Kira Corbett is speaking at Epic Web Conf 2025

Hi, everybody. My name is Kent C. Dodds, and I'm joined by my new friend, Kira Corbett. How are you doing, Kira? Good. Thanks for having me today. I so appreciate it. Absolutely. I appreciate you, and thank you so much. And I'm very excited to get to know you. This is the first time we've ever met. Yes.

And so I'm very much looking forward to getting to know you a little bit right now and also at the conference in March. So, Kira, can you give us a little intro to yourself? Tell us a little bit about who you are, what gets you excited, and that sort of thing.

Yeah. I am a developer educator. I come from a background working in a lot of open source technologies in robotics and simulation. In more recent years, I've kind of explored and gravitated more towards web development, focusing a lot on artificial intelligence and kind of also doing a lot of human-computer interaction,

so trying things and finding what works and doesn't work, and oftentimes getting frustrated with things and finding problems. For example, we use the WIMP model, so Windows, icons, menus, pointers. We're using a keyboard and a mouse for the last 50 years, so I'll explore problems like that.

It's like, how do we change things but still keep things familiar to the users at the end of the day? But aside from the outside life of software, I'm also a really avid mountain biker. I race semi-professionally, as well as all the other fun things like skiing and all that as well.

Wow. Well, there's a number of things that I want to take to that. That's very interesting. So you worked with robotics and then moved over to the software web side of things. So how has that transition been?

I guess that maybe is part of why you're interested in getting outside of the WIMP model and finding ways for us to interact with the web a little bit differently. Yeah, it was an interesting transition because coming from robotics, we're dealing with hardware and software, so you're kind of limited and not limited in the same sense,

but you're dealing with built systems and including software into that. And kind of moving outside of that is interesting because then I shifted over to simulation. So how do we model actual physics? Like if I drop this pen, how do we model that in the simulation environment?

So that really opened the door for me into web technologies because I became curious in that. We spend so much of our time on the web, and how can we make our development experiences more impactful and optimized, but also still something that's comforting to the user? So it's kind of been an interesting journey that's been winding,

but a lot of it tends to bring you back to modern technologies. That's very interesting. I want to ask you about what your ideas are around getting us away from a mouse and everything, different ways to interact, but I'm going to save that

because I want people to come to the conference and ask you about it in person. What are some other things that people could talk with you about that would really get you excited and talking a lot? What are the types of topics that people could ask you about? Artificial intelligence right now has been a huge thing for me.

That's actually what's going to be a big part of the talk that I'll be speaking at here at the conference, but it's a can of worms. There's a lot of different opinions about it, and I love to open that can of worms and kind of hear people's different perspectives and different takes on it, but artificial intelligence is a key topic for me right now.

Yeah, well, so your talk is about delivering— let's see, it's titled Building an AI Assistant to Deliver Your Best Presentations, and so I don't want you to spoil too much because I feel like this is going to be a very interesting and unique kind of style talk,

especially since you'll be presenting with Eve as well, and so I'm very much looking forward to that, but can you give us any little teasers or anything to look forward to about it? Oh, yeah, without trying to give away too much, I would say maybe be prepared as an audience member.

Be prepared to have some interaction. Okay. Oh, good. Yeah, I'm very much looking forward to that. Yeah, that's very exciting. So, Kira, what is it about conferences that has you going? Do you go to conferences very often?

Are you a regular conference attender and speaker, or is this new for you? It's a little bit of both. I've been going to conferences prior to COVID and then after COVID and speaking at things here and there, and a lot more like local events. I live in the Pacific Northwest, so a little bit closer to home,

but then after COVID, it's been something I've been getting back into. I love that the conferences are unique because, I mean, as a developer, it can also be tough getting outside of your box, outside of your little computer, but I think the thing about conferences that is super impactful is just, like, the connections you can make, the things you learn from people,

and getting outside of that box can often provide a new perspective, but I often feel like conferences are like a little New York City for developers too, so it's like you get all these, like, big ideas and these great things you can kind of, like, take from a conference and bring it back to whatever you're doing. Yeah, I hope that people do that.

