Organise Your Own Move It Forward Event!

As an outcome of the Move It Forward+ project, funded by the European Union Erasmus+ program, a toolkit for organising your very own Move It Forward (“MIF”) event–as well as CSR and mentoring activities to promote women (digital) entrepreneurs–is now available free, online for the public!

Move It Forward is an event footprint–sometimes called a “hackathon” or “tech-for-good” initiative–originally developed by the Digital Leadership Institute as part of its inQube “female digital accelerator” program.  By deploying MIF and other activities, inQube aims to support teen and adult women entrepreneurs by providing community, digital and business skills, and other resources they need to launch and grow successful digitally-enabled and digitally-driven enterprises.

Including Move It Forward+ project activities, the Move It Forward event has been organized twenty times in nine countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, reaching thousands of participants, since 2014.  In 2018, Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI founder, received a Global Mobile Award recognizing her work with inQube, and in 2019 the MIF initiative was selected as a European finalist for the UN ITU EQUALS in Tech Award.

Materials developed and made available within the MIF+ project are available for download on the Move It Forward+ website and below.

Please feel free to contact us for more information about and support with organising a Move It Forward event in your own city!

1. Guides: How to organise a Move it forward+ Event

We provide our Guides in 5 different languages, to support you with the organisation of your Move it forward+ event.

2. Event Preparation Documents

You can find additional and printable materials here:

3. In-event Documents

You can find a variety of printable material here:

4. Guides: How to organise mentoring sessions

You will find here all the resources related to the organisation of mentoring sessions linked to your Move it foward+ event.

Annexe n°1: Impact and assessment of women programmes and events supporting women in entrepreneurship.

Annexe n°2: Mentor’s portfolio & Mentee’s portfolio

5. Event Presentations

Our  Event Presentation will be available soon!

Move It Forward+ in Luxembourg

*The HackathonRestart for female digital starters“, part of the Erasmus+ Move It Forward+ project, took place on Saturday, November 13th 2021 at the Technoport SA in Belval.

Move it Forward+ is an Erasmus+ project that aims to support women who want to be entrepreneurs. Indeed, women’s entrepreneurship has been hit hard by the pandemic and this collaborative event is an excellent opportunity to launch new business ideas in the context of economic recovery. Four similar Hackathons are currently being organised in Europe by our partners: France, Belgium, Romania, Croatia and Lithuania.

All day long, thirty participants and volunteer coaches worked together to develop the different ideas. Business Model Canvas, market research or UX Design: the project leaders were able to benefit from the expertise and support of their peers to take their ideas to the next level.

After a presentation of the Move It Forward+ project and pitching of ideas, the work began, with six projects. Between a few cups of coffee and a piece of fruit, everyone gave their best, all in a studious and productive atmosphere.

The lunch break was an opportunity to recharge the batteries and to exchange with the whole group.

The presence of the qualified coaches at the event gave me courage to pitch my idea and helped me build confidence to consider entrepreneurship as a career option.”, said one of the participants.

In the afternoon, the work continued and each project progressed at its own pace. At the end of the afternoon, it was time to wrap up the projects and prepare the pitches.

Three projects were rewarded with a jury composed of Nizar Ayed, Anne-Claire Buléon and Guylaine Bouquet:

  • Best pitch: “Friendly Advice”, which aims to help students and newcomers solve their problems of settling in Luxembourg thanks to student volunteers and good samaritans who seek to build community and help newcomers and other young people better integrate into Luxembourg by offering their advice.”
  • Best innovative project: “Femart Gallery”, which is a web gallery platform where female artists can share and sell creations to increase their visibility in the digital world with non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
  • Best impact project: “Childs Play”,  which aims to create a safe discussion platform among young children to educate them regarding the better use of social media.

Our winners of the day will therefore have the opportunity to follow a four-month personalised mentoring programme in order to make their projects a reality.

It is unanimous that this Hackathon was a success, and was beneficial for both the participants and their coaches, and we hope that these collaborations will bring new perspectives.

