1 June 2021, Brussels, Belgium – Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, Director of Brussels-based Digital Leadership Institute, was recently elected at a General Assembly meeting to the role of Chairwoman and President of the Women Entrepreneurship Platform (“WEP”), the pan-European membership organization whose mission is promoting women-led enterprise in Europe with a focus on advocacy, network-building, and knowledge-sharing. Miller Van Dÿck succeeds Grazia Rendo.
Miller Van Dÿck was a founding WEP member in 2013 and board member of WEP since 2018. She concurrently holds the position of Head of EU Delegation for the Women20 engagement group to the G20, and is former Chair of the European Centre for Women and Technology in Belgium, and Governing Board Member of the Digital Skill and Jobs Coalition for the European Commission.
As Director of the Digital Leadership Institute, Miller Van Dÿck has long championed women entrepreneurs in Europe particularly in digital fields, and of her new role says, “women-led enterprise is always and everywhere the most dynamic engine for economic growth.” Under her leadership, and with support from a membership representing 10 million women entrepreneurs across Europe, Miller Van Dÿck says “in the coming three years, WEP will prioritize its role as top advocate for a sustainable, green and digital recovery, and transformation in Europe led by women.”
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!
The Digital Leadership InstituteBoard 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!
On 15-16 October, in celebration of Code Week Europe 2016, the Digital Leadership Institute and its partners will organise the second FREE Move It Forward – female digital starters weekend bringing 100 teen and adult women* together from greater Brussels to develop digital projects that support women refugees and asylum-seekers in Europe. This initiative, part of the DLI inQube female digital accelerator, is supported by top technology companies, and youth and women’s networks and communities. Its objective is to give beginner girls and women the skills to drive positive change and enable them to become digital entrepreneurs and leaders.
Participants: If you are a teen or adult woman* interested in building your tech and startup skills for the benefit of women asylum-seekers and refugees in Europe, please apply to attend this FREE event at the following link: http://bit.ly/mifbru16oct Applications are being accepted on a rolling basis and effort will be made to accommodate everyone who applies.
Supporters: Please see a list of our Move It Forward partners and sponsors below, and kindly contact us if you would like more information on how 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 – 15 October (Saturday):
8:00-8:30 – Registration & Coffee
8:30-9:30 – Opening Plenary: Inspiring talks by Move It Forward Partners
Ms. Helena Pofliet – Counselor on Equal Opportunity, Cabinet of Ms. Bianca Debaets, State Secretaryof the Brussel Capital Region
19:00-21:00 – Awards Dinner & Networking
Awards:
Prizes will be handed out for the top three projects presented on Sunday afternoon, and top projects will have the opportunity to be showcased at the European Parliament on 18 October as part of the KAGIDER event on “Digitalisation of women’s entrepreneurship and growing opportunities for all“ – Registration here!
Overall Best: 6-month inQubation at DLI; 10 Hours one-to-one inQube Startup Coaching; Other TBC
Most Impact: 4-month inQubation at DLI; 8 Hours one-to-one inQube Startup Coaching; Other TBC
Best Technical Solution: 4-month inQubation at DLI; 8 Hours one-to-one inQube Startup Coaching; Other TBC
Keynote Speakers:
Anna Zobnina: Born in St.Petersburg, Russia, Anna is a feminist researcher, activist and policy advocate. She is a selected expert with the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) and is serving the second term as chair of European Network of Migrant Women (ENoMW), focusing on capacity-building of migrant & refugee women NGOs in Europe and strengthening their inclusion in the EU decision-making, across such diverse areas as access to economic empowerment, justice, citizenship, labour participation, sexual & reproductive rights and non-discrimination.
Ms. Mina Jaf: Mina Jaf was born in Kurdistan but was forced to flee the country at a young age. Mina became a refugee in Denmark and used her experience and motivation, to help other refugees. Mina is today the founder of Women Refugee Route and she works tirelessly on refugee issues and on women’s rights issues. Watch her speech from WRC Voice of Courage Award here! Ms. Yara Al-Adib: Yara is Syrian-born and Western educated, now working in UX design at Deloitte Digital in Belgium. Besides having an eclectic cultural background (Arab raised and Western educated), she has acquired a mix of disciplines: Communication Design with Service and Social Design. These disciplines allow Yara to design with empathy, while keeping in mind both form and function. She considers herself a mediator between the East and West–both in terms of traditions and in design perspective. Check out Yara’s TEDx talk here!