I remember early in my career, it was kind of a pretty common thing that you'd send one engineer to the conference, they'd come back, and they'd share what they learned at the conference, and it's been a while since I worked at a company, so I don't know if that's still happening,

but I hope that it is because I think that there is a really good educational element to conferences where the real value comes in those connections that you make with people because education can be found in many places, but making connections, that's only something you can do in person,

so if your company is thinking about sending somebody, maybe have them think about sending all of you because that's where the real value comes in. Oh, definitely, yeah. Yeah, so Kira, when you were doing robotics, I'm curious,

were you doing that for any particular company, and what types of things were you building? Yeah, I actually started all the way back in high school doing FIRST, I don't know if that's familiar, but it's a worldwide organization that's kind of like a sport for robotics,

and that kind of led me over to Autodesk where I started working on some robotics things in their San Francisco office and a lot of R&D and then also simulation things as well. Very cool, yeah, I actually have one of my children who is getting into FIRST right now. That's awesome.

Yeah, that's very fun. Yeah, they're gearing up for competition pretty behind, I think, right now. It's kind of crazy how much of it, I didn't think of it in the time, because I'm like, oh yeah, I hear people saying, yeah, it prepares you for business skills

or learning how to write grants and all this stuff, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, whatever, but as I've gotten older, I look back and I was like, wow, FIRST did provide a lot of different experiences that you might not normally get in a traditional sport, per se, if you classify it as a sport, but yeah, it's very impactful.

Yeah, I think for stuff like that, on the other side of it, you look back and you're like, this isn't actually all that complicated, but before you go through it the first time, it feels like this whole magic thing, and I think that's where the value is, in large part,

for especially kids, but all of us experiencing new things and exposing ourselves to things, is it demystifies those things, it makes them more tangible and easier for us to attain ourselves, and so, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, I love that word, that's a good descriptor, demystify. I feel like that's a good one for artificial intelligence, as well. Yeah, I was just going to say that, too. I'm looking forward to you helping us demystify AI and how we can apply that to presentations,

and I'm curious, too, some people who are coming to the conference are not really into giving talks and that sort of thing, so how is what you're talking about going to be applicable to those people?

Yeah, it's going to be applicable to non-technical and technical and maybe just curious people in general, because a lot of it is sharing ways of how we can also be productive in different ways. Many of us, if not everyone, is doing some form of work or productivity,

or maybe there's a hobby or a passion, and so it's applicable to a lot of those avenues, too. It doesn't have to be just coding or just working. There's a lot of overlapping that you can apply to different disciplines. Very good. Well, cool. I'm very excited about that.

I think that's going to be a lot of fun, and the interactivity bit, I think, is very intriguing, so looking forward to seeing what that is all about. So, Kira, we're going to have some extended breaks and that sort of thing,

so everybody come and talk to Kira about AI and things. But then the day after the conference, we're going skiing, and you mentioned that you are a skier, so are you going to be coming with us skiing to Upper East Helsu? Oh, my gosh. I would love to go skiing, yeah. Very good.

I just did my conference this weekend, so I'm stoked to go over to Salt Lake as well. Yeah, sweet. Hopefully we get – we've gotten some pretty good snow. I think conditions up there are pretty good right now. And hopefully we get even more so that we're ready for you to hit shred in March. That would be awesome.

I know that Eve is planning on skiing, and for those listening, Eve, I think she was a ski instructor for a while, and she mentioned that she really loves teaching people to ski. So even for folks who are not experienced skiers, Eve will be there to help you get going. Yeah, Eve is amazing too.

She's great at teaching. Anytime she's teaching, I'm like, I will be there. Wonderful, wonderful. Well, Kira, I'm going to be there for your talk. I'm very excited about it. So thank you so much for giving us some of your time to get to know you a little bit today.

And good luck on – I'm guessing you're probably not mountain biking right now, but on your next race, good luck on that. Thank you. And we'll see you in March. Yeah, thank you so much, Kent. I appreciate it. Thank you. See you, everybody.

Kira Corbett

Moon Highway, Developer Educator, Building an AI Assistant

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