"It began with a Lego robot"

The new hobby continued to fascinate the two students. Just before graduating from school, they successfully applied for Apple’s WWDC Scholarship, a programme through which the technology giant invites talented pupils and students to attend its annual World Wide Developers Conference. Between final exams, the friends travelled to California, where they met Apple engineers and big names from Silicon Valley. “At WWDC, we saw what ambitious and passionate people work in computer science,” says Laich. For her, the decision was clear: she would study computer science.

No sooner said than done: Laich studied software engineering at the University of Stuttgart. Together with Riedel, she continued to develop apps. In 2015, the friends founded their company Frogg GmbH to provide a legal framework for their activities. The start-up’s portfolio consists largely of educational apps. “We programmed apps that we needed ourselves,” says Laich, explaining the motivation behind Frogg. In between, the duo also took on external assignments – but only those where they could learn something. “If you accept boring commissions for the money, you will end up getting more boring commissions. Because we were very selective, we met interesting people and got to work on even more challenging projects,” explains Laich.

Strong teaching in Zurich

After completing her Bachelor’s degree, Laich decided to pursue a Master’s in Computer Science at ETH Zurich. She successfully applied for an ESOP scholarship (Excellence Scholarship & Opportunity Programme) from the ETH Foundation, which is awarded annually to talented Master’s students who are in the top 2–3 percent of their year. Laich is convinced that her entrepreneurial activities, in addition to her excellent grades in her Bachelor’s studies, have secured her the support. “If someone is active outside of their studies, you can immediately see that he or she is enthusiastic about the field,” she says.

Laich has certainly never lacked enthusiasm. In addition to her studies and start-up, she completed several internships during both her Bachelor’s and Master’s studies, including at such renowned companies as Google and Apple. Laich did not perceive the additional workload as a burden – her enjoyment of the subject carried her through stressful times. “I was occasionally pressed for time, but that’s normal when you’re studying,” she says. “In exchange, I was able to apply the theory in practice straight away. In my projects, I learned a lot for my studies, and vice versa.”

For example, the computer scientist worked a lot with signal processing during her work on Redpoint. “Some of the courses from the Master’s programme were very helpful here,” she says, “I implemented some of the content from the Computer Vision course into our apps straight away.” For her Master’s thesis, she chose a different subject, Program Synthesis, which is the automatic generation of program code with machine learning. “It’s good to know different subject areas,” says Laich.

Laich chose ETH Zurich for several reasons. The good reputation of the university, the research areas, personal contacts, her love for the city of Zurich and its proximity to her hometown all played a role. Both the standing of ETH and also the high level of teaching helped her apply for highly coveted internships. “Prof. Angelika Steger’s Algorithms Lab, for example, is a great help, especially with the big tech companies,” says Laich. The demanding course is a good preparation for the tasks that are set in interviews and in everyday work. “An ETH degree is highly rated,” remarks Laich. “But the time I spent at ETH and the people I met here are even more valuable than the degree itself.”

Connections around the world

At the end of 2019, Laich successfully completed her Master’s degree. She has not ruled out a doctorate at a later date. But first, she has started a job as a software engineer at Oculus in Zurich. At the same time, Frogg GmbH wants to grow and hire more employees – for example, to develop an Android version of Redpoint. The success of Frogg is founded to a significant extent on a strong network. “We don’t network systematically, but we do get to know interesting people through our projects,” explains Laich. This was also the case at the WWDC, or the Apple Entrepreneur Camp, a two-week event organized by Apple in California for promising start-ups, which Frogg was able to attend in 2019. “I also met many motivated people at ETH and ESOP. It’s a wonderful community,” says Laich.

The young computer scientist is also involved in giving others the opportunity to make contacts. During her studies, she organized events for the Committee for Master’s Students without an ETH Bachelor (MoEB) of the Association of Computer Science Students (VIS). Today, she is part of the organising committee of the conference Women in Data Science Zurich, which will take place in Zurich for the third time this year. “It is important to see successful women in computer science,” she says. However, Laich finds the frequently asked question, “How does it feel to be a woman in computer science?” tiresome. “I hear this very often at conferences. I don’t feel any different than anyone else. I think the focus should be on accomplishments, not gender.”

At the same time, Laich admits that she was a little lucky, too. Her parents and her environment have always supported her. She never had any reason to doubt her choice of career. “I find computer science extremely fascinating,” she says, “and we also receive daily emails from all over the world with feedback on our apps. It’s incredibly motivating to see how my work reaches people from faraway countries like Japan, Australia or the USA.”