Ms. Assita Kanko, Councilwoman for Ixelles/Elsene (Brussels Capital Region)
Ms. Helena Pofliet – Counselor on Equal Opportunity, Cabinet of Ms. Bianca Debaets, State Secretaryof the Brussel Capital Region
+Others TBA
Coaches:
The Move It Forward femaledigital starter weekend is supported by a worldclass team of coaches and trainers who are generously giving their time to help participants deliver awesome projects and enterprises. Meet our terrific coaches here!
On 23-24 January, forty young and adult women gathered at DLI’s inQube space in Brussels to develop websites and smartphone applications, and to launch their own enterprises to tackle cyberviolence and promote online safety for girls and women. Participants of the first-ever Move It Forward Brussels female digital starter weekend — organised by DLI and subsidised by the Brussels Capital Region — came from across Brussels and around the world, to improve their tech skills and try their hand at entrepreneurship.
Says Bianca Debaets, Brussels Minister for Equal Opportunity and Digitalisation, and supporter of the Move It Forward initiative: “When women take up an active role in the ICT and business worlds, they are stronger. And that should reduce cyberviolence against women too. In that way, Move It Forward serves a dual purpose: It makes more women entrepreneurs and it empowers them digitally.” (Read a full press release about the Move It Forward event in Dutch here: Move It Forward Persbericht 2016.)
Attendees of Move It Forward Brussels, from 14 to 54 in age and representing upwards of twenty-two nationalities, dedicated an entire weekend to learning digital and entrepreneurial skills taught by DLI and its worldclass technology partners, including Tableau Software, Amazon Web Services, WordPress and AppInventor. With the help of a dedicated and talented team of coaches, participants developed innovative projects that they presented to a jury on Sunday evening for top honors. Jury-members included Ms. Maité Morren, Councilmember for Ixelles responsible for ICT, and representatives from European Schoolnet, Child Focus Belgium, DLI and AWS.
The two-day Move It Forward Brussels initiative kicked off on Saturday morning with a keynote presentation by Ms. Ellen Van den Berghe, 2015 Young ICT Lady of the Year in Belgium, and closed with an inspiring talk by Ms. Terry Reintke, Member of European Parliament who recently authored a report on Women and the Digital Society.
Top awards for the weekend were presented to ENAC, Detrolled and iCompassion-Ubuntu, each promoting a unique approach for addressing cyberviolence against girls and women. All winning teams receive several months’ inQubation and startup coaching at DLI and free membership for one year on the Amazon Web Service platform. Each member of the Overall Best project team also received Amazon Fire tablets. In addition, several follow-up workshops are already planned to allow inQube community members to further develop the digital and entrepreneurship skills they started learning at Move It Forward Brussels.
Organisations across Europe have expressed interest in organising Move It Forward events in their own cities, and future plans for the Brussels inQube community include taking on additional challenges faced by Europe’s girls and women, including immigration and asylum-seeking, health and nutrition, media portrayal, etc. Please contact us if you would like to learn more about the Move It Forward initiative, to partner with DLI/inQube, and/or to organise a Move It Forward event in your city!
November was a busy month, highlighted by Women’s Entrepreneurship Day that took place all over the world on 18 November. This month also featured hands-on involvement by DLI in several world class initiatives promoting young and experienced women in business, as entrepreneurs and, of course, in digital leadership of all kinds!
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
4-8 November – Women2Women Belgium Leadership in Action Event (Antwerp & Brussels) – The weekend of 7-8 November, DLI Founder, Ms. Cheryl Miller, contributed to the Leadership in Action initiative of the US Embassy in Belgium during a partnership event and opportunities fair promoting leadership by girls from across Belgium.
14 November – JCI THOE Think Bigger Entrepreneurship Event (Brussels):Ms. Cheryl Miller, DLI Founder, contributed to a plenary session at the JCI The Heart of Europe Think Bigger event on the topic of growing your startup, and encouraging more women into entrepreneurship.
The events of the Move It Forward project are open to the public, and carried out in English, French and Dutch. Attendance is free but space is limited so registration at the noted links is required.