DLI to Name Top Women in Tech at GE Garages

On 8 December in Brussels, in the context of GE Garages 2016 and the European Commission’s Vocational Skills Week 2016, the Digital Leadership Institute is proud to host a high-level panel on the topic of Disrupted Workforce: Leveraging Talent and Tech for Europe’s Future,” and the 2016 European Ada Awards Ceremony recognising top European girls and women in tech and the organisations that support them.  The event is free and open to the public, but registration at the following link is required: http://bit.ly/Ada16

Agenda:

15.30–16.00: Registration and Access to GE Garages
16.00-16.45:  Panel on Disrupted Workforce:  Leveraging Talent & Tech for Europe’s Future

16.45-17.00: Fireside Chat with Miss Niamh Scanlon, 2015-16 European Digital Girl of the Year and Ms. Rosanna Kurrer, Cofounder and Digital Literacy Lead, Digital Leadership Institute

17.15-18.00: 2016 European Ada Awards Presentation by Ada Awards Partners

18.00-19.00: 2016 European Ada Awards Reception
19.00-21:00: Pecha Kucha Night featuring Miss Manon Van Hoorebeke, 2014-15 European Digital Girl of the Year – separate registration required herehttp://bit.ly/pechakucha16


High-level Panel

16:00-16:45 – High-level panel on the topic of Disrupted Workforce: Leveraging Talent and Tech for Europe’s Future,” with top decision-makers from the European public and private sector.

2016 European Ada Awards Ceremony 

16:45-19:00 – Fireside chat with Miss Niamh Scanlon, 2015 European Digital Girl of the Year from Ireland, 2016 European Ada Awards Ceremony and Reception generously hosted by GE.  European awards for Digital Woman of the Year, Digital Girl of the Year and Digital Impact Organization of the Year will be presented by a high-level representative of the European Commission and members of the European Ada Awards partnership.

Pecha Kucha Night

19:00 onwards – Following the 2016 Ada Awards reception, participants will enjoy a Pecha Kucha night with inspiring talks from European thought-leaders, including Miss Manon Van Hoorebeke, 2014 European Digital Girl of the Year from Belgium.

Venue

All of the evening’s events will take place in the Panoramic Hall at The Square Brussels, Coudenberg Entrance, as part of Garages 2016 and in celebration of the 201st anniversary of the birth of Ada Lovelace.

 

Brussels Women Move It Forward

Winning Project and Judges - MIF Brussels 2016
ENAC: Best Overall Project & Jury – MIF Brussels 2016

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.

Move It Forward Participants Create First Smartphone App
Move It Forward Participants Create First Smartphone App
Move It Forward Team-building
Move It Forward Team-building

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.)

Worldclass Tech Partners - Tableau Software
Worldclass Tech Partners – Tableau Software

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.

Ms. Ellen Van Den Berghe - Inspiring Young ICT Lady of the Year
Ms. Ellen Van Den Berghe –  Belgian Young ICT Lady of the Year

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.

Awesome Team, Coaches & Partners
Awesome Move It Forward Team, Coaches & Partners

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.

Move It Forward Women
Move It Forward Women

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!

egalitedeschances logoBrussels Capital Region

Dedicated Team-members
Dedicated Team-members
The Jury
The Jury:  Child Focus, European Schoolnet & Amazon Web Services
Pitching Projects to Tackle Cyberviolence
Pitching Projects to Tackle Cyberviolence
Dedicated DLI Staff
Dedicated DLI Team
"Check out this exciting line-up!"
“Check out this exciting line-up!”
Brainstorming to Tackle Online Violence
Brainstorming to Tackle Online Violence

Europe's First Digital Innovation Centre for Girls and Women

On 9 March in Brussels, the Digital Leadership Institute and 150 of its closest friends and supporters celebrated International Women’s Day with the grand opening of DLI‘s Digital Innovation Centre for Girls & Women, a first of its kind in Europe!  This very special occasion was marked with fun, hands-on digital activities for all agesa high-level roundtable with Brussels, Belgian and European stakeholders, and a reception for all in attendance.

IMG_3131To kick off the evening, DLI volunteers and partners took over the entire, new 100m2 space to give young and young-at-heart members of the DLI family a try at hands-on digital activities with the following themes:

  • 3D Design & Printing
  • Digital Music & DJing
  • Bits, Bytes & Machine Code
  • Silly Robot Missions
  • Play Your Musical Fruit

In particular, the Bits, Bytes & Machine Code activity – a card game for all ages designed by Ms. Rosanna Kurrer, DLI Digital Literacy Lead and g-Hive Community Manager – was a popular (and loud) crowd favorite.  It required players to calculate in bits and bytes, and showcased the digital natives in the group, who nimbly trounced their analog ancestors to much vocal lamenting.dli launch ribbon

The Digital Activity Stations then gave way to an official DLI Opening Ceremony graced with a beautiful video message from Ms. Bianca Debaets, State Secretary of the Brussels Capital Region for Equal Opportunity and ICT, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony officiated by Miss Manon Van Hoorebeke2014 European Digital Girl of the Year, and Ms. Esther Roure Vila, 2014 European Digital Woman of the Year.  chat

The evening’s activities were rounded out with a high-level discussion on the topic of “Women Driving Digital Innovation,” with unique and insightful interventions by the VIPs in attendance, all amazing role models for girls and women in technology:

dell.jpg

As a magical closing to an exciting evening, Ms. Pascale Van Damme, Managing Director of Dell Belgium & Luxembourg and 2014 “ICT Woman of the Year”, surprised the convened guests with dedication of forty Dell laptops to DLI saying “this is a contribution to help ensure the DLI Centre gets off on the right foot and is able to achieve its mission which we support very much.”

Thank you, Dell!  And thank you to all of our DLI community and supporters for such a wonderful and memorable DLI opening event!

First-Ever Ada Lovelace Conference

On 10 December 2014 in Brussels, in honor of the 199th anniversary of the birth of Lady Ada Lovelace – world’s first-ever computer programmer, woman and European – the Digital Leadership Institute held the inaugural Ada Lovelace Conference celebrating outstanding girls and women in technology in Europe and beyond.  The event, blogged by new European Commission Vice President Andrus Ansip responsible for the Digital Single Market, was generously hosted by General Electric as part of the GE Garages initiative.  It included a high-level best practices round-table on “getting more girls and women into digital studies and careers,” and three hands-on digital workshops – on 3D design & printing, creative coding & “beautiful/electric Arduinos” – for girls ages six to sixteen.  The event enjoyed participation by over one hundred people, and was part of the 2014 European Hour of Code.

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