Congratulations to all our participants for their involvement, their motivation and their work during this day, congratulations to our coaches who were very professional and caring, and thanks to our jury, the choice of the winners was not easy!

This article originally appeared on MIF+ partner WIDE‘s website.

Digital Startup – Let’s get women on board!

*Faced with male-female inequalities in the field of digital technology and entrepreneurship, Led By HER will organize a weekend Move It Forward – MIF – dedicated to these two issues in December 2021. This is a European-scale event supported by the Erasmus+ program and organized simultaneously in six different European countries. Women of all ages and backgrounds are invited. This unique event in France will have as its theme, female leadership in society and in business.

Gender equality, a reality or a myth? There is an in-between, but one thing is certain: we do not live in a world where women are totally equal to men, especially in the professional sphere. Led By HER has decided to focus all its energy on supporting women entrepreneurs. This is a major challenge insofar as only 2.6% of entrepreneurial projects in France are led by women compared to 88.3% by men and the rest by mixed teams[1]. Women have as many ideas as men, that’s not the problem, they just lack help and self-confidence. Female socialization encourages caution rather than risk taking. This sociologically verified fact gives a definite advantage to women over men with regard to business creation. Entrepreneurial projects led by women are more likely to pass the three-year mark than those of men. In parallel with this entrepreneurial challenge, women suffer from a lack of digital training. Once again their socialization and implicit societal norms can explain this phenomenon. While this digital and IT sector is growing and becoming essential, women are often sidelined for lack of training. The right to access to knowledge, education and training is the same for all, we note here an inequality of treatment and perception between men and women. Thus, digitalization and entrepreneurship are two crucial issues for the integration of women in the professional sphere.

Let’s fight together against this inequality on our scale. A European initiative supported by the Erasmus + program brought together Led by HER in France,  WIDE in Luxembourg, the Digital Leadership institute in Belgium, the Northtown Technology Park in Lithuania, the Centre of Technical Culture in Croatia and the Professional Foundation in Romania. These European associations work for women’s rights, professional integration and the digitization of marginalized populations. The latter have joined forces to offer a Move It Forward event in their respective countries. It was in 2014 in Belgium that the first took place and the success was such that the operation was repeated many times across Europe. In France, the “Move It Forward for Woman in Leadership – female digital starters” will be the first in Paris, a unique and unprecedented event.

It is indeed a weekend where the participants unite around digital projects carried by some of them. These projects aim to find concrete and digital solutions to promote female leadership in business and in society. Working groups are formed in order to best develop the projects selected at the beginning of the weekend. In addition to increased collaboration in benevolence and mutual listening, women have the chance to be followed by professionals. The coaches guide them in their entrepreneurial adventure, the mentors give them practical information and finally experts train them in digital technology. Thus, regardless of training or age, all women are invited to participate.

At the end of this weekend, prizes are awarded to the best projects. These rewards are tailor-made to allow women to continue their adventure following this weekend. In addition, professional support and work teams are strongly encouraged to continue their efforts in what they have undertaken during these two days. In previous editions, many projects continued to develop and flourished.

This weekend therefore includes a double opportunity for women, the acquisition of digital skills and the development of projects responding to the challenge of women’s leadership in society. This is an opportunity not to be missed!

[1] According to the Sista study of top recipients from the leading 9 investment funds in France.

Digitalisation, entrepreneuriat, incluons les femmes à l’échelle européenne !

*This article originally appeared in French on MIF+ partner Led By HER’s website, written by Gwladys Chanard with translated title “Digitalization, Entrepreneurship, let’s include women at the European Level!”

World’s First #WomenVsCOVID19 Hackathon

On 24-26 April, as part of the #EUvsVirus event attracting 20,000 participants from around the world, the Digital Leadership Institute and its partners hosted the first-ever global #WomenVsCovid19 hackathon tackling the unique challenges facing girls and women from COVID-19 . With 160 participants, ranging from 16 to 70 years of age and representing over 25 countries, the three-day “Move It Forward” event brought together policy-makers and private sector actors to support teen and adult women in driving solutions to the address the coronavirus pandemic.

