Category: Projects

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Organise Your Own Move It Forward Event!

As an outcome of the Move It Forward+ project, funded by the European Union Erasmus+ program, a toolkit for organising your very own Move It Forward (“MIF”) event–as well as CSR and mentoring activities to promote women (digital) entrepreneurs–is now available free, online for the public!

Move It Forward is an event footprint–sometimes called a “hackathon” or “tech-for-good” initiative–originally developed by the Digital Leadership Institute as part of its inQube “female digital accelerator” program. With MIF and other activities, inQube aims to support teen and adult women entrepreneurs by providing community, digital and business skills, and other resources they need to launch and grow successful digitally-enabled and digitally-driven enterprises.

Including Move It Forward+ project activities, the Move It Forward event has been organized 20 times in 9 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, reaching thousands of participants, since 2014. In 2018, MIF received a Global Mobile Award, and in 2019 was recognised as European finalist for the UN ITU EQUALS in Tech Award.

Materials developed and made available within the MIF+ project are available for download on the Move It Forward+ website and below.

Please feel free to contact us for more information about and support with organising a Move It Forward event in your own city!

1. Guides: How to organise a Move it forward+ Event

We provide our Guides in 5 different languages, to support you with the organisation of your Move it forward+ event.

2. Event Preparation Documents

You can find additional and printable materials here:

3. In-event Documents

You can find a variety of printable material here:

4. Guides: How to organise mentoring sessions

You will find here all the resources related to the organisation of mentoring sessions linked to your Move it foward+ event.

Annexe n°1: Impact and assessment of women programmes and events supporting women in entrepreneurship.

Annexe n°2: Mentor’s portfolio & Mentee’s portfolio

5. Event Presentations

Our Event Presentation will be available soon!

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Organise Your Own Move It Forward Event!

As an outcome of the Move It Forward+ project, funded by the European Union Erasmus+ program, a toolkit for organising your very own Move It Forward (“MIF”) event–as well as CSR and mentoring activities to promote women (digital) entrepreneurs–is now available free, online for the public!

Move It Forward is an event footprint–sometimes called a “hackathon” or “tech-for-good” initiative–originally developed by the Digital Leadership Institute as part of its inQube “female digital accelerator” program.  By deploying MIF and other activities, inQube aims to support teen and adult women entrepreneurs by providing community, digital and business skills, and other resources they need to launch and grow successful digitally-enabled and digitally-driven enterprises.

Including Move It Forward+ project activities, the Move It Forward event has been organized twenty times in nine countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, reaching thousands of participants, since 2014.  In 2018, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI founder, received a Global Mobile Award recognizing her work with inQube, and in 2019 the MIF initiative was selected as a European finalist for the UN ITU EQUALS in Tech Award.

Materials developed and made available within the MIF+ project are available for download on the Move It Forward+ website and below.

Please feel free to contact us for more information about and support with organising a Move It Forward event in your own city!

1. Guides: How to organise a Move it forward+ Event

We provide our Guides in 5 different languages, to support you with the organisation of your Move it forward+ event.

2. Event Preparation Documents

You can find additional and printable materials here:

3. In-event Documents

You can find a variety of printable material here:

4. Guides: How to organise mentoring sessions

You will find here all the resources related to the organisation of mentoring sessions linked to your Move it foward+ event.

Annexe n°1: Impact and assessment of women programmes and events supporting women in entrepreneurship.

Annexe n°2: Mentor’s portfolio & Mentee’s portfolio

5. Event Presentations

Our  Event Presentation will be available soon!

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Women4Afghanistan

The recent withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan after twenty years of occupation created a power vacuum and resurgence of domestic forces that has triggered a humanitarian crisis.  The clamping down on human rights and freedoms, especially impacting girls and women, is forcing flight of hundreds of thousands of Afghan nationals to other parts of the globe. Some of the most high profile evacuations have been of the Afghan Girls Robotics and Girls Soccer teams. There are thousands of harrowing evacuation stories, not all of which have been successful, and countless more at-risk girls and women are still living in uncertainty in Afghanistan. 

