Visionary female tech leaders honoured at inaugural awards

Ensuring there are role models for future generations and encouraging greater participation of women in the ICT sector were some of the recurring themes at the Wired4Women Awards ceremony.

Held last night, the inaugural awards spotlighted female excellence in SA’s tech sector, and celebrated female entrepreneurs and students, as well as women leaders of multinational companies, such as Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Cisco.

As in the rest of the world, gender diversity in SA’s ICT industry remains a significant issue. Even though there have been numerous attempts to address this challenge, women are said to make up less than 25% of the local ICT workforce.

Global statistics show women are nearly absent from software development, engineering, technology research and academia, as well as at the highest levels of policy-making. They also tend to leave science and technology jobs at higher rates than men.

The awards aim to somewhat rectify this ongoing challenge by recognising women’s achievements within the predominantly male-dominated sector, while also inspiring the next generation of women to see ICT as a viable and rewarding career path.

The accolades are an initiative of the Wired4Women Tech Forum, in partnership with Telkom and ITWeb Brainstorm. Attracting over 400 nominations, 53 finalists were selected across 11 categories.

After a rigorous judging process, which included interviews with the finalists and additional research, the winners of the inaugural awards were announced during a banquet event at The Venue, Houghton Hotel, in Johannesburg.

Among the winners are Rashika Ramlal, public sector country manager and executive director at AWS, who was named leader of the year. Cisco South Africa’s Smangele Nkosi was named top IT business development executive. Lillian Barnard, Microsoft Africa president, took home the trailblazer award.

Delivering the welcome address, Nomonde White-Ndlovu, Wired4Women chairperson and CIO of Bidvest, said the awards are a symbol of a dream realised, in line with the advisory board’s efforts to create a space to honour women and “give them their flowers”.

“There are so many of you who are making corporate South Africa work because of the work that you do. The reality is that there is no corporate entity that does not rely heavily on technology – you make the systems work.

“We require spaces that provide community, where all of us can meet with things that we enjoy and love, where femininity doesn’t have to be compromised because we’re trying to fit into what is deemed to be a male industry. We need to break down these stereotypes because this industry needs to become more inclusive.

“It is so important for us to honour women who make the world work. The other aspect is that when you empower women, you empower communities because they unlock so much more.

“We’re not standing here saying we don’t need men; we do. We need men to continue promoting women in the spaces they occupy because, unfortunately, we are not at a point where executive structures in the South African economy have a 50/50 representation.

“There is a lot more work that all of us can actually do,” she stated, calling on leaders to make sure women are paid well.

“There are still a lot of processes that exist in the system that are not conducive for women and that’s why we lose a lot of women in our sector…because we haven’t created corporate structures that support women. When you lose us, you lose money if you’re a capitalist.”

White-Ndlovu encouraged the audience, men in particular, to be intentional when thinking about making corporate spaces more comfortable for women to work.

She also asked the women in the room to be more accountable, making sure the ICT sector is more inclusive, accommodating and supportive. “When we get a seat at the table, please ensure to keep sending the ladder down, because we need more allies around us.”

The trailblazer category attracted nominations of some of the ICT industry’s heavyweights, including Eskom CIO Faith Burn; Zandile Mkhwanazi, co-founder and CEO of GirlCode; as well as Unathi Mtya, group chief information and digital officer at African Bank, to name a few.

The category was described as blazing a trail in the wilderness, with the winner encouraged to continue creating a path for more women.

Barnard said receiving such an honour is humbling, and it is important to continue to serve as a role model. “We have so many opportunities and spheres to do this. This trailblazer award is about leaving a trail for those who are coming behind you.

“I always encourage women to go and reach as far as they possibly can, because the beauty of getting there is that they can do things for other women.

“It is such a humbling experience for me to run Microsoft in our entire continent. I really started very small and there were so many hurdles along the way, but I want to encourage the women in this room to not give up.

“That dream that you have in your heart, don’t give up on it. The journey continues because we need to reach equity in this space, and until we do so, we’re not done yet.”

The rest of the winners of the Wired4Women Awards are:

• Top Tech Entrepreneur: Gabi Immelman, CEO, Mindjoy
• Top Tech Innovator: Jessica Hawkey, managing director, redAcademy
• Tech for Good: Leonora Tima, CEO, Kwanele
• Rising Star in Security: Tshego Gaetsewe, chief information

• officer, Sage
• Rising Star in Cloud: Taryn de Bruin, head of infrastructure and cloud, Mr Price Group
• Rising Star in Coding: Matshepo Soto, software engineer, Crafter's Tech Studio
• Top Tech Student: Oyena Mahlasela, Master’s student, CSIR
• Mentor of the Year: Fazlyn Petersen, senior lecturer, University of the Western Cape