UN Recognition for DLI
2019 European Ada Awards Open
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
DLI Update – March-April 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. 23-25 March, DLI’s Founding Director, Ms. Che Van Dÿck joined the European at the W20 Meetings in Japan. Find out more about our outreach activities of March and April 2019 below, and please visit our calendar for events organised by DLI.
*STEM powered by Entrepreneurship and Arts
8 March 2019 – European Commission “Spotlight on Women in Cyber” (Brussels) : On 8 March in Brussels, Ms. Loredana Bucseneanu and Ms. Liliana Carrillo of the DLI Executive Team, contributed to a day-long event at the European Commission showcasing “Women in Cyber” in celebration of International Women’s Day 2019. Video of the event, which is part of the Women in Digital program supported by Commissioner Gabriel, may be found here.
22-24 March 2019 – W20 Japan Meetings & 5thWAW!/W20 (Tokyo) : On 22 March, Ms. Che Van Dyck, DLI Founding Director, joined the European Delegation to the 2019 W20 Japan meetings taking place in Tokyo, to deliver a communiqué to the G20 promoting digital, financial and workforce inclusion for women. Ms. Van Dyck also joined the 23-24 March fifth annual World Assembly for Women (WAW!) event hosted by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
29 March 2019 – Career Day (Los Angeles) : Ms. Che Van Dyck, DLI Founding Director, joined a 29 March school visit of local actors in the IT, Entertainment and Creative industries, in order to promote STEM careers to young people in Los Angeles County.
9 April 2019 – AWS Public Summit “We Power Tech” Luncheon (Brussels) : Ms. Che Van Dyck, DLI Founding Director, contributed to an invitation-only luncheon hosted in the context of the annual AWS Public Sector Summit in Brussels on 9 April.
10 April 2019 – AWS Women in Professional Services (Brussels) : On 10 April in Brussels, Ms. Che Van Dyck, DLI Founding Director, delivered a keynote address to the AWS Professional Services gathering in Brussels.
10 April 2019 – WEP & Airbnb “Boosting Female Entrepreneurship in Europe” Luncheon (Brussels) : DLI executive team members joined a 10 April luncheon on “Boosting Female Entrepreneurship in Europe,” hosted by WEP and Airbnb, and chaired by Ms. Claudia Tapardel MEP. Ms. Che Van Dyck, DLI Founding Director, gave a closing address as member of the WEP board of directors.
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!
DLI Founder Appointed to EU Digital Skills Board
On 28 September in Brussels, Ms. Cheryl Miller, Founder and Director of the Brussels-based Digital Leadership Institute, joined the first meeting of the Governing Board of the European Commission’s Digital Skill and Jobs Coalition, to which Ms. Miller has been appointed for a two-year term.
Ms. Miller joins representatives of eleven other Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition stakeholders in the Governing Board, whose organisations represent pledging members, national coalitions, and Coalition social partners.
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:
- 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 .
Coding Brings Confidence Say Europe's Women
In May 2017, the Digital Leadership Institute team met in Croatia with its WOW Code2Confidence partners, a project funded by the Erasmus+ program of the European Commission. The project organisations explored how learning to code can lead to more confidence for women during studies and in the job market.
During the meeting, results from a pan-European survey on the interest of European women in coding were presented. Key findings of the survey, which was carried out by WOW Code2Confidence partners across Belgium, Croatia, England, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Romania, are below:
- 53% of European women surveyed expressed an interest in learning to code;
- Most women surveyed rate their current coding skills as Beginner, and 85% of women surveyed noted that coding activities give them confidence.
- The main reason for women’s interest in coding is because coding skills are required for studies/work and due to an expressed desire to become more familiar with technical terms and jobs.
- The survey also revealed that the main reason for those surveyed having never tried coding is due to a lack of suitable training resources.
Read the full results of the survey in our most recent WOW Code2Confidence newsletter, and for more information about the project, or about other DLI work promoting women in coding, please contact us.
On 5-6 October in Brussels, DLI will host the Fall 2017 meeting of the WOW Code2Confidence Project whose focus will be how women can leverage coding skills to improve their opportunities in the job market. Stay tuned!
Girl Coding Power at Salesforce Essentials
On 1 June in Louvain-La-Neuve, girls and women from across Belgium joined an all-female Android coding workshop organized by the Digital Leadership Institute in the context of Salesforce Essentials, a large-scale event reaching over 600 Salesforce enthusiasts. The workshop, carried out as part of our Digital Muse initiative in collaboration with Salesforce Belux and Salesforce.org, attracted participants ranging in age from ten to fifty-five, who benefited from hands-on coding lessons using MIT App Inventor and inspiring talks by Salesforce employees.
