Category: Events

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Move It Forward for Women vs. COVID19

Outcomes from this event are included in our 30 April 2020 post “World’s First Women versus COVID19-Hackathon“

The Digital Leadership Institute and its partners are proud to announce a Move It Forward – female digital starters event for Women versus COVID19, taking place online on 24-26 April 2020 (all times CET, GMT+2), in support of the #EUvsVirus hackathon organised by the European Commission, and in celebration of Girls in ICT Day 2020!

Move It Forward female digital starters events are an initiative of inQube, DLI’s female digital accelerator, and are supported by top technology companies, non-profit organisations, and youth and women’s networks and communities. Their objective is to give teen and adult women* the skills to become digital entrepreneurs and leaders, and to support them in driving positive change in their communities and society-at-large.

Participants:  If you are a teen or adult woman* interested in building your tech and entrepreneurship skills while addressing challenges for Women during the COVID19 crisis, please sign up for this FREE event!

Coaches/Volunteers/Partners:  Please contact us if you would like to support this event. Opportunities exist for Move It Forward volunteers, interpreters, coaches, jury members, content and media partners, prize contributors and sponsors.

*Anyone who identifies as a woman

Draft Programme:
Day One – 24 April (Friday – All Times CET, GMT+2):

Day Two – 25 April (Saturday – All Times CET, GMT+2):

Day Three – 26 April (Sunday – All Times CET, GMT+2):

  • 09:00-09:30 – Check-in & Virtual Coffee
  • 09:30-12:00 – Workshop Webinar 3: Build a Smartphone App with MIT App Inventor for Android
  • 12:00-15:00 – Project Work with Coaches
  • 15:00-16:00 – Project Submissions to #EUvsVirus (optional)
  • 16:00-19:00 – Closing Session (open to the Public): Project Pitches for “Women versus COVID19”

  • 19:00-20:00 – Virtual Reception with #EUvsVirus
**Awards:  Prizes will be handed out for the top three projects presented at the Closing Session:
  • Overall Best: 6-month Virtual inQubation at DLI; 10 Hours one-to-one inQube Startup Coaching; and free access to Crowdfunding 100 online course ($197 value) care of event partner Global InvestHer
  • Most Impact: 4-month Virtual inQubation at DLI; 8 Hours one-to-one inQube Startup Coaching
  • Most Innovative: 4-month Virtual inQubation at DLI; 8 Hours one-to-one inQube Startup Coaching

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DLI Update – Winter 2019

Happy new year from the Digital Leadership Institute!

The DLI team closed out a fabulous 2019 in Berlin at an Internet Governance Forum award ceremony where we received UN recognition for our global leadership in promoting greater participation of girls and women in digital sectors around the world! 

Our Board and Executive Team are actively involved in outreach activities with partners and stakeholders around the world that promote ESTEAM* leadership by girls and women. Find out more about our outreach activities of Winter 2019 below, and please visit our calendar for events organised by DLI.

*STEM powered by Entrepreneurship and Arts

24 September 2019 – Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media Global Symposium (New York): Ms. Che Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director,  joined a 24 September Global Symposium organised by the Geena Davis Institute on the Status of Equity and Inclusion in Children’s Television at Google in New York. DLI is a long-time advocate for Equity in Media, and member of the Global Alliance on Media and Gender and the Geena Davis Institute.

25 September 2019 – Financial Inclusion for Development: Building on 10 years of Progress (New York): On 25 September at UN Headquarters in New York, Ms. Che Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director,  joined an official side-event of the 74th Session of the UN General Assembly, on invite of Queen Màxima of Holland, in recognition of her successes over the past ten years in advancing financial inclusion around the world, and its role in achieving the 2030 Agenda. Contributing to the event were UN Secretary General António Guterres, Ms. Melinda Gates, and the CEOs of Paypal and Microsoft, among others.

7-14 October 2019 – Women Code Festival (Brussels): The Third Annual Women Code Festival, organized by WomenInTech.brussels, took place 7-14 October in Brussels. Ms. Che Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director,  moderated the Festival opening event on 7 October, and the 6th Annual European Ada Awards ceremony, that took place at the Google Atelier in Brussels on 16 October, was an official side-event of the Festival.

