2015 European Ada Award-winners

On 14 December in Luxembourg, the Digital Leadership Institute and its partners – the Council for European Professional Informatics Societies, DIGITALEUROPE, the European Centre for Women and Technology, and European SchoolNetannounced winners of the 2015 European Ada Awards, recognising outstanding girls and women in digital studies and careers in Europe, and the organisations who support them.  The 2015 Ada Awards ceremony took place at the opening for a high-level eskills and entrepreneurship event as part of the Luxembourg presidency of the Council of the European Union.

2015 European Ada Award winners and finalists were recognised in the following categories:

NiamhScanlonWinner – 13 years old:  Niamh from Ireland

Niamh, 13, learned to code at CoderDojo when she was nine and she loves to build websites and apps that help people. When she was 11 she developed an award-winning app to help the drivers of electric cars. For three years Niamh has mentored at CoderDojo in Dublin City University, where she helps other young people – and particularly girls – to learn how to create with technology. She is a member of the Digital Youth Council in Ireland and she would like to see more coding and technology taught in schools.

Winner – 14 years old:  Yasmin from England

Yasmin is a fourteen year old who has been programming for six years. She regularly builds projects with the Raspberry Pi computer, and volunteers to run workshops for young people to learn how to code using the Pi. As well as this, she runs a programming club during her school lunch breaks for younger pupils, to hopefully increase the uptake of Computer Science at her school.

Winner:  Janneke Niessen, Improve Digital, from the Netherlands

Janneke is a female serial technology entrepreneur who, next to her role of Chief Innovation Officer at Improve Digital, also makes big efforts to help other entrepreneurs and is a strong advocate for women in tech. She is mentor for startups, angel investor and regularly speaks at events to share her experience in building a high-growth international technology company. She is co-initiator of Inspiring Fifty, that makes female role models in technology more visible. She recently published a novel for young girls (10-14) to create a role model for them and show them how great and fun technology is and how many possibilities it offers.

First Runner-Up:  Monique Morrow, Cisco, from Switzerland

Monique Morrow is the Chief Technology Officer for New Frontiers at Cisco that uniquely focuses on empowering women through the intersection of research, economics and technology execution.  Her current focus is spearheading an Internet of Women movement as an opportunity for women worldwide to collectively shape the future of the Internet powered by a SHE (Supercritical Human Elevated) technology platform.

Second Runner-Up:  Nicole Wajer, Cisco, from the Netherlands

In her work, Nicole supports account teams and partners that need her technical expertise.  She is passionate about the Internet of Things (IoT), IPv6 and Security, and is currently playing with new technology e.g Sensors in her own home.  Nicole is a Champion of Change for her passionate work in the Industrial Automation space, and is a frequent blogger and attendee at the four annual Dutch Hacker Conferences.

Winner:  VHTO, The Netherlands:
VHTO, the Dutch national expert organisation on girls/women and science/technology, makes an effort in many different ways to increase the involvement of women and girls in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Every year VHTO organises the Dutch Girlsday together with 300 IT and technical companies. In 2015, 9,525 girls participated! To increase the participation of girls in Computer Science specifically, VHTO created the Digivita program for girls (age 8-18) which took place in in six cities in 2014, and carried out the Digivita Summer Camp in 2015. In 2014 VHTO reached 55,210 Dutch children through projects in primary and secondary education.

Runner-Up:  Travis FoundationRailsgirls Summer of Code, Germany: 

Travis Foundation runs Rails Girls Summer of Code for the third year in a row now – providing stipends for women all over the world to work on Open Source projects. The grassroots initiative is a hands-on solution for the problem of women being underrepresented in Open Source and Tech in general. With Rails Girls Summer of Code we are not only changing women’s careers, diversifying Tech Communities and building safer environments for women in Tech – we are also creating the much-needed role models in IT, so that future generations can follow suit.

Congratulations to all the 2015 European Ada Awards nominees, finalists and winners in every category, and thank you to our Award Partners and supporters of the 2015 European Ada AwardsAmazon Web Services, Facebook, Google, HP and SAP!  Please contact us with questions or inquiries on how to  support the Ada Awards and the larger mission of the Digital Leadership Institute.eskills logo_final2015

How can I add a layer of security to my online identity?

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Hi,

This will be a busy week! On Wednesday, we will have the last of the Cyberviolence workshops we have been running since September. It will be a very interesting and informative event. One of the speakers will be an expert from the European Schoolnet who will speak about the inSafe network, a Europe-wide program to empower children and young people to use the internet, as well as all forms of mobile technology, positively, safely and effectively.

