women in tech
Kaspersky lab announces its sponsorship of the Girls in Tech AMPLIFY competition. AMPLIFY is an opportunity for young female tech entrepreneurs to pitch their early-stage technology start-up on stage to a panel of seasoned venture capitalists and high tech execs to be judged based on the innovativeness and viability of the product or service. Winners will receive attractive prizes along with additional resources such as exclusive networking and coaching opportunities to move their start-up forward. The event took place on Wednesday 10th October with Catherine Oudot, Head of Channel Sales in France, taking part on the judging panel. The winners were announced as ALTAROAD, a French innovative start-up developing a road infrastructure platform for operators of roads, city traffic managers, logisticians, autonomous and connected cars
Ilijana Vavan, Managing Director of Kaspersky Lab in Europe, says “I am passionate about encouraging other young women into a technology career as I know first-hand how rewarding it is. I’m delighted to announce our sponsorship of the AMPLIFY competition and am excited to see the innovation that will be showcased at the event. Kaspersky Lab is formally committing to supporting women into technology careers with its CyberStarts initiative and being able to forge an ongoing relationship with such a dynamic organisation such as Girls in Tech will help us come closer to our goal.”
Dr Jamie Soon, Managing Director of Girls in Tech in Paris says “Thanks to the generous support from Kaspersky Lab, we are able to send the winning entrepreneurial women from AMPLIFY on an all-expenses-paid residency week, focused on entrepreneurship in Singapore in honour of the France-Singapore Year of Innovation. This will allow them to gain experience in the local ecosystem and to learn and receive support from our local partners on how to build relevance for the Asian market. Girls in Tech is dedicated to promoting careers in technology to young women and committed to developing initiatives that support this goal.”
Kaspersky Lab has also signed PwC’s UK-based charter, Tech She Can, a commitment by organisations to work together to increase the number of women working in technology roles in the UK. It aims to tackle the root cause of the problem at a societal level by inspiring and educating young girls and women to get into tech careers and sharing best practice across the organisations involved.
Ilijana comments, “The Tech She Can charter is another great example of how seriously our industry is taking the gender imbalance in technology. I look forward to seeing the successes that come from the UK team’s efforts in their involvement with the charter and encourage our other European offices to contribute to similar initiatives in their countries.”
In addition to these commitments, Kaspersky Lab has also launched a dedicated internal Women’s Network that has seen an initial roll out in the UK. The network will support Kaspersky’s female population in career development with a mentoring programme, a speaker series and a networking initiative. Kaspersky also recently hosted events in Berlin, Paris and Boston that promoted careers in cybersecurity to a varied audience. Kaspersky’s major Kaspersky Next press event in Barcelona will also dedicate a section of the conference to the topic.
For more information about the CyberStarts initiative, please email EUHQcommunications@kaspersky.com
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