14-15 October 2019 – INNOVEIT 2019 Conference (Budapest): On 14-15 October in Budapest,Ms. Che Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, contributed to the 2019 edition of the INNOVEIT conference, organized by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, as guest of honor and jury member for the EIT Woman Award 2019.

23 October 2019 – Mobile World Congress – Women4Tech Summit (Los Angeles): On 23 October at the Mobile World Congress Los Angeles, Ms. Che Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director,  joined a Women4Tech Summit panel on increasing diversity in STEM careers, including AI, big data and cyber security

15-16 November 2019 – Women’s Entrepreneurship Day: DLI  joined global celebrations of 2019 Women’s Entrepreneurship Day, that took place around the world with flagship summit in New York City on 15-16 November. Ms. Che Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, has been Women’s Entrepreneurship Ambassador for Belgium since 2016.

21-22 November 2019 – 4IR Conference (Madrid): On 21-22 November in Madrid, Ms. Che Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director,  contributed to a conference on “Ethics and the Fourth Industrial Revolution (“4IR”), with a talk on “Inclusive Digital Transformation.”

22 November 2019 – SheDIDIT Closing Event (Ghent, Belgium): Ms. Che Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director,  joined the closing event of the #SheDIDIT campaign promoting Belgian women entrepreneurs from diverse origins, for which she has been a role model and mentor for the past year.

27 November 2019 – UN EQUALS Award Ceremony at Internet Governance Forum 2019 (Berlin):  As part of the 2019 Internet Governance Forum in Berlin, the DLI Team had the honour of joining a 27 November UN EQUALS ceremony recognising initiatives around the world that promote greater participation of girls and women in digital sectors.  DLI was recognised in the global Leadership category by the UN EQUALS partnership which includes the UN ITU, UN Women, GSMA and EY.

25-27 November 2019 – SME Assembly (Helsinki): Ms. Che Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, was invited to join to the annual SME Assembly for Europe as a delegate promoting women-led (tech) startup. The SME Assembly is the flagship event of European SME Week, an event of the 2019 Finnish Presidency of the EU Council.

2 December 2019 – Work-Life Balance Conference (Brussels): Ms. Loredana Bucseneanu, DLI Development Director,  joined a panel on “digitalisation and work-life balance” at the Work-Life Balance Conference taking place on 2 December in Brussels, organized by the Global Wo.Men Hub, of which DLI is a member.

Be sure to visit our Calendar and Outreach Activities page, and sign up for the DLI Newsletter in order to keep up with DLI events and activities!

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Europe Recognises Top Girls and Women in Digital Fields

“We are girls! We are women! We are strong!” – European Commissioner Gabriel to winners of the 2019 European Ada Awards recognising top female digital talent in Europe

“Take all challenges as opportunities,” advised Ms. Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society, to a group of wide-eyed finalists at the sixth European Ada Awards ceremony organised on 16 October 2019 in Brussels as part of European Code Week and the WomenInTech.Brussels Women Code Festival. The Ada Awards, founded in 2012 by Brussels-based Digital Leadership Institute, promote top girls and women in digital fields in Europe in an effort to increase their numbers, a long-term priority for Commissioner Gabriel that she will carry into her new mission as European Commissioner for Youth and Innovation starting next month.

Commissioner Gabriel officially opened this year’s celebration of the Ada Awards, affectionately named for Countess Ada Lovelace, the world’s first-ever computer programmer, with a message that technology is “a strategic tool for the empowerment of citizens—of women and of men—that we must continue to use to advance ourselves,” she said. The Commissioner counseled those present to spend less time on embellishments and to focus on taking action when a door is opened, saying she would both hold them to task, and committed to supporting them along the way. The Commissioner closed her message praising the hard work and talent demonstrated by the Ada Award finalists and winners, underscoring: “We are girls! We are women! We are strong!”

Following her remarks, Commissioner Gabriel and Ada Award partners from civil society and private sector recognised the 2019 European Ada Award-winners.

2019 European Digital Woman of the Year Award

The 2019 European Ada Award for Digital Woman of the Year was presented by Ms. Kelly Dorekens, CRM Director at Deloitte Belgium, who shared that “diversity in a group matters as much as ability and brainpower,” adding that Deloitte “actively encourages women to embrace science, technology, engineering and math through selected partnerships and events, like the Ada Awards.”