In her role as Head of EU Delegation to the G20 Women20 stakeholder interest group, Cheryl Miller, DLI Director, played an instrumental role in delivering a Declaration of Support for Afghan Women and Girls to G20 leaders, including EC President von der Leyen and US President Biden, ahead of a 24 August urgent G7 meeting on Afghanistan. President von der Leyen’s remarks there focused on the plight of Afghan girls and women: “We need to help mostly those who are at immediate risk. And those are women, girls and children, who make up the vast majority of internally displaced people – 80% of the internally displaced people in Afghanistan are women and girls.”

As Afghan refugees attempt to make their way to other countries, they will need support – for evacuating from Afghanistan, arriving to a new location, and in assimilating long-term as economic, political and social actors in their adopted homes. An initiative called Women4Afghanistan was launched by Anne Ravanona and Katharina Miller, EU delegates to the G20/W20, in order to rally support for Afghan girls and women on this path.  More information on how to contribute to this critical work may be found here: 

http://www.women4afghanistan.org/

As Afghan refugees arrive and begin the process of integrating into their new home communities, it will be up to programs like AMIF and the ATHENA project to specifically support Afghan women and their sister refugees from around the world, by delivering on its remit to promote entrepreneurship by women migrants. DLI and the ATHENA partners look forward to the opportunity to support the women and girls of Afghanistan, and women migrants from all over the world, in integrating and achieving financial independence for these most vulnerable. 

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DLI and Partners Launch WE4Change Project

On 22 March 2021, the Digital Leadership Institute and four partner organizations from across Europe launched the WE4Change initiative supporting “girls and women connecting for environmental change.” WE4Change is an EU-funded project aiming to foster civic engagement of girls and young women from disadvantaged backgrounds by empowering them to understand their strengths, develop digital, leadership and changemaking skills, and increase their sense of initiative in the social and environmental sector.

For the next two years, Digital Leadership Institute (BE), Stimmuli for Social Change (GR), Empow’Her (FR), Tekedu (MD) and ZERO Associação Sistema Terrestre Sustentável (PT) will work together to offer an innovative combination of hands-on activities, training on digital, innovation and environmental awareness skills, problem-solving and co-creation of prototypes to address climate change, responding directly to the needs of young women to break down stereotypes, develop their creativity and confidence, and contribute to society.

The first project meeting took place on the 23rd of March 2021, with project partners discussing the first project phase aiming at setting a solid and appropriate foundation for the development of the We4Change project. The first steps include a context specific gender analysis that will be conducted in each participating country looking at i) youth policy & youth participation programmes, ii) environment & climate, iii) digitalization and innovation related to the issues tackled by the project to ensure the appropriate development of the trainings and materials to be developed throughout the project.

To stay updated on the WE4Change initiative, follow the project Facebook page!

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DLI Announces New EU Projects

DLI and partners of the ATHENA consortium have been awarded program funding from the EU Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) in order to support women of migrant backgrounds across Europe to take up entrepreneurship. Partners to the ATHENA (“Approaches To valorise the High ENtrepreneuriAl potential of migrant women”) project, which will launch in January 2021, include the following:

DLI has also been awarded Erasmus+ funding to lead the WE4Change (“Girls and Women connecting for environmental change”) project, with the mission of increasing entrepreneurship in STEM fields by girls and women through climate change activism. Members of the WE4Change project include the following organisations:

The DLI team is excited to take up these new projects that support our mission to increase entrepreneurship by girls and women, especially in science and technology fields, in 2021!

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Women Power Code Skills Week

The Women Power Code project aims to celebrate the art of creating with code, to motivate young and adult women to start developing tech skills, and to connect individuals with organisations keen to support women in the digital society. In order to showcase achievements in the project, WPC partners from across Europe are organising Women Power Code Skills Week, a series of events addressing disruptive technologies and career opportunities arising in the tech sector. Join us for interesting discussions and practical workshops by registering at the links below, and join the Women Power Code Social Learning Community to meet like-minded peers.

14 July 18:00 CEST: Introduction to the Internet of Things: ”Build your first mobile app” – online workshop organised by Digital Leadership Institute in collaboration with CIVIC. Exploring the Internet of Things, this online workshop will focus on practical skills as we will be creating our first mobile app with MIT App Inventor.

16 July 18:00 CEST: Introduction to 3D Printing: ”Design your first 3D object” – online workshop organised by Digital Leadership Institute. Examining development of the 3D printing market in recent years, during this workshop we will learn the first steps to create a 3D object and discuss the opportunities for developing new skills and competences in this field. 

