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Press PackEmerge Mini-Conference
In Partnership with
16th - 18th January 2012
WomenInnovating & Collaborating
A mini-conference for women in digital design & technology
The World’s Most Influential Women in Digital Design and Technology come together to celebrate and encourage other Women into Digital Careers
Some of the world’s most influential women in digital design and technology will come together in a unique, mostly online conference, to discuss and promote collaboration and innovation and showcase female excellence in the industry.
Titled ’The Emerge Mini-Conference,’ the three day series of talks and workshops is organised by newly formed not-for-profit Web Heroines and hopes to address the gender imbalance in the industry by engaging more women with design and technology. The Emerge Mini-Conference will also showcase the fantastic work by women from within the industry and aims to share ideas, opinions and solutions.
Hosted in partnership with The British Library Business and IP Centre and Supported by the Big Lottery Fund, the Emerge Mini-Conference will take place over 16th, 17th and 18th January 2012. There will be ten virtual sessions followed by a networking session and a finale pivotal panel debate on the evening of the 18th January which takes place at the British Library in London.
The panel debate is open to all with a limited number of tickets available for purchase at £10 each on the Emerge website. Attendees of the event will come face-to-face with four inspirational female panellists, who are renowned professionals in the field of digital design and technology.
Online sessions will include workshops, podcasts and inspirational talks by influential women in the industry including Naomi Atkinson who has worked for Audi and BT and was named “The Next Big Thing” at The Critters.
Keri Lambden, Senior Member and Founder of Web Heroines, added “This is a unique accessible event which reaches out to women from all backgrounds particularly those who have suffered hardship and want to get their lives back on track by learning new skills, adding strings to their bows and meeting like-minded peers. We are delighted to be working with some of the best and most established female practitioners in the industry and hope that our unique showcase and information exchange will inspire women to take the leap, make their ideas happen and keep innovating”.
Julie Howell, a guest speaker at the conference who has been honoured four times for her influence on the digital industry, added, [this is an] “exciting new initiative that champions the role of women in design and technology industries”.
The Emerge Mini Conference is for anyone who loves digital design, programming, mobile apps, graphics, UX/UI and gaming, and while it is aimed at addressing the gender imbalance men are more than welcome too!
The Emerge Mini Conference is organised by Web Heroines and forms part of a wider strategy and mission by the newly formed, Norfolk based not-for-profit to showcase and encourage more women into the digital and technology industry.
For more information about the Emerge Mini Conference, details on all of the sessions and to book your place, visit the microsite today: www.webheroines.com/emerge
Join the conversation on Twitter by following @webheroines and use the hashtag #WHemerge
For more information about The Emerge Mini Conference, Web Heroines or to obtain an interview or further images please contact:
Aimee Carmichael - Media Relations and Online PR
@aimee1986
Press Release
Keri Lambden
Senior Member Web Heroines and Event Organiser
@webheroines
About Web Heroines
Web Heroines is a not-for-profit organisation which formed as a cooperative in 2011 after a group of like minded people were concerned by the lack of women in design and technology. Web Heroines’ mission is to inspire, engage and inform woman about the digital industry and increase the number of women working in the field. Web Heroines also hopes to inspire women to start their own businesses, get better jobs and not feel isolated. For more information about Web Heroines visit: www.webheroines.com/about-us or refer to the press pack.The senior members are accomplished business owners running successful design technology firms in the UK.
Keri Lambden - FounderKeri is a serial entrepreneur designer and programmer. Since graduat-ing from the Norwich University College of the Arts in 2006 she has es-tablished a successful web design firm and worked for some well-known brands worldwide.
Liz Norman - Senior MemberLiz is a media consultant, photographer and advocate for women in technology. Liz is also a teacher and artist exhibiting nationwide.
Marcus Stafford - Senior MemberMarcus is the mans point-of-view and helps keep the balance. Marcus has worked in technology since the early 80’s in a diversity of roles from sales, support, systems analysis and executive search for start-up companies in the dot.com boom.
Our Mission
Web Heroines’ mission is to increase the number of women in design & technology, inspiring them to start businesses, get bet-ter jobs and not feel isolated!
Aims:• Increase the ratio of women in decision making roles or run-
ning their own businesses. • Improve their skills and knowledge and help them to feel
confident and better prepared.• Improve the understanding of what design and technology
are and show how exciting it can be.• Stop women feeling isolated and alone, get them collaborat-
ing and innovating.• Raise awareness of gender discrimination and influence gov-
ernment policy.