Ms. Dee Saigal, United Kingdom – 2019 European Digital Woman of the Year
Ms. Dee Saigal is Founder, CEO and Creative Director of Erase All Kittens, an adventure game designed to give girls the confidence to code, whilst teaching digital and 21st century skills. Dee’s goal is for EAK is to transform the way children perceive coding and engineering, and empower millions of girls worldwide with transferable, digital skills. Dee shared that her biggest challenge so far, aside from being a woman in tech, has been fundraising for research and development. Her message to other women and girls is to not think tech is for boys or that it is “geeky.” “There are so many amazing careers in tech that are both interesting and challenging,” says Saigal. Now that Erase All Kittens has 150,000 players, her next step is to raise investment in order to be able to build more educational and gamified version to launch globally. Her team is raising £500,000, and are already at twenty percent of that goal.

2019 European Digital Girl of the Year Award

“10 Years and Under” Category:
The 2019 European Ada Award for Digital Girl of the Year in the “10 Years and Under” category was presented by Ms. Afke Schaart, VP and Head of Europe, GSMA. Winner in this category was Tayra, from Bulgaria.

Tayra, from Bulgaria – 2019 European Digital Girl of the Year “10 Years and Under”
Tayra is ten years old and was born in Sofia. She loves coding, and most recently won a special prize at Softunjada Kids with her Scratch project “three bears fairytale,” using sign language for kids. Tayra says the projects she is most proud of are her webpage and her robots. In ten years, she hopes to be a programmer. Her message to other girls who are interested in tech is: “I believe that girls have a power, and the power of technology can change the world for the better, no matter who we are. It is never too late or too early to get involved in tech,” Tayra says.

“11-14 Years Old” Category:

The 2019 European Ada Award for Digital Girl of the Year in the “11-14 Years Old” category was presented by Ms. Christine Marlet, Board Member, Global Wo.Man Hub. Marlet expressed her awe of the candidates saying “the Ada Awards grant the participants the perfect opportunity to enhance their digital dreams. It encourages them to take risks along the way in order to achieve their digital goals because they believe that their objectives are attainable.” She added: “Belief in yourself stems from belief in your role models.” Winner in this category was Selin, from Turkey.

Selin, from Turkey – 2019 European Digital Girl of the Year “11-14 Years Old”
Selin is thirteen years old and loves building robots, coding, animals and travelling. She wants to study robotics and eventually build a humanoid. Selin shared that she was inspired to build her robot dog when her childhood dog passed away. She said “I knew that blind people especially have a strong connection with their dogs. I wanted to help them out, and felt like this was a great way of doing that.” She spends her free time on the weekends working on and improving her robotic guide dog. Looking forward, Selin says “I am currently developing the second version of my dog, and this one will be able to sit, lay down, bark, and it will even do ‘heart eyes’ towards my mom. Currently it’s only programmed to understand English, but I’m hoping for it to learn Chinese soon!”

“15-17 Years Old” Category:
The 2019 European Ada Award for Digital Girl of the Year in the “15-17 Years Old” category was presented by Ms. Viola Pinzi from European Schoolnet. There were two winner in this category: Anne, from Belgium, and Alai-Miranda, from Spain.

Anne, from Belgium – 2019 European Digital Girl of the Year “15-17 Years Old”
Anne is a fifteen-year-old girl who created Clinicoders, an initiative to bring technology and programming to children in hospitals. One of the goals of this project is to encourage children to create solutions for permanently disabled children. Anne said her next steps for Clinicoders are to bring it to a hospital in Antwerp, as it is only currently in Ghent, Belgium. “My dad wants to help bring it to other countries as well. So we’ll see where it goes,” she said. Over time, Clinicoders has developed from an application for children into something for adults too. “We shared this application called ‘Mindstorms’ to adult hospital animators, and it has been a real success.” In terms of her own future, Anne plans on studying law, but definitely wants to continue engaging hospital patients with Clinicoders.