Ms. Cécile Kempeneers, a Salesforce Belux Senior Account Executive who also co-organized a workshop at the most recent Girl Tech Fest Brussels 2017, shared with participants about her own role models and people who inspired her to enter a career in tech — including her grandfather, but also Elon Musk, Michelle Obama, Emma Watson and Malala Yousafzai. Ms. Carmina Coenen, Salesforce Manager for Solution Engineering, also captured everyone’s imagination with a promise that coding and working with Salesforce would give them more options for an exciting and rewarding career.
Workshop attendees showed a clear talent for developing their own Android smartphone application that translates speech from one language into spoken output in another language. The talks by Ms. Coenen and Ms. Kempeneer also piqued their interest in career opportunities with Salesforce.
“We are excited to build on this interest by offering our community more curriculum on smartphone app-development and on becoming certified Salesforce CRM experts,” commented Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder. “We look forward to pursuing this collaboration going forward, for the benefit of both Salesforce and for these amazing girls of all ages!”
DLI Update – April-May 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 April and May 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
14 April – Alma Radio “Digital Kids” Show (Brussels): On 14 April, Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder, joined Ms. Claire-Marie Healy from Alma Radio for a broadcast on the subject of “Digital Kids,” in the lead up to all-day Alma Radio coverage of the 2017 Digital Muse Girl Tech Fest organised by DLI on 29 April 2017.
10 May – Chatham House “Women in Trade” at European Parliament (Brussels): Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder, contributed to a 10 May meeting at the European Parliament on the topic of “Women in Trade” with contribution from Chatham House experts and members of European Parliament, which preceded an 11 May hearing on Gender Equality in EU Trade Agreements.
11 May – Trefpunt – Sterke Onderneemsters (Brussels): Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder, joined a Trefpunt event, panel and speed-dating exercise, hosted by the “Sterke Onderneemsters” project, aimed a promoting women-led entrepreneurship, on 11 May in Brussels.
19 May – Digital Skills Fair at BeCentral (Brussels): On 9 June, Ms. Maria Alfonso, DLI Development Coordinator, showcased DLI activities at an all-day event promoting Belgian digital skills initiatives that took place at BeCentral 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!
Let's Get Digital!
In honour of International Girls in ICT Day 2017, the Digital Leadership Institute and its partners organised the second annual Girl Tech Fest Brussels 2017, a volunteer-run event with over 100 activities reaching 250 participants from across Brussels, encouraging girls toward study and career paths in ESTEAM: STEM plus Entrepreneurship and Arts!
Thank you!
With 25 workshops and a dozen “Digital Muse Lab” activities, the Girl Tech Fest took tons of effort and dedication from a lot of people to make happen! We would like to thank everybody who contributed:
- European Commissioner for Justice, Ms. Vera Jourová who had a special message for GTF participants!
- Our wonderful partners — Amazon Web Services, IBM, Dell EMC, Cisco and Salesforce — for helping us in countless ways to make the event a reality!
- All the amazing volunteers — Alma Radio, Hack4Kids, Ludilab, Hexalina, Women Mentor Association, Nightwave, DJ Sand, et al. — who donated their time, knowledge and a sheer physical presence to assure the girls that there is a place for them in our digital present and future!
- The speakers and their stories of ambition, perspiration and inspiration: Nadia Aimé, Gaby Juric, Pascale Van Damme (Dell EMC Belux), Simone Hume (AWS) and even Pepper (c/o IBM, Kronos Groep & Craftwerkz)! 😉
- The European School IV of Brussels (EEB4), without whose enthusiastic collaboration and massive behind-the-scenes support, the Girl Tech Fest would not have been possible!
GTF Press
Our event got some attention! Find out who was impressed right here!
- The Girl Tech Fest was featured in the Saturday evening news on BX1 television
- The GTF social media team created massive coverage at the #girltechfest hashtag
- Our #girlpower video via Stefanie/Hack4Kids got some traction too
- And here is Cheryl Miller (DLI Founder)’s blogpost for the European Commission in celebration of Girls in ICT Day
Feedback
To help us improve Girl Tech Fest for the next time, please share your feedback here:
Stay in touch!
For pictures of the event, news about upcoming activities and additional ways to stay involved in future DLI and Digital Muse events, please follow us here!
Thank you, and see you all again next year!
FREE Android Training Toolkit
In the context of the Coding for Young People project, the Digital Leadership Institute and its partners have developed a FREE Android App Training Toolkit for use and sharing by individuals and organisations interested in teaching Android using the MIT App Inventor platform.
In order to fully benefit from the Toolkit, please be sure to:
- Download the ‘Talk2Me” training presentation and watch the 50-minute “Talk2Me” training video. Use these to teach Android to your students, and feel free to share them with others!
- Download the training guidelines that include links to resources in English, Italian and Spanish!
- Fill out the Survey about your experience to let us know if we’re on the right track!
- Join the Coding for Young People Community to benefit from future resources from the project and its partners!
- Don’t hesitate to contact us if we can support you in any way in your mission to teach coding to young people!
Happy coding!
Featured Image: PC Magazine