want Canberra to be part of that conversation, not watching from the sidelines. Organising the first Claude meetup through CBRIN, Spruik Digital, Harbour Edge Intelligence, and the Claude Community was a start so I want to keep building on that momentum.
Do you have any advice for getting more women into innovation and entrepreneurship?
Stop leaving your ideas to collect dust in a notebook. Open an AI tool, Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, whatever you're comfortable with, and start a conversation about it. Treat it like a personal assistant and a thinking partner rolled into one. You'll be surprised how quickly a half-baked idea becomes something you can actually share and test. Put it in front of people, invite feedback, and keep iterating. The idea doesn't need to be polished before it's worth talking about. My recycling finder app is a great example of this. This started as an idea when I was chatting with the sustainability group at my child’s school and I thought, “Wow, I didn’t know you could recycle old frying pans. What else can you recycle?” Once I built it out, I started sharing it with friends. The site has started to grow and I’ve gotten great feedback on how to expand it. It was exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time, and some of the best challenges start out that way.
What are you proud of right now?
I organised Canberra's first Claude for Everyone meetup, hosted right here at CBRIN, and over 60 people showed up. I'm proud of showing people that you don't need to be building the next big thing to make AI worth your time. Build something that matters to you, a tool that solves a problem in your household, your street, your industry. The technology is there. The barrier is lower than it's ever been. I just want more people to believe that includes them.
Website
kristinenga.com
LinkedIn
linkedin.com/in/kristinenga