Alai-Miranda from Spain – 2019 European Digital Girl of the Year “15-17 Years Old”
Alai-Miranda’s passion for STEM began when she was seven years old, and it has yet to fade. Most recently, she was invited to speak at the Amazon Web Services Summit in Madrid to discuss her experience as a girl in technology. Alai-Miranda shared about a new project she has begun to work on called “EsVuela.” A combination of the Spanish words “escuela” (school) and “volar” (to fly), the project will educate children on how to fly and program drones. As far as where Alai-Mirand sees herself in ten years, she says: “Hopefully I will have graduated from MIT and will be working in technology at a company, or maybe I will have even started my own company at that point. I hope to be either in the U.S., or maybe in Europe, maybe even still in Spain – somewhere!” As for her experience at the Ada Awards, she said that she feels “inspired to continue talking about and learning technology.”

 

“Gender-Equality and Europe: Fit for the Digital Era?” Panel

The 2019 European Ada Awards ceremony was preceded by a high-level panel on “Gender Equality and Europe: Fit for the Digital Era,” moderated by Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, and including panelists Miss Manon Van Hoorebeke, 2014-2015 Ada Award-winner for European Digital Girl of the Year, Mr. Christian Veske, Stakeholder Relations Coordinator at the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), Ms. Annick Breton Elias, Partner of Deloitte Luxembourg, and Ms. Afke Schaart, Vice President and Head of Europe at GSMA, a global trade association for the mobile industry.

Christian Veske kicked off the panel with a discussion of EIGE’s 2019 Gender Equality Index released this week, the factors contributing to Europe’s score of 67 out of 100, and the increasing importance of promoting gender balance in digital fields. “Women won’t achieve equality until there is digital equality,” agreed Schaart from the GSMA. “Right now, women hold less than twenty percent of jobs in the tech industry, which is why GSMA expanded our Tech4Girls program this year.”

 

At sixteen, Manon Van Hoorebeke shared that winning the Digital Girl of the Year award at eleven years old has played a significant role in guiding her life choices since then, and that she is now studying Physics at university. Van Hoorebeke also admitted that a lack of confidence with technology is a barrier to getting more young women into the field, and even despite her accomplishements, that she sometimes faces self-doubt. Elias concurred that this patter appears in professional contexts as well for which reason, she said, Deloitte works to identfy high-potential women in digital fields and starts conversations with them on leadership. “Because it is often unlikely that women will initiate these discussions themselves,” she said.

 

Formal welcome for the 2019 European Ada Awards Ceremony was provided by Ms. Loubna Azhgoud, COO of Women in Business and WomenInTech.Brussels @1819 Hub, and by Ms. Audrey Scozzaro Ferrazzi, Senior European Policy Manager at Google. Azhgoud congratulated Ada Award finalists and highlighted the event in the context of the third-annual Women Code Festival organised by the Brussels Region, which succeeded this year in reaching 2300 participants, eighty percent female, to encourage them into digital fields. Scozzaro Ferrazzi also welcomed guests with a rousing speech expressing her awe and admiration for gathered laurates who, like her, are pursuing digital fields.

Following the ceremony, WomenInTech.Brussels provided a lovely reception for the finalists and winners of the 2019 European Ada Awards and all their friends, families and supporters.

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Congratulations to the 2019 European Ada Award winners, finalists and nominees for their amazing leadership in digital fields across Europe!

Thank you to our Ada Awards sponsors and supporters!

You can find more pictures from the 2019 European Ada Awards ceremony here.
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2019 European Ada Awards Open

EU Ada Awards Patron, Ms. Mariya Gabriel, EU Commissioner for the Digital Economy & Society

Under the esteemed patronage of Ms. Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society, the Digital Leadership Institute and its partners are honoured to announce the opening of nominations for the 2019-2020 European Ada Awards recognising top girls and women* in digital fields from across Europe.


Online nominations for outstanding girls and women in digital sectors will be open until 20 September 2019, and winners will be celebrated at the sixth annual European Ada Awards ceremony, taking place on 16 October in Brussels as part of European Code Week and the WomenInTech.Brussels Women Code Festival. The event is open to members of the public who register, on a first-come-first-served basis. Official 2019 European Ada Awards timings may be found on the Awards calendar.