Move It Forward for #WomenVsCOVID19 participants enjoyed interventions from European Commissioner Mariya Gabriel, Ms. Julie Linn Teigland, Global Director for Women Fast Forward at EY, Ms. Anna Falth of UN Women, Ms. Pirkko Mahlamäki from European Women’s Lobby, and Ms. Bernadette Gemmell of the European Institute for Gender Equality. Miss Alai Miranda Blanco Lascurain, recipient of DLI’s 2019 European Digital Girl of the Year award, also inspired participants by sharing about her own 3D-printed invention supporting frontline healthworkers in Spain, vast majority of whom are women.

During the event, Move It Forward project teams also benefited from expert mentorship and digital skills trainings–including website development, smartphone app coding, and data visualization–in order to develop initiatives that tackle economic and social challenges impacting the world’s girls and women as a result of COVID-19.

Top #WomenVsCOVID19 projects, recognised by a world class jury including Ms. Charlene Lambert from Women’s Entrepreneurship Platform, Ms. Wendy Diamond of Women’s Entrepreneurship Day Organization, Ms. Jaya Jiwatram, of UN Women, Ms. Anne Ravanona of Global InvestHer, and Ms. Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck from DLI, were the following:

  1. All-Around Award: WAVEA smartphone application tackling psychological abuse and delivering pan-European emergency-response for victims of violence against women and girls
  2. Innovation Award: Exit Tales – An animated documentary of COVID-19 stories from the perspective of migrant children
  3. Impact Award: Art Time with GrandmaAn inter-generational art-making project promoting women artists and connecting kids and elderly women in order to combat isolation during COVID-19

DLI and partner Global InvestHer will support winning #WomenVsCOVID19 projects with incubation, mentorship, and training, and projects are also eligible for further support from the wider #EUvsVirus event that announced prizes for the top projects among over 1500 delivered.

Event partners also committed to supporting recognized projects and to continuing to support #MoveItForward in other geographies. The first #MoveItForward for #WomenVsCOVID19 event was live-streamed on the DLI Facebook page, and links to the separate sessions may be found below.

Thank you to all of our amazing partners who made this event such a success! Please do not hesitate to reach out to us to support future editions of #MoveItForward!

Move It Forward for Women vs. COVID19

The Digital Leadership Institute, Women’s Entrepreneurship Platform and their partners are proud to announce a Move It Forward – female digital starters event for Women versus COVID19, taking place online on 24-26 April 2020 (all times CET, GMT+2), in support of the #EUvsVirus hackathon organised by the European Commission, and in celebration of Girls in ICT Day 2020!

Move It Forward female digital starters events are an initiative of inQube, DLI’s female digital accelerator, and are supported by top technology companies, non-profit organisations, and youth and women’s networks and communities. Their objective is to give teen and adult women* the skills to become digital entrepreneurs and leaders, and to support them in driving positive change in their communities and society-at-large.

Participants: If you are a teen or adult woman* interested in building your tech and entrepreneurship skills while addressing challenges for Women during the COVID19 crisis, please sign up for this FREE event!

Coaches/Volunteers/Partners: Please contact us if you would like 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 – 24 April (Friday – All Times CET, GMT+2):
  • 11:30-12:30 – Orientation Webinar 2: Orient Yourself for the Move It Forward Workshop Webinars
  • 12:30-15:00 – Workshop Webinar 1: Build & Launch Your WordPress Website in the Cloud with Amazon Web Services
  • 15:00-17:00 – Brainstorming, Project Ideation & Team Grouping
  • 17:00-18:00 – #EUvsVirus Opening Session

Day Two – 25 April (Saturday – All Times CET, GMT+2):

Day Three – 26 April (Sunday – All Times CET, GMT+2):

  • 09:00-09:30 – Check-in & Virtual Coffee
  • 09:30-12:00 – Workshop Webinar 3: Build a Smartphone App with MIT App Inventor for Android
  • 12:00-15:00 – Project Work with Coaches
  • 15:00-16:00 – Project Submissions to #EUvsVirus (optional)
  • 16:00-19:00 – Closing Session (open to the Public): Project Pitches for “Women versus COVID19”

