Talking with Techies - Ivan Panton

Welcome back to Talking with Techies; a new segment on my blog where I interview all sorts of interesting members of the tech industry to gain knowledge, advice and an insight into different sectors of this industry. For this first post, I talked with Ivan Panton, a Computer Science graduate with an unusual but interesting blend of experience including currently being Head of Technology at YCC, working on launching a start-up and has various research projects underway. With all this experience at such a young age, I was excited to learn about the secret to his success and more about how he has progressed so quickly.

Tell me a bit about what you do.

I’ve just finished my Computer Science degree at York which included a year in industry. Alongside this, since June 2019 I've been Head of Technology at YCC, a student-led pro-bono consultancy based in York, with service lines including Management, Strategy and Tech consulting. I’m also proud to have recently become an instructor at Code First Girls – helping to provide the skills, space and inspiration for women to be empowered in software engineering and data science.

Did you always see yourself in the tech industry?

Whilst I’ve had computers around me from day zero, originally I wanted to be a pilot! Over the years I engaged increasingly with tech, from simple slide decks in PowerPoint, to making my first website at age 8 – taking my parents rather by surprise! It’s a great journey that’ll allow people like me, curious about problem-solving and designing clever solutions, to make a positive difference and never stop learning.

You’ve been to university. What do you study? What drew you to that course and that university?

I studied Computer Science (with a year in industry) at the University of York. The course was really appealing (as was the uni) from the day I had my first open day – so good in fact; I chose not to do any further viewings. The course is designed to embed within us all of the necessary attributes for good computational thinking, and molding us into being proper computer scientists. That, combined with the layout of the course having been built with employability (or a foundation for PhD study) in mind, it was really a no brainer. 

What’s your opinion on university vs apprenticeships?

They both have merits and demerits. I don’t think I’d change my journey if I went back the ~5-6 years to the point where I chose CS@UoY, but I can see clear selling points for both apprenticeships and degree apprenticeships at the moment. The non-uni pathway into STEM and, more specifically, CS/Cyber no longer has the absolute requirement for a degree. I personally think it’s a strong foundation for any career – it demonstrates a clear ability to take on knowledge and synthesise it with new knowledge each year. In addition, the opportunities for living somewhere new, getting involved in countless different societies and sports really helps to clarify what sort of ‘young adult’ you’ll become. Ultimately, I think the decision should be made based on what truly feels right, 

What do you owe your success to?

It starts with our choices, I won’t quantify my own success as it means different things to different people. I personally feel pleased with the journey I’ve had so far, and how I’ve improved myself over time, but there’s always something new to learn or see or experience. Accepting that we make poor or ‘suboptimal’ choices from time to time served, in my opinion, only to allow us to learn from them in the future. Hard work plays a key part – you can work smart for some of the way, but there will often be cases where the situation requires spending long hours on a problem, or having less sleep, or travelling for some extended period. Making the best of these situations has meant I have noticed improvements in both the metrics for ‘success’ I use, as well as their respective ‘scores’.

How did you progress?

Academically, it was a case of identifying the ‘so what’ in the content being covered in each module and recognising the obvious and less-obvious relationships between different modules. Doing this meant concepts were easier to truly understand, rather than just transiently remember. Professional progress is an interesting question, I’m still in the early years of my career, with a mammoth learning journey ahead, but by learning from others and trying to surround myself with a group of good people I think I’ve laid the foundations for progress well. For us to really progress, regardless of the metric we’re using, I think it’s important to regularly (by this I mean at a consistent interval) work out where ‘we are’, how that relates to some objective we’ve set ourselves, and what steps there are remaining. These goals, importantly, are not immutable – we can adapt them as our personal experiences and preferences shift with time.

What projects are you working on? AI research project?

I’ve recently concluded my undergraduate dissertation / final year project exploring the feasibility, and quantifying the effectiveness, of applying genetic algorithms to the problem of combining neural networks into ‘hybrids’ of the input parent networks. To make the work visually stimulating I did this with ‘style transfer networks’ to produce ideally aesthetically appealing art. I’m pleased that the outputs shown below are interesting enough to be featured in the Norman Rea Gallery in their exhibition “Inspired By Others” in collaboration with ‘The Scott Award’. 

If you could give advice to your younger self what would it be?

"Be more ambitious... and always remember to stay humble" – balancing humility with ambition can be challenging, but getting it right is the real sweet spot. 

How did you achieve ‘The Committee of the Year Award’?

In my first tenure at YCC I was a Technology Support Officer, then an Analyst in the Tech team which I now lead. In 2018 we were nominated for, and won, the “Committee of the Year” award, recognising a student-led body that has had a positive impact on both students and more widely. I can’t say ‘I’ won the award, as it’s inherently a team effort – as with many successes! We had solid leadership and my colleagues were both hard-working and well-intentioned. Notable successes included the Women in Consulting event, hiring 70+ students as consultants that year, a successful ‘York Consulting Conference’ including delegates and speakers from EY, Deloitte, KPMG, Eversheds Sutherland, Google and Facebook, alongside attracting student delegates from across the UK. That, combined with the projects YCC undertook, contributed to the award being won.

And what's your opinion on more women in tech? 

It’s a really nontrivial problem, and I don’t think you have to look far to really see it in practice. It’s important to note, however, that all industries have their own shortcomings in representation and other matters. Being aware of the problems in whichever industry one works in is the first step. We can then improve things with increasing steps. This is one reason why I’ve joined Code First Girls as an Instructor to help empower more women into Data Science and software engineering.

What makes a company or job stand out to you?

Trust, flexibility and development potential. Trust – who doesn’t want to be trusted? Trust enables teams and individuals alike. Flexibility – whilst quite topical at the moment, it means people are able to work in ways that are most productive, maintaining a balanced and healthy life. You need the first point, trust, to achieve real flexibility though. Development potential because I’m a hungry learner, and I particularly value organisations and businesses that support the learning journey. Entering the world of professional work, I come in at point X. For both the employer and me, it’s important that I take a path that results in some proportionate growth continuously, as I’m better able to serve the clients and other stakeholders, and then help to develop others more.

Can you explain your passion for law and technology?

There’s a curious overlap between legal problems and computer science problems. Thinking about things in a rules-based system (the world, for example) you have entities that are arbitrarily complex, such as corporates, governments or individuals and they engage in deals (transactions). It’s like having a large network of computers having to interact, share data, negotiate communications. A company wanting to have multijurisdictional (such as UK and Brazil) transactions, such as a merger or an acquisition, may have to work out which laws have a higher ‘priority’, how the laws of these two jurisdictions relate, and what that allows the company to do. Analysing these problems from either that perspective or from a dispute resolution perspective when things go wrong, is really fascinating to me. Of course, the fast-moving environment of LegalTech / RegTech isn’t slowing down, so understanding the problems faced by firms, the implications of different technologies, and translating solutions into plain English is something I’m curious about. Choosing the right solution isn’t entirely obvious all the time, so working with different layers of abstraction, a computer science concept, is useful when speaking to different people about problems. Technology, also, has to operate within the various laws of different jurisdictions, so being able to have a grip on what those laws mean and how to not fall foul of them is also useful as a technologist. Whether that’s from cybersecurity, data protection, ethics or other perspectives.


At such a young age, to have this much experience in this industry already, Ivan is truly an inspiration to the next generation of computer scientists. With such passion and drive, Ivan's sure to go far. I, as I'm sure you are, am excited to see where technology takes Ivan next and what new opportunities he encounters and is sure to conquer. I want to give a huge thank you to Ivan who not only gave up his time for this interview but who also continues to give me invaluable mentoring and advice.