21 July 18:00 CEST: Women Power Code Final Conference: ”New skills for the digital age” – online conference organised by the Digital Leadership Institute. During this event, we will discuss the results of the Women Power Code project, focusing on the most relevant skills for the digital age and opportunities in technological fields for women who want to enter or shift to digital careers.

We look forward to welcoming you at these exciting events taking place as part of Women Power Code Skills Week!

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Women Power Code Project Launches

Studies on women active in Information Technology  unveil that a greater presence of women in the area would benefit the industry, women themselves and Europe’s economy. A change in policy is needed, particularly due to an alarming drop in female ICT graduates and the limited presence of women in the STEM area (science, technology, engineering and math) reflecting thus the gender gap acknowledged in the ICT sector.

The Women Power Code project aims to educate adult women over forty years of age to understand and learn coding in order to improve their everyday life through the use of the Internet of Things. It is never too late to acquire knowledge, skills and competences in any branch of education.

Women Power Code is a three year project targeting adult women who want new challenges and seek to acquire digital skills, literacy and numeracy. The project partners are:

  • CIVIC – UK, project leader;
  • EUROCREA MERCHANT – Italy;
  • BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT FRIESLAND – Netherlands;
  • DIGITAL LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE – Belgium;
  • DANIEL SG LTD – Bulgaria;
  • BIOANIM – Slovenia;
  • North-East ADR (via Regional Center for North-East Studies).

The project will equip beneficiaries with new digital competences and will pave the way for a smooth start in understanding how to improve their everyday life by incorporating these skills. In this way, the project aims to allow women with low digital literacy to adapt and better meet the challenges posed by the use of new technologies at work, and to also help balance gender inequality in this area.

For more information and updates please visit the project website.

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DLI Update – November-December 2017

The DLI Board and Executive Team are actively involved in initiatives with partners and stakeholders around the world that promote ESTEAM* leadership by girls and women.  Find out below about our work in November and December 2017, learn here about future activities in which we are involved, and visit our calendar for upcoming events organised by DLI.

*entrepreneurship, science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics

9 November – Women Techmakers “Telling Our Story” (Las Palmas, Grand Canaries): On 9 November in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, DLI Founder Ms. Cheryl Miller provided a keynote presentation as part of the Women Techmakers “Telling Our Story” event at Centro Demostrador TIC – Recinto Ferial.

9 November – Second Meeting of the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition Governing Board (Brussels): DLI Founder Ms. Cheryl Miller  contributed to the second meeting of the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition Governing Board on 9 November in Brussels, in preparation for the 7 December Digital Skills and Jobs Conference.

10-12 November – LOOP Summit for Music Makers (Berlin): 10-12 November in Berlin, DLI Founder Ms. Cheryl Miller  joined the LOOP Summit for Music Makers taking place at Funkhaus in Berlin.

15 November – Entrepreneurship Forum (Brussels): On 15 November, DLI Founder Ms. Cheryl Miller contributed to an entrepreneurship showcase for students at Institut Cardinal Mercier in Schaerbeek, organized by 100.000 Entrepreneurs Belgium.

15 November – Digital Capital CODE FIESTA (Brussels): On 15 November at ‘De Kelders van Kuregem’ in Brussels, DLI contributed to the Digital Capital CODE FIESTA hosted by MAKS, with an intervention by Digital Muse After School, led by DLI Digital Creative Officer Ms. Valentina Calà.

16 November – Digital Muse at Westonbirt Schools Careers Day (Westonbirt): “Look to the future event”: career event for youngsters at Westonbirt (UK). Mai Ensmann, DLI Development Officer,  attended the event, presenting the ESTEAM career possibilities to young girls.

19 November – Hacktivate the City! Generation Z: (Brussels) DLI director Ms. Katja Legisa  joined the opening of the exhibition “Generation Z,” where finalists of our recent Move It Forward with Women in a Music were showcased and MIF project M.ES.S. won top honours from the Generation Z jury!

20-21 November – Third Annual Colloquium on Fundamental Rights (Brussels): On 20-21 November, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder, joined the third annual Colloquium on Fundamental Rights, on the subject of “women’s rights in turbulent times,” hosted by the European Commission DG for Justice at Palais d’Egmont in Brussels.