  • 19:00-20:00 – Virtual Reception with #EUvsVirus
**Awards: Prizes will be handed out for the top three projects presented at the Closing Session:
  • Overall Best: 6-month Virtual inQubation at DLI; 10 Hours one-to-one inQube Startup Coaching; and free access to Crowdfunding 101 online course ($197 value) care of event partner Global InvestHer
  • Most Impact: 4-month Virtual inQubation at DLI; 8 Hours one-to-one inQube Startup Coaching
  • Most Innovative: 4-month Virtual inQubation at DLI; 8 Hours one-to-one inQube Startup Coaching
Jury members:

Move It Forward+ Project Launch

In December 2019, inQube‘s unique Move It Forward event and methodology became the subject of Move It Forward+ (“Move It Foward Plus”), an European Union-funded Erasmus+ project promoting greater participation of women in digital entrepreneurship.

The objective of the Move It Forward+ project is to develop methodologies and offer a new range of activities in the fields of collaboration, mentoring and developing relationships with the private sector and, especially for women looking to launch (digital) entrepreneurship projects.

The project deliverables include the creation of a Move It Forward platform and network for organisations wanting to act in the file of the support of women, a duplication of the Move It Forward event with its methodologies, activities and design, and the development of a toolkit focused on mentorship and CSR practices.

The Move It Forward+ project consortium is made up of the following partners:

The Move It Forward+ project is co-funded by the Erasmus+ program of the European Union.

Europe Recognises Top Girls and Women in Digital Fields

“We are girls! We are women! We are strong!” – European Commissioner Gabriel to winners of the 2019 European Ada Awards recognising top female digital talent in Europe

“Take all challenges as opportunities,” advised Ms. Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society, to a group of wide-eyed finalists at the sixth European Ada Awards ceremony organised on 16 October 2019 in Brussels as part of European Code Week and the WomenInTech.Brussels Women Code Festival. The Ada Awards, founded in 2012 by Brussels-based Digital Leadership Institute, promote top girls and women in digital fields in Europe in an effort to increase their numbers, a long-term priority for Commissioner Gabriel that she will carry into her new mission as European Commissioner for Youth and Innovation starting next month.

Commissioner Gabriel officially opened this year’s celebration of the Ada Awards, affectionately named for Countess Ada Lovelace, the world’s first-ever computer programmer, with a message that technology is “a strategic tool for the empowerment of citizens—of women and of men—that we must continue to use to advance ourselves,” she said. The Commissioner counseled those present to spend less time on embellishments and to focus on taking action when a door is opened, saying she would both hold them to task, and committed to supporting them along the way. The Commissioner closed her message praising the hard work and talent demonstrated by the Ada Award finalists and winners, underscoring: “We are girls! We are women! We are strong!”

Following her remarks, Commissioner Gabriel and Ada Award partners from civil society and private sector recognised the 2019 European Ada Award-winners.

2019 European Digital Woman of the Year Award

The 2019 European Ada Award for Digital Woman of the Year was presented by Ms. Kelly Dorekens, CRM Director at Deloitte Belgium, who shared that “diversity in a group matters as much as ability and brainpower,” adding that Deloitte “actively encourages women to embrace science, technology, engineering and math through selected partnerships and events, like the Ada Awards.”

Ms. Dee Saigal, United Kingdom – 2019 European Digital Woman of the Year
Ms. Dee Saigal is Founder, CEO and Creative Director of Erase All Kittens, an adventure game designed to give girls the confidence to code, whilst teaching digital and 21st century skills. Dee’s goal is for EAK is to transform the way children perceive coding and engineering, and empower millions of girls worldwide with transferable, digital skills. Dee shared that her biggest challenge so far, aside from being a woman in tech, has been fundraising for research and development. Her message to other women and girls is to not think tech is for boys or that it is “geeky.” “There are so many amazing careers in tech that are both interesting and challenging,” says Saigal. Now that Erase All Kittens has 150,000 players, her next step is to raise investment in order to be able to build more educational and gamified version to launch globally. Her team is raising £500,000, and are already at twenty percent of that goal.