Nomination Details

Submission details and nomination forms for the 2019 European Ada Awards may be found at the links below:

Official 2019 European Ada Awards timings may be found on the 2019 European Ada Awards calendar.

Important Dates – 2019 European Ada Awards

19 June – 2019-20 European Ada Awards Online Nominations Open
27 September
 – 2019-20 Ada Awards Online Nominations Close at midnight
4 October – 18:00 CET Online Announcement of 2019-20 European Ada Award Finalists
16 October
 – 2019-20 European Ada Awards Ceremony at Google Atelier in Brussels

For more information about the 2019 European Ada Awards, including sponsorship opportunities, please contact us!

Thank you to the European Ada Awards 2019-20 partners and sponsors!

*Anyone who identifies as a girl or woman

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DLI Update – May-June 2019

The Digital Leadership Institute Board and Executive Team are actively involved in outreach activities with partners and stakeholders around the world that promote ESTEAM* leadership by girls and women.  Find out more about our outreach activities of May and June 2019 below, and please visit our calendar for events organised by DLI.

*STEM powered by Entrepreneurship and Arts

10 May 2019 – Women in ICT Sharing Experiences (Brussels) : On 10 May, Ms. Katja Legisa, DLI inQube Director,  joined the eighth edition of the Women in ICT Sharing Experiences Annual Networking event organised by the Centre for Balanced Leadership in Brussels.

15 May 2019 – EC Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition Governing Board Meeting (Brussels) : Ms. Che Van Dyck, DLI Founding Director,  joined the seventh meeting of the Governing Board for the European Commission’s Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition, taking place in Brussels on 15 May.

21 May 2019 – STEM Fair (Los Angeles): On 21 May, Ms. Che Van Dyck, DLI Founding Director, contributed to organising a STEM Fair in Los Angeles County, in order to encourage young people, especially girls, to pursue studies and careers in these areas.

28 May 2019 – Computer Science Panel (Los Angeles) : Ms. Che Van Dyck, DLI Founding Director, joined a panel promoting Computer Science studies and careers for Los Angeles County high school students, especially young women, taking place on 28 May in Redondo Beach.

13 June 2019 – Digital Skills and Jobs Governing Board Meeting (Bucharest): On 13 June, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder,  joined the eighth meeting of the Governing Board of the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition of Europe. The meeting took place in Bucharest as part of Digital Assembly 2019, hosted by the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union. Ms. Loredana Bucseneanu, DLI Director of Development, also joined the event as representative of Belgium to the joint meeting of the National Coalitions for Digital Skills and Jobs.

13 June 2019 – WEgate Stakeholder Meeting (Brussels): On 13 June July in Brussels, Ms. Katja Legisa, DLI Entrepreneurship Director,  joined a stakeholder meeting for the WEgate platform, an initiative of the European Commission aimed at stimulating and supporting women-led entrepreneurship in Europe.

26-28 June 2019 – Mobile World Congress (Shanghai): Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder,  joined the Mobile World Congress on 26-28 June in Shanghai as a guest of hosts GSMA, and participated in the Women4Tech Summit that took place on 27 June.

Be sure to visit our Calendar and Outreach Activities page, and sign up for the DLI Newsletter in order to keep up with DLI events and activities!

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DLI Update – Winter 2018

The Digital Leadership Institute Board and Executive Team are actively involved in outreach activities with partners and stakeholders around the world that promote ESTEAM* leadership by girls and women.  On 21 November 2018, Che Miller Van Dyck, DLI’s founding director, was recognized by the Financial Times and Google as one of 100 “digital pioneers” of Europe, in a celebration that took place in Brussels.  Find out more about the FT/Google event and our outreach activities of November and December 2018 below, and please visit our calendar for events organised by DLI.

*Entrepreneurship and Art powered by Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

16 November -“Hack the Goals” at Enabel (Brussels): On 16 November in Brussels, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founding Director, gave an in-depth talk on “Closing the Digital Gender Gap” at the Digital for Development (D4D) knowledge-sharing event of “Hack the Goals,” an initiative of Enabel, the Belgian Development Agency. The D4D event and Hack the Goals closing ceremony was open to the public.

