Congratulations to the finalists of the 2017 European Ada Awards, a global initiative recognizing outstanding girls and women in digital studies and careers across Europe, and the organisations who support them! Join us on 30th of November at BeCentral, Cantersteen 12 in Brussels to the 2017 European Ada Awards and Digital Brusselles Celebration where the winners will be announced!
2017 European Digital Women of the Year™ Award Finalists:
Cat Lamin – Consultant at Pi-Top (United Kingdom)
Cat is a Raspberry Pi Certified Educator, an Apple Distinguished Educator and a Google Certified Teacher. She initiated an event called Coding Evening for Teachers in UK that brings together teachers, coding professionals and tech enthusiasts and allows them to work together to discuss ideas for the classroom. Her independent work has led to her being invited to Brazil to train and speak to a number of Brazilian teachers about the importance of computational thinking and basic computer science skills. She is a role-model for young, female coders and a lot of her outreach work includes working with groups that are actively encouraging girls to get involved with coding, including girls-only CoderDojos in London.
Pascale Van Damme, Vice President and General Manager at Dell EMC Commercial Belux and Head of EMEA NATO & NATO Alliances, President Agoria Digital Industries (Belgium)
When she started at Dell, Pascale was the only woman on the local leadership team. Tackling being female leader challenge in a positive way along with the learning experience is what motivated her to start building alliances to raise awareness around gender equality and bring about change. Pascale has been active for years in mentoring young women, speed-dating with students and coaching female entrepreneurs. She is a role model to women thinking about entering a career in the digital world and to those who have started a career within Dell. She regularly “talks the talk” and “walks the walk” regarding the skills needed for a career in tech, at high-level events such as the NATO’s annual cyber symposium NIAS where as a speaker she raised awareness around the need for female talent in cybersecurity along with diversity and inclusion in any future-oriented organization.
Egle Ciuoderiene, International Cooperation Advisor at the Baltic Institute of Advanced Technology (Lithuania)
Egle inspires people of all ages to take part in the ICT industry through whatever means, despite any boundaries imposed by the society. She continuously shares her experience in breaking the industry’s boundaries through interviews and personal communication. Egle always emphasises that girls should not be afraid of the digital occupations, as she herself has made a successful transfer from a humanitarian background. Egle shares her experience and motivates women to partake in the fields of Computer Science – she has recently joined the Baltic Institute of Advanced Technology, which aims to create, develop and disseminate scientific knowledge and expertise about in the field of technology and innovation.
2017 European Digital Impact Organisation of the Year™ Award Finalists:
Teen-Turn (Ireland)
Teen-Turn works with companies throughout Ireland to cross the digital divide by providing hands-on work experience in technology career environments to teenaged girls from disadvantaged communities in order to address the industry’s social inclusion, gender disparity and skills shortage challenges.
Girls’ Day (Germany)
Girls’ Day is an organization that invites technical enterprises, enterprises with technical departments and technical training facilities, universities, and research centres to present themselves at an open day for girls called Girl’s day.
StartHer (France)
The mission of the French group is particularly to thrive women into the technology sector and to encourage diversity in a traditionally male environment. StartHer organized many events throughout the years, either in the form of a mini-conference around a specific topic with people who work in the tech sector or through a Happy Hour of pure networking to facilitate trade within the networks.
2016-2017 European Digital Girl of the Year™ Award Finalists:
Under 10 year-old category
Helena Staple (United Kingdom)
Helena is a regular member of a CoderDojo Ham, a volunteer-led free coding club for youngsters based at Kingston University London. After becoming proficient in Scratch she moved on to learning Python. Over the last year she has developed a strong interest and commitment to mentoring younger children learning Scratch. From a shy start she has grown in confidence and communication skills, and is now at ease helping children considerably older than her. She created a wonderful project to make a personalised interactive Birthday Card in Scratch and developed a great instruction handout entirely on her own. This has become one of our most popular Scratch activities. Older children trying it are constantly astonished that it was made by such a young ninja!
Zara Ilyas (Ireland)
Zara has attended CoderDojo since the beginning and came to every Robotics session. She has an insatiable passion for technology and learning, and is a reliable partner and an inspiration for other young girls that share the same interest.
Ruby Scott Kenny (Ireland)
Together with her good friend Zara, Ruby is a regular participant to the CoderDojo events, inspiring other girls and her professors alike. She is always keen to support her colleagues in understanding technology and always interested in learning more.
11-14 year-old category
Aoibheann Mangan (Ireland)
Aoibheann Mangan has been working hard promoting technology and coding for girls over the last number of years delivering workshops in her local education centre and school. She has been a mentor with Coder Dojo in Cloghans Hill Coder Dojo and Robeen coder dojo for the last 2 years delivering workshops to lots of boys and girls many of whom have no internet or computers at home. Aoibheann has encouraged girls to give it a go and do their best and made several workshops girls only events where she has shown them that girls can do anything they want when it comes to digital skills. Aoibheann has campaigned in Ireland for better internet for rural Ireland highlighting how unfair it is for young people growing up with no broadband.
Charlotte Johnson (United Kingdom)
Charlotte has really enjoyed the fun and skills at CoderDojo Scotland. She had a great experience at Coolest Projects 17, at CodeEU17 and was named one of three coding rising stars in UK 2017. She partnered with one of her coding colleagues with whom she is working on a project for Coolest Projects 18.
15-17 year-old category
Maeve Galvin (Ireland)
Maeve has won her age category in the Tech Week Ireland Scratch competition for three years running. She is now a mentor teaching younger children Scratch in her local CoderDojo, giving up her free time every weekend and preparing lessons every week.
2017 European Ada Awards and Digital Brusselles Celebration:
2017 European Ada Award Winners will be announced at the fifth annual European Ada Awards Ceremony on 30 November 2017 at BeCentral, Cantersteen 12, ahead of the celebration of the 202nd anniversary of the birth of Lady Ada Lovelace! Public attendance is welcome but registration at this link is required!