2019 European Digital Girl of the Year Award

“10 Years and Under” Category:
The 2019 European Ada Award for Digital Girl of the Year in the “10 Years and Under” category was presented by Ms. Afke Schaart, VP and Head of Europe, GSMA. Winner in this category was Tayra, from Bulgaria.

Tayra, from Bulgaria – 2019 European Digital Girl of the Year “10 Years and Under”
Tayra is ten years old and was born in Sofia. She loves coding, and most recently won a special prize at Softunjada Kids with her Scratch project “three bears fairytale,” using sign language for kids. Tayra says the projects she is most proud of are her webpage and her robots. In ten years, she hopes to be a programmer. Her message to other girls who are interested in tech is: “I believe that girls have a power, and the power of technology can change the world for the better, no matter who we are. It is never too late or too early to get involved in tech,” Tayra says.

“11-14 Years Old” Category:

The 2019 European Ada Award for Digital Girl of the Year in the “11-14 Years Old” category was presented by Ms. Christine Marlet, Board Member, Global Wo.Man Hub. Marlet expressed her awe of the candidates saying “the Ada Awards grant the participants the perfect opportunity to enhance their digital dreams. It encourages them to take risks along the way in order to achieve their digital goals because they believe that their objectives are attainable.” She added: “Belief in yourself stems from belief in your role models.” Winner in this category was Selin, from Turkey.

Selin, from Turkey – 2019 European Digital Girl of the Year “11-14 Years Old”
Selin is thirteen years old and loves building robots, coding, animals and travelling. She wants to study robotics and eventually build a humanoid. Selin shared that she was inspired to build her robot dog when her childhood dog passed away. She said “I knew that blind people especially have a strong connection with their dogs. I wanted to help them out, and felt like this was a great way of doing that.” She spends her free time on the weekends working on and improving her robotic guide dog. Looking forward, Selin says “I am currently developing the second version of my dog, and this one will be able to sit, lay down, bark, and it will even do ‘heart eyes’ towards my mom. Currently it’s only programmed to understand English, but I’m hoping for it to learn Chinese soon!”

“15-17 Years Old” Category:
The 2019 European Ada Award for Digital Girl of the Year in the “15-17 Years Old” category was presented by Ms. Viola Pinzi from European Schoolnet. There were two winner in this category: Anne, from Belgium, and Alai-Miranda, from Spain.

Anne, from Belgium – 2019 European Digital Girl of the Year “15-17 Years Old”
Anne is a fifteen-year-old girl who created Clinicoders, an initiative to bring technology and programming to children in hospitals. One of the goals of this project is to encourage children to create solutions for permanently disabled children. Anne said her next steps for Clinicoders are to bring it to a hospital in Antwerp, as it is only currently in Ghent, Belgium. “My dad wants to help bring it to other countries as well. So we’ll see where it goes,” she said. Over time, Clinicoders has developed from an application for children into something for adults too. “We shared this application called ‘Mindstorms’ to adult hospital animators, and it has been a real success.” In terms of her own future, Anne plans on studying law, but definitely wants to continue engaging hospital patients with Clinicoders.

Alai-Miranda from Spain – 2019 European Digital Girl of the Year “15-17 Years Old”
Alai-Miranda’s passion for STEM began when she was seven years old, and it has yet to fade. Most recently, she was invited to speak at the Amazon Web Services Summit in Madrid to discuss her experience as a girl in technology. Alai-Miranda shared about a new project she has begun to work on called “EsVuela.” A combination of the Spanish words “escuela” (school) and “volar” (to fly), the project will educate children on how to fly and program drones. As far as where Alai-Mirand sees herself in ten years, she says: “Hopefully I will have graduated from MIT and will be working in technology at a company, or maybe I will have even started my own company at that point. I hope to be either in the U.S., or maybe in Europe, maybe even still in Spain – somewhere!” As for her experience at the Ada Awards, she said that she feels “inspired to continue talking about and learning technology.”