21 November – “Europe’s Road To Growth” with The Financial Times and Google (Brussels): The DLI Team joined a 21 November event on “Europe’s Road to Growth,” celebrating the achievements of 100 digital pioneers of Europe, including Cheryl “Che” Miller Van Dyck, DLI Founder, who were showcased in the Financial Times Europe’s Road to Growth special report. The event took place at the Google Atelier in Brussels.

4 December – MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 Summit Europe (Paris): On 4 December, Ms. Katja Legisa, DLI Digital Brusselles Director,  joined the MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 Summit Europe 2018 taking place in Paris. Ms. Legisa is a member of the jury responsible for selecting the European Innovators Under 35 recognized at the summit this year.

6 December – Digital Skills and Jobs Governing Board Meeting (Vienna): On 6 December, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder,  joined the fifth meeting of the Governing Board of the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition of Europe. The meeting took place in Vienna as part of ICT 2018 – Imagine Digital, Europe’s largest ICT industry event, hosted by the Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union.  Ms. Miller was also member of the jury and announced this year’s winner of the Digital Skills Award for Girls and Women.

Be sure to visit our Calendar and Outreach Activities page, and sign up for the DLI Newsletter in order to keep up with DLI events and activities!

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DLI Partners with EY for Global Girl Tech Fest

In celebration of International Girls in ICT Day 2018 on 26 April, the Digital Leadership Institute is proud to collaborate with EY to organise a Girl Tech Fest, across twenty-three locations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, that will reach over 500 girls with hands-on digital skills workshops.

Girl Tech Fest (“GTF”) is the flagship event of DLI’s Digital Muse initiative, a global platform promoting ESTEAM* skills to girls.  For its 2018 “global” edition, DLI has trained dozens of EY volunteers to deliver smartphone app-coding classes to girls aged 11-15, using the MIT App Inventor for Android platform.   *Entrepreneurship & Arts powered by STEM

Draft Workshop Agenda

  • 08:00-08:10 – Welcome & Introductions
  • 08:10-08:20 – Why we need more Girls in ICT
  • 08:20-09:50 – Hands-on “Talk2Me” Android app Training for Girls
  • 09:50-10:00 – Wrapup & Thank-yous

If you would like more details about this event, about International Girls in ICT Day 2018, or about organising your own GTF or other activity to increase participation of girls and women in tech studies and careers, please contact us!

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Global Recognition for DLI Founder

On 1 March 2018 in Barcelona, Ms. Cheryl Miller Van Dyck, founding director of the Brussels-based Digital Leadership Institute, was recognized for her outstanding achievement in increasing participation of girls and women in technological studies and careers around the world. Miller, a Belgian national, was awarded the prestigious Global Mobile Award by a jury representing global ICT interests at the 2018 Mobile World Congress, whose attendance this year surpassed 100,000 visitors.

Miller received a Global Mobile “GloMo” Award in the “Industry Leadership Individual” category for what the jury called her “immeasurable impact” on increasing inclusion in the global tech sector over the past ten years.

The Digital Leadership Institute, founded by Miller in 2015, was also finalist for a Global Mobile Award in the “Industry Leadership Organizations” category, for the second year running.

For more details and contact, please find a press release here: PR CMiller Glomo 2018

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DLI Celebrates Top Women in Tech

On 30 November 2017 at BeCentral in Brussels, the Digital Leadership Institute and its partners welcomed over two hundred key stakeholders and community members to celebrate the fifth edition of the European Ada Awards and to share the success stories of the 2017 Digital Brusselles project with support from the Digital Belgium Skills Fund. The Ada Awards are a long-standing pledge to the European Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition that recognise top European girls and women in tech and the organisations that support them.

Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder, opened the evening with a warm thank you to DLI supporters, followed by keynote presentations from Ms. Céline Vanderborght, Brussels Region Smart City Manager and Ms. Andrea Almeida Cordero, Member of Cabinet for Ms. Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for the Digital Single Market. Both speakers committed their support and that of their stakeholders to active engagement of girls and women for fulfilling the vision of an inclusive digital Europe.  A subsequent tweet about the event by Commissioner Gabriel was very well received on Twitter.

