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:
- Ms. Rose Beaumont, Senior Vice President, Business Enablement and Communications for MasterCard
- Ms. Claire Bury, Deputy Director General, DG CONNECT, with responsibility for regulatory aspects of the Digital Single Market
- Ms. Lie Junius, Director EU Public Policy and Government Relations at Google
- Ms. Afke Schaart, Regional Lead and Vice President of Europe for the GSMA
- Ms. Claudy te Boome, Senior Manager, Ernst & Young EU Global Account
- Ms. Pascale Van Damme, Vice President & General Manager of Dell EMC Commercial BeLux & Head of EMEA NATO; President of Agoria Digital Industries
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 .