 

“Gender-Equality and Europe: Fit for the Digital Era?” Panel

The 2019 European Ada Awards ceremony was preceded by a high-level panel on “Gender Equality and Europe: Fit for the Digital Era,” moderated by Cheryl Miller Van Dÿck, DLI Founding Director, and including panelists Miss Manon Van Hoorebeke, 2014-2015 Ada Award-winner for European Digital Girl of the Year, Mr. Christian Veske, Stakeholder Relations Coordinator at the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), Ms. Annick Breton Elias, Partner of Deloitte Luxembourg, and Ms. Afke Schaart, Vice President and Head of Europe at GSMA, a global trade association for the mobile industry.

Christian Veske kicked off the panel with a discussion of EIGE’s 2019 Gender Equality Index released this week, the factors contributing to Europe’s score of 67 out of 100, and the increasing importance of promoting gender balance in digital fields. “Women won’t achieve equality until there is digital equality,” agreed Schaart from the GSMA. “Right now, women hold less than twenty percent of jobs in the tech industry, which is why GSMA expanded our Tech4Girls program this year.”

 

At sixteen, Manon Van Hoorebeke shared that winning the Digital Girl of the Year award at eleven years old has played a significant role in guiding her life choices since then, and that she is now studying Physics at university. Van Hoorebeke also admitted that a lack of confidence with technology is a barrier to getting more young women into the field, and even despite her accomplishements, that she sometimes faces self-doubt. Elias concurred that this patter appears in professional contexts as well for which reason, she said, Deloitte works to identfy high-potential women in digital fields and starts conversations with them on leadership. “Because it is often unlikely that women will initiate these discussions themselves,” she said.

 

Formal welcome for the 2019 European Ada Awards Ceremony was provided by Ms. Loubna Azhgoud, COO of Women in Business and WomenInTech.Brussels @1819 Hub, and by Ms. Audrey Scozzaro Ferrazzi, Senior European Policy Manager at Google. Azhgoud congratulated Ada Award finalists and highlighted the event in the context of the third-annual Women Code Festival organised by the Brussels Region, which succeeded this year in reaching 2300 participants, eighty percent female, to encourage them into digital fields. Scozzaro Ferrazzi also welcomed guests with a rousing speech expressing her awe and admiration for gathered laurates who, like her, are pursuing digital fields.

Following the ceremony, WomenInTech.Brussels provided a lovely reception for the finalists and winners of the 2019 European Ada Awards and all their friends, families and supporters.

Congratulations to the 2019 European Ada Award winners, finalists and nominees for their amazing leadership in digital fields across Europe!

Thank you to our Ada Awards sponsors and supporters!

You can find more pictures from the 2019 European Ada Awards ceremony here.

Move It Forward Cairo for Female Digital Starters

On 8-9 October 2019 in Cairo, the Digital Leadership Institute organized a Move It Forward – female digital starters event in partnership with Outreach EgyptAWS and Women Entrepreneurship Platform.  The event, which included three trainings in digital skills plus coaching for ten women-led startups, reached forty teen and adult women with skills, community and mentorship to support them in their startup journey.

*Anyone who identifies as a woman

DLI Founder is EU Digital Champion

On 21 November in Brussels, Cheryl Miller Van Dyck, founding director of the Digital Leadership Institute International (DLII.org), was recognised by the Financial Times and Google as one of 100 digital champions of Europe.  Miller Van Dyck, who for ten years has led global efforts to increase participation of girls and women in technology sectors, was credited as being a leader and influencer in “promoting digital transformation in Europe.”  Miller Van Dyck and her 99 cohorts were selected from among over 4000 nominations by a jury of their peers representing industry and the public sector.  The digital champions report and event are part of an ongoing Financial Times series on “Europe’s Road to Growth.”

Read the full report here (Article/Image Page 21).