Opening presentations were succeeded by graduation of over sixty participants from the 2017 Digital Muse After School program with Ms. Valentina Cala DLI Digital Creative Manager, and from the first-ever cohort of the CYPRO “First Steps” program with Ms. Mai Ensmann, DLI CYPRO Coordinator.

Ms. Katja Legisa, Digital Brusselles Director, then recognised 200-plus participants of the 2017 “Female Digital Starters” training program, followed by an inQube / Digital Brusselles project pitching session hosted by Ms. Lama Jaghjougha, a founder of Raise Women’s Awareness Network – RWAN. Initiatives presented included those launched in the context of inQube Move It Forward events over the past two years, including:

  • Brussely – a platform by/for/about Brussels Generation Y-ers, presented by Ms. Safia Bihmehdn
  • MESS – a gamified concert-going platform for Brussels citizens, presented by Ms. Alexandra Pykacz & Ms. Edith Euan
  • MIA – a virtual innovation space for Brussels citizens, presented by Ms. Muna Ibrahim
  • African Gist – an African tech internship program, presented by Ms. Cynthia Mukendy
  • Tabadoul – a professional mentorship program for women refugees led by ENoWM and DAW, presented by Ms. Sinem Yilmaz

A particularly moving moment of the evening came about when, as part of her pitch for the Brussely platform, Ms. Safia Bihmehdn read a poem she composed about her participation in the Move It Forward for Women in Media event, which as the poem describes, inspired her toward a whole new direction in digital entrepreneurship and in celebrating the youth and diversity of Brussels.

The final highlight of the evening was the 2017 European Ada Awards, launched with inspiring keynote presentations by Ms. Dinah Barret, Senior Solutions Architect for EMEA at Amazon Web Services, and Ms. Gabriela M. Juric, 2016 European Digital Girl of the Year, and co-hosted by Ms. Miller and Ms. Loredana Bucseneanu, DLI Strategy Officer.

2017 European Ada Award trophies were presented by Ms. Simone Hume of Amazon Web Services in the following categories and announced by noted Ada Award partner representatives:
1. Ms. Pascale Van Damme, Vice President and General Manager at Dell EMC Commercial Belux, is 2017 European Digital Woman of the Year, as announced by Ms. Austeja Trikunaite, Secretary General of CEPIS.

2. 2017 European Digital Girl of the Year honours were awarded in the following age categories:

15-17 Year Old Category, as announced by Ms. Kiki Walravens, GSMA:
Maeve Galvin (Ireland)

11-14 Year Old Category, as announced by Mr. Laurent Roux, Impact Officer at European Institute of Technology:

  • Aoibheann Mangan (Ireland)
  • Charlotte Johnson (United Kingdom)

10 Years and Under Category, as announced by Ms. Tomislava Recheva of European Schoolnet:

  • Helena Staple (United Kingdom)
  • Zara Ilyas (Ireland)
  • Ruby Scott Kenny (Ireland)

3. Teen-Turn of Ireland is 2017 European Digital Impact Organisation of the Year Award, as announced by Ms. Michela Palladino, Director of European Policy at Developers Alliance.

The 2017 European Ada Awards and Digital Brusselles celebration concluded with a reception catered by From Syria With Love, an organisation led by recent Syrian women refugees to Belgium that Digital Brusselles is honoured to support.

The Digital Leadership Institute and Digital Brusselles would like to thank the speakers, judges, partners and sponsors of the 2017 European Ada Awards and Digital Brusselles celebration, including the Digital Belgium Skills Fund, Amazon Web Services, European Institute of Technology, CEPIS, European Schoolnet, Edosoft, GSMA, Developers Alliance and BeCentral.

Congratulations to all the girls and women recognised by this year’s Ada Awards and Digital Brusselles celebration. We are looking forward to welcoming even more of you again next year!

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Join the 2017 Ada Awards & Digital Brusselles Celebration!

The Digital Leadership Institute has the honour of inviting our key stakeholders and community members to join us in celebrating the fifth edition of the European Ada Awards, recognising top European girls and women in tech and the organisations supporting them, AND the success stories of the 2017 Digital Brusselles project, with support from our wonderful partners and the Digital Belgium Skills Fund. Join us by registering at this link!