22 November – Innovation in Women’s Digital Entrepreneurship: On 22 November at a Women’s Entrepreneurship Platform event on “Innovation in Women’s Digital Entrepreneurship” at the European Parliament in Brussels, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder,  provided a keynote presentation in celebration of Women’s Entrepreneurship Day and Global Entrepreneurship Week.

23 November – Girls Go IT Annual Forum (Moldova): Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder,  provided a keynote presentation for the 2017 Girls Go IT Annual Forum taking place in Chisinau, Moldova, on 23 November.

28 November – Think Digital.eu (Brussels): Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder,  moderated a panel on “Data Protection & Privacy” as part of the annual Think Digital event, taking place at Palais d’Egmont on 28 November in Brussels.

30 November – Chatham House Report Release (London): On 30 November in London, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder,  joined the Chatham House release of “Private Sector Engagement with Women’s Economic Empowerment: Lessons from Years of Practice,” a report authored by Linda Scott, Emeritus DP World Chair for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, University of Oxford, based on research with the Global Business Coalition for Women’s Economic Empowerment (GBC for WEE).

5 December – The Role of Lifelong Learning for Women Entrepreneurs (Brussels): On 5 December, Ms. Katja Legisa, DLI board member,  joined a panel discussion on “the Role of Lifelong Learning for Women Entrepreneurs” as part of a Women’s Entrepreneurship Platform event at the European Parliament in Brussels.

5 December – “Women in the Digital Age” Taskforce Briefing (London): On 5 December in London, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder,  joined a Chatham House meeting to launch a global taskforce on “Women in the Digital Age” as part of the 2018 G20 meeting in Argentina.

7 December – Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition Conference (Brussels): On 7 December in Brussels, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder,  joined the members of the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition Governing Board for a meeting with Commissioner for the Digital Single Market, Ms. Mariya Gabriel, in the context of the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition Conference on the topic of “Digital Opportunities for Europe”. Ms. Miller also awarded the 2018 EU Digital Skills Award for “Digital Skills for All,” and DLI hosted a booth with two digital workshops on professional portraits and on-line CV tools.

9-10 December – Smart Family Hackathon (Brussels): As partner to the Women In Tech Platform in Brussels, Ms. Valentina Cala, DLI Digital Creative Officer,  and Ms. Mai Ensmann, DLI Development Officer, supported a two-day hackathon to create smart solutions for the entire family, that took place on 9-10 December at DigiYser in Brussels.

12 December – European Commission Briefing on Women in the Digital Age (Brussels): Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder,  joined a 12 December meeting at the European Commission to review the forthcoming update of the 2013 report on “women active in the ICT sector .

12 December – NOVA XX Women in Innovation Panel (Brussels): As part of NOVA XX, the first international competition on women in technological, scientific and artistic innovation, Ms. Valentina Càla, DLI Digital Creative Officer,  contributed to a 12 December panel on “Women in Innovation” in Brussels.

13 December – NOVA XX Women in the 4th Industrial Revolution Panel (Brussels): As part of NOVA XX, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder,  contributed to a 13 December roundtable on “Women in the 4th Industrial Revolution” at the BOZAR in Brussels.

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

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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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DLI Launches Europe’s First Female Tech Incubator

On 25 October in Brussels, the Digital Leadership Institute launched Digital Brusselles, Europe’s first female tech incubator, with the mission of promoting inclusive digital transformation by increasing leadership of girls and women in the digital society. The launch event, which took place as part of the first Open Door Day at BeCentral, was supported by the Digital Belgium Skills Fund and dozens of DLI partners, and attended by hundreds of DLI community members.

Ms. Saskia Van Uffelen, CEO of Ericsson Belux and Digital Champion of Belgium, provided a keynote to kick off the launch event and was joined in a panel on “The Heart of Inclusive Digital Transformation,” moderated by Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder, by luminaries from the Belgian and European technology ecosystem noted below:

The opening panel was followed with inspiring talks by Ms. Manon Van Hoorebeke, 2014 Digital Girl of the Year, and Ms. Christine Gerpheide, Senior Cloud Solutions Architect at Amazon Web Services. Over the course of the afternoon, Ms. Sandrine Droubaix — DJ Sand — and Ms. Valentina Càla, DLI Digital Creative Officer, led hands-on digital music composition workshops for participants of the Digital Muse After School program and BeCentral’s Open Door Day .