Funding
Web Heroines is funded by corporate sponsorship, grants and cash donations. Each quarter they develop a new creative way to raise funds. Last quarter Web Heroines produced a Digital Bake Sale website where vector images of cakes, doughnuts and sweets donated by illustrators and designers were sold online and profits invested back to the organisation.
Web Heroines are also funded by the Big Lottery Fund.
If you are interested in supporting Web Heroines through spon-sorship, donation or other means please contact: Liz Norman on [email protected]
ScheduleHighlights
DAy ONE
The Emerge mini-conference takes place over 16th, 17th, and 18th of January. Most of the workshops and sessions are web based in order to reach a global audience. At the end of the conference we’ve lined up a fabulous evening event in partnership with the British Library Business & IP Centre with wine, nibbles and networking. Full details of each session are on the website www.webheroines.com/emerge
DAy TWO
DAy THREE
16th January 2012
Rachel Andrew talks about how to launch a digital product.
A videocast interview with the inspirational designer Naomi Atkinson.
CSS development workshop - Learn how utilise the latest CSS framework SASS.
17th January 2012
18th January 2012
Ethnographic User Experience with Evgenia Grinblo.
Second Shift Designer - Katie Major, how to be a freelancer and full-time employee.
Mobile User Experience with Annette Priest.
Two inspirational podcasts featuring super female entrepreneurs will be broadcast.
Panel debate evening held at the British Library - An opportunity to network and discuss the important issues surrounding digital design and technology, meet peers and build on relationships.
SpeakersThe speakers we’ve engaged are some of the top women in the design and technology industry. See the Emerge website for all our speakers. www.webheroines.com/emerge:
NAOMI ATKINSON SARAH MCVITTIE
JULIE HOWELL RACHEL ANDREW
JESS RATCLIFFE SARAH PARMENTER
Naomi is a designer & illustrator passionate about creating beautiful, intuitive user experi-ences for the web & mobile. Active in the de-sign industry for almost a decade, she has held senior positions at three leading brand, web, & advertising agencies in London with world renowned clients such as Audi, British Telecom, Macmillan Cancer Support & Aviva. She’s a regular contributor to .net magazine & been branded as a Rising Star by Design Week.
Prior to co-founding Dressipi, Sarah was the co-founder & CEO of Texperts the world’s first text message question answering service. The company won numerous awards for its concept & technology. In 2008 the company was sold to KGB, owners of the 118118 directory enquir-ies service, in a multi-million pound deal. The Times recently called Sarah one of the UK’s “top rising female entrepreneurs”.
Julie is the UK’s most established name in digital inclusion particularly as technical au-thor of PAS78 the first British Standard for web accessibility. In 1999, she founded RNIB’s Campaign for Good Web Design, has won nu-merous awards for her work with the disabled & MS sufferers including a Digital Imperative Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006. Julie has worked for the BBC, Adobe & the Cabinet Office.
Rachel is a front & back-end web developer with over 12 years experience. She founded edge-ofmyseat.com in September 2001 & has pub-lished a number of successful books on web de-sign with Sitepoint including The CSS Anthology. Rachel has recently launched Perch a super CMS which is gaining high praise. Rachel regularly speaks at all the top conferences worldwide.
Jess is the founder of GaBoom, the peer-to-peer video game swapping website. Jess started Ga-Boom when she was 19 years old & in her first year of University. Since it’s launch, Jess has appeared on BBC Dragons’ Den, left University to focus on GaBoom full-time & re-launched the website with a new business model – all in the past year!
Sarah is a well-known iOS designer working for well established brands worldwide. Sarah often writes for magazines and blogs as well as making popular appearances as a conference speaker and panellist.
Numbers
2 millionWomen make up only 12% of the UK SET workforce (UKRC statistics guide 2010)
Nearly 2 million women and 7.6 million men work in tech industries. (UKRC statistics guide 2010)
84% 1 in 10Of board directorships are held by women in SET industries (UKRC statistics guide 2010)
Agree more should be done to encourage women to return to their technology careers after maternity leave (Women’s Careers in the Technology Industry 2011 Report)
Of women see the IT industry as nerdy (Web Heroines original survey 2011)
Women make up only 1 in 10 of the speakers at design/tech conferences (Web Heroines original survey 2011)
12% 95%
10.8%
Women making machine parts for the war effort in 1942
Thank you for taking the time to look through the press pack.For more information, photographs and interviews please contact:
Keri [email protected](+44) 01603 699 810 Based in the UK
Copyright Web Heroines
