Associate Prof. Carolina Ödman-Govender is the Associate Director of Development and Outreach at IDIA. Trained in physics at EPFL in Switzerland, she holds a PhD in cosmology from Cambridge University, UK. After a Marie Curie research fellowship in Italy, she became the first international project manager of Universe Awareness. She joined the South African Astronomical Observatory as an SKA Research Fellow working at the interface between astronomy and technology, which she continues, as a member of the .astronomy conference series braintrust. She was Director of Academic Development for the Next Einstein Initiative before joining a financial technology start-up as Chief Scientist before rejoining academia.