Our second speaker is a cybersecurity expert who will explain how we can add a layer of security to our internet usage, to protect our online identity. He has been giving workshops to journalists and human rights activists on how to make their online correspondences more secure and hacker-resistant. (Register here: http://bit.ly/15inqube14) Expect to take a lot of notes!

For those curious about cloud computing technology, you are all welcome to our Bluemix Girls’ Night on Thursday. There will be an interesting panel of women entrepreneurs and cloud computing experts who will talk about how (would-be) entrepreneurs could use this new technology in setting up a sustainable business with the same scalability as big tech companies. Register here!

Have a great week ahead!

Rosanna

2015 European Ada Award Finalists

Congratulations to the finalists for the 2015 European Ada Awards!  Herewith the very deserving finalists in all categories!

2015 European Digital Girl of the Year™ Award Finalists:

Niamh, 13, learned to code at CoderDojo when she was nine and she loves to build websites and apps that help people. When she was 11 she developed an award-winning app to help the drivers of electric cars. For three years Niamh has mentored at CoderDojo in Dublin City University, where she helps other young people – and particularly girls – to learn how to create with technology. She is a member of the Digital Youth Council in Ireland and she would like to see more coding and technology taught in schools.

Yasmin is a fourteen year old who has been programming for six years. She regularly builds projects with the Raspberry Pi computer, and volunteers to run workshops for young people to learn how to code using the Pi. As well as this, she runs a programming club during her school lunch breaks for younger pupils, to hopefully increase the uptake of Computer Science at her school.

 

2015 European Digital Woman of the Year™ Award Finalists:

Monique is the Chief Technology Officer for New Frontiers at Cisco that uniquely focuses on empowering women through the intersection of research, economics and technology execution.  Her current focus is spearheading an Internet of Women movement as an opportunity for women worldwide to collectively shape the future of the Internet powered by a SHE (Supercritical Human Elevated) technology platform.

Janneke is a female serial technology entrepreneur who, next to her role of Chief Innovation Officer at Improve Digital, also makes big efforts to help other entrepreneurs and is a strong advocate for women in tech. She is mentor for startups, angel investor and regularly speaks at events to share her experience in building a high-growth international technology company. She is co-initiator of Inspiring Fifty, that makes female role models in technology more visible. She recently published a novel for young girls (10-14) to create a role model for them and show them how great and fun technology is and how many possibilities it offers.

In her work, Nicole supports account teams and partners that need her technical expertise.  She is passionate about the Internet of Things (IoT), IPv6 and Security, and is currently playing with new technology e.g Sensors in her own home.  Nicole is a Champion of Change for her passionate work in the Industrial Automation space, and is a frequent blogger and attendee at the four annual Dutch Hacker Conferences.

 

2015 European Digital Impact Organisation of the Year™ Award Finalists:

Travis Foundation runs Rails Girls Summer of Code for the third year in a row now – providing stipends for women all over the world to work on Open Source projects. The grassroots initiative is a hands-on solution for the problem of women being underrepresented in Open Source and Tech in general. With Rails Girls Summer of Code we are not only changing women’s careers, diversifying Tech Communities and building safer environments for women in Tech – we are also creating the much-needed role models in IT, so that future generations can follow suit.

VHTO, the Dutch national expert organisation on girls/women and science/technology, makes an effort in many different ways to increase the involvement of women and girls in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Every year VHTO organises the Dutch Girlsday together with 300 IT and technical companies. In 2015, 9,525 girls participated! To increase the participation of girls in Computer Science specifically, VHTO created the Digivita program for girls (age 8-18) which took place in in six cities in 2014, and carried out the Digivita Summer Camp in 2015. In 2014 VHTO reached 55,210 Dutch children through projects in primary and secondary education.

Join us on 14 December at the 2015 European Ada Awards Dinner — taking place as part of the 15 December “Transforming Europe toward the Digital Age” event in Luxembourg — where we will announce the 2015 European Ada Award-winners in all categories!

eskills logo_final2015

Bluemix Girls’ Night: why should boys have all the fun?

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Hi tech-savvy ladies!

Have you ever had a great idea for an app? Did you ever wonder how you could sell things online, or start a business with an awesome scalable digital presence? Are you curious about cloud computing technology, and would like to meet other like-minded ladies, or maybe you would just like to have an interesting evening that might spark some inspiration and unleash some wacky and original ideas in you?

