Nordic Women in Tech Awards 2021: these are the winners
Nordic Women in Tech Awards is an initiative by WonderCoders to create role models and celebrate the progress of getting more women interested in tech.
They want to see women’s hard work and success be recognized more broadly and their way of achieving this is by finding the tech industry’s female role models and making it possible for others to share them.
Nordic Women in Tech Awards aims at celebrating the achievements of women in the tech industry and inspiring diversity in IT.
“Mentor of the Year”
Juliana Araújo (Sweden ??), who has founded Beela.se, which is a support network that empowers immigrant women & non-binary people in Sweden to join the tech world.
Juliana in less than one year was able to: Create a community of 500+ women and non-binary immigrants interested to join tech in Sweden. With the help of mentoring, inspirational stories (shared in a podcast with more than 300 listeners), a platform to inform and promote free tech courses and bootcamps (in partnership with private companies), and networking Beela.se was able to help the community to get their first job in tech (and to some of them, the first job in Sweden after many years living here).
“People’s Choice Award”
Julia Flament-Wallin
“I have a background in Human Computer Interaction and a passion for AI. I do a lot of cloud engineering atm, Data Modeling and engineering has been my jam and I have my nose pointed towards Language Technology. I know diversity will lead to better products, services and workplaces. Diverse teams are the most successful and it’s better for users if they have representation amongst systems designers/devs. I want everyone and anyone to feel like they belong in tech, because they do.”
(The audience at the ceremony had the voice to vote for People’s Choice Award)
“Entrepreneur of the year”
Sonni Christine Jakobsen (Norway ??), Founder and CEO at Bill Kill AS.
“We believe that tech has no restrictions when it comes to the workforce. Bill Kill AS has focus on skills in tech and does not differentiate between age, citizenship, gender or ethnicity. We’ve had interns such as students, trainees, the unemployed from NAV (national working welfare) and people with disabilities to include in technology and to provide work training so that they get to relevant work faster.”
“Rising Star of the year”
Freyja Thorarinsdottir (Iceland ??) is a founder of GEMMAQ Ratings, a social impact venture that uniquely rates and visualizes gender balance among corporate leadership, to show the real impact women have on the market economy, and create the opportunity to invest directly in women empowerment.
“Developer of the year”
Dipika Baad (Finland ??), Senior Data Consultant at Netlight, and Founder of HuskyCodes. She had been recognized by IBM for her contributions in patents, and building various ML models for IBM Center of Excellence. After moving to Finland, she contributed to the startup initiative of Fortum’s self driving and electric vehicle logistics project named Fortum Go. Dipika started her own company HuskyCodes where she is building various products for consumers to solve daily problems.
Initiative of the year winner
ReDI School of Digital Integration, CEO Ida Marie Bjerre Jepsen (Denmark ??). ReDI School of Digital Integration is a non-profit IT/tech school that works for digital empowerment & inclusion for women with refugee and migrant backgrounds. The biggest achievement by far is that 76% of the tech students and 54% of the digital beginners that participated in the program in 2020 have either landed jobs, internships or have continued their education.
“Digital Leader of the year”
Raquelita Rós Aguilar (Iceland ??). She is a Director Of Digital Development at Isavia as one of the biggest companies in Iceland and owns all the airports and air navigation over the North Atlantic.
For the past six years Raquelita Rós Aguilar had been working in a software company in app development in Iceland called Stokkur Software, and for the last three years she had been leading that company as a CEO. She started at Stokkur Software as a tester on her first year in computer science at the Reykjavik University and in three years she developed from a tester to a project manager to a COO and finally to a CEO only 1 month after she graduated as computer scientist.
“Investor of the year”
Mia Wagner and Anne Stampe Olesen (Denmark ??), who are Co-founders of Nordic Female Founders, which was founded in November 2020. Nordic Female Founders is a company on a mission to make it easier to be and to become a successful female entrepreneur by investing in and supporting female entrepreneurs. Nordic Female Founders already invested in 5 great companies which all have been able to scale their businesses radically.
‘Diversity Leader of the Year’
Anne Gretland (Norway ??), CEO of FotoWare. Anne helped increase the women’s share in the Norwegian IT industry from 16% to 28% in 10 years and the female share in FotoWare from 21% to 42% in three years.
“Innovator of the year”
Cecilia Videcél (Sweden ??), CEO & Co-founder of @Kura – the Healthcare omni channel. Kura connects patients with their caregivers, and increases continuity and efficiency. Cecilia has herself being diagnosed with leukemia at an early age, which meant growing up within the healthcare system.
“I always knew I wanted to work in healthcare, but due to side effects due to chemo it wasn’t possible. Having been part of the healthcare system for so long, I got a very close and personal look of how the lack of efficiency and communication in healthcare can cause dangerous outcomes. Co-founding Kura meant that my vision of a better healthcare and patient journey could become real.”
“Women in Tech Advocate of the year”
Dora Palfi, who is Co-founder and CEO at imagiLabs (Sweden ??). By making products that empower girls with the skills, confidence, and community to create with technology we are on track to have a measurable impact on the diversity of technologists entering the workforce within 7-15 years. And while the work with imagiLabs focuses on directly impacting young women, through the work as young technical female founders imagiLabs also show up as role models for other young women in the industry. imagiLabs doesn’t just work with young girls, but a network of ambassadors as well as imagiMentors, who are young women working in tech. This way, Dora Palfi also uses the power of community to create impact at multiple steps of the talent pipeline.
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