Over 550 business and technology leaders gathered at the London Hilton on Park Lane last night where the winners of the 2017 FDM everywoman in Technology Awards were unveiled. Supported by techUK, this is one of the UK’s best loved Awards programmes celebrating achievements and championing the advancement of women in technology and STEM careers.
The evening’s 12 winners included the founders of a digital fashion service that offers a truly personalised shopping experience to over 5 million women, a 16-year-old app developer with self-taught HTML coding skills and a university professor who developed sustained drug release depots for ovarian cancer treatment. Together they show the breadth of achievements by women in the technology industry over the past year.
The need for the tech industry to engage with women has never been more critical. 74% of young girls express an interest in STEM subjects at school yet only 18% pursue these subjects in higher education*. The awards play a crucial role in creating and showcasing successful role models. By highlighting their remarkable achievements, the awards aim to inspire others following in their wake to ensure that women, making up 49% of the workforce, influence bridging the digital skills gap and fill a significant number of the estimated 1.4 million technology jobs that will be available in the UK by 2020**.
Digital Star Award, sponsored by CGI: Chi Igboaka, Global Head of Performance Marketing, Travelex, from London, who was promoted to a global role after just nine months and is responsible for setting the digital marketing agenda for Travelex. The business has seen a colossal shift in performance marketing after she developed what is called “the digital marketing centre of excellence”.