Come and find out! IBM’s Bluemix Cloud Platform, together with the Digital Leadership Institute, is hosting a Bluemix Girls’ Night on November 19. We will be hearing women tech entrepreneurs talk about their start-up experiences, and how a cloud computing platform can help all entrepreneurs have the same scalability opportunities of big tech companies.

There will be a demo of apps built by young women developers for Oxfam, and everybody will have the opportunity to ask questions, find out how cloud computing works and why women entrepreneurs (and would-be entrepreneurs) should make use of this technology.

Register here!

Looking forward to seeing all of you there!

Stay tech-savvy,

Rosanna 🙂

DLI Update – October 2015

October 2015 welcomed another record-breaking European Code Week, to which DLI contributed with two “Girls and the Future Internet” workshops exploring the internet of things and its impact on our daily lives. This month also took us to ICT2015, Europe’s largest ICT event, where DLI organised a stand on “Women in ICT” and carried out a “speed mentoring” session — with high school girls and adult women in tech — that celebrated 200 years of women in ICT leadership, starting with our beloved Ada Lovelace. Speaking of Ada, DLI also partnered with Euroforum to launch the first-ever Ada Lovelace Festival in Europe, where DLI Founder Cheryl Miller had the honor of delivering a keynote address, and she and DLI Cofounder, Rosanna Kurrer, organised two popular workshops on 3D printing and wearable technology. Find out more about our other October 2015 activities below.

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 September 2015, learn here about future activities we are involved in, and visit our calendar for upcoming events that DLI is organising. *entrepreneurship, science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics


mastercard8 October – MasterCard Women in Leadership Panel (Brussels): On 8 October in Brussels, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder, contributed to a MasterCard panel on women in leadership hosted at Vlerick business school.


SWlogo9-11 October – FinTech Startup Weekend Brussels – (Brussels): On 9-11 October, Brussels hosted its first-ever FinTech Startup Weekend, and Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder, joined the event jury to choose the next revolutionary idea in banking and finance.


codeweek-badge10-18 October – European Code Week (Belgium): With the generous support of Google, DLI organised two workshops on “Girls and the Future Internet” as part Europe Code Week 2015. As Code Week Ambassador for Belgium, DLI Founder Cheryl Miller was active in promoting EU Code Week events in Belgium and beyond, which reached a record 7,000 events across Europe in 2015.


ff14 October – Failing Forward – (Brussels): On 14 October in Brussels, DLI Founder, Ms. Cheryl Miller, delivered a keynote speech at Failing Forward, Belgium’s flagship event that aims to “break through the stigma associated with failure,” organised by Startups.be.


CoR15 October – Open Days Workshop on “Inclusive Entrepreneurship” at the Committe of the Regions – (Brussels): As part of 2015 Open Days at the European Committee of the Regions, DLI Cofounder, Ms. Rosanna Kurrer, contributed to a workshop on “European Entrepreneurial Regions promoting inclusive entrepreneurship” taking place at the CoR offices in Brussels.


transmit16 October – Transmit at the Signal Festival – (Prague): Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder, spoke on “Ada 200: The future of feminine, creative digital expression” at Transmit, the educational platform for digital culture, art and technology, at the annual Signal Festival in Prague.


bxldigweek17 October – Women in Tech Night at Brussels Digital Week – (Brussels): On 17 October, as part of European Code Week and Brussels Digital Week, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder, moderated a Women in Tech Night panel discussion on participation of girls and women in digital society, with top women from the Belgian tech sector.


ict_2015_lisbon20-22 October – ICT2015 (Lisbon): DLI led an “Ada200″ networking session on “Girls & Women in Tech” and hosted a Women in ICT booth at ICT2015, Europe’s largest ICT event, which took place 20-22 October in Lisbon, Portugal. At the networking session — celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Lady Ada Lovelace — DLI launched its newest policy initiative, Europe5050, host a handful of lightening talks by ICT luminaries, and facilitate a “speed-mentoring” event between teenage girls and women in tech.


adalovelacelogo27-28 October – Ada Lovelace Festival (Berlin): Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder, gave a keynote speech at the first-ever Ada Lovelace Festival, an initiative of Euroforum DE, on 27-28 October in Berlin. Ms. Rosanna Kurrer, DLI Digital Literacy Lead, Ms. Miller and Ms. Norma Carr from Dimension Alley also led two popular workshops on 3D Printing and Wearable Technology.


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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