If you read our blog post at the end of October you will have seen that we travelled to London to support of Heidi Fraser-Krauss, Director of Information Services, who was shortlisted for two Women in IT excellence awards; Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the Year and Role Model of the Year (SME).
If you also follow IT Services on Twitter, you will have not just seen the glitz and glamour of the evening but may have also celebrated with us when Heidi was announced by Zoe Lyons, a University of York alumnus, as CIO of the Year!
If you also follow IT Services on Twitter, you will have not just seen the glitz and glamour of the evening but may have also celebrated with us when Heidi was announced by Zoe Lyons, a University of York alumnus, as CIO of the Year!
We are incredibly proud of Heidi winning this award. Not only was this a celebration of women in the IT industry in general; Heidi’s win also brought the spotlight onto Higher Education. As the shortlist above shows, the competition was fierce.
From our perspective, on the event as a whole, it was great to see so many women from IT in one room together. However, some people may, and did, question the need for a women only award ceremony 'surely equality is all about level playing fields’. Although that is a debate that could very easily take up it’s own blog post, the answer to this was summed up very well by one of the speakers, and another University of York alumnus, Holly Brockwell.
“...In some areas there are zero women in the IT departments...but women have played and continue to play an enormous role and contribute massively to the sector...We are here to inspire the next generation of girls...Technology may create the future, but women are creating the technology.”
[my edit here: if you haven’t seen the film Hidden Figures I urge you to do so].
Before the awards were announced we were given an inspirational talk from Bonita Norris who in 2010, and at the age of 22, was the youngest British woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest. We all came away from hearing Bonita speak a little humbled at our own achievements and, for me anyway, with more confidence to believe in ourselves.
She commented on her feeling of fear and admitted that that feeling should never go away, but if you trust yourself you will conquer the fear.
For Bonita, reaching Everest was a case of simply taking one step at a time, focusing solely on the next step and not giving up when the going gets tough. She ended with this: “success is stringing along lots of small steps and taking leaps of faith along the way. All you need to do is conquer the next step”.
Having seen and heard so many amazing stories it made each of us reflect on our own journeys into IT. After a discussion with each other it became clear that there is no ‘normal’ route into the field. We wanted to find a way to share our experiences so we decided that further blog posts would reflect these and perhaps inspire others to take their own unique journey. In Heidi’s words, we should all ‘be brave, lead and realise that we can just do it’.
From our perspective, on the event as a whole, it was great to see so many women from IT in one room together. However, some people may, and did, question the need for a women only award ceremony 'surely equality is all about level playing fields’. Although that is a debate that could very easily take up it’s own blog post, the answer to this was summed up very well by one of the speakers, and another University of York alumnus, Holly Brockwell.
“...In some areas there are zero women in the IT departments...but women have played and continue to play an enormous role and contribute massively to the sector...We are here to inspire the next generation of girls...Technology may create the future, but women are creating the technology.”
[my edit here: if you haven’t seen the film Hidden Figures I urge you to do so].
Before the awards were announced we were given an inspirational talk from Bonita Norris who in 2010, and at the age of 22, was the youngest British woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest. We all came away from hearing Bonita speak a little humbled at our own achievements and, for me anyway, with more confidence to believe in ourselves.
She commented on her feeling of fear and admitted that that feeling should never go away, but if you trust yourself you will conquer the fear.
For Bonita, reaching Everest was a case of simply taking one step at a time, focusing solely on the next step and not giving up when the going gets tough. She ended with this: “success is stringing along lots of small steps and taking leaps of faith along the way. All you need to do is conquer the next step”.
Having seen and heard so many amazing stories it made each of us reflect on our own journeys into IT. After a discussion with each other it became clear that there is no ‘normal’ route into the field. We wanted to find a way to share our experiences so we decided that further blog posts would reflect these and perhaps inspire others to take their own unique journey. In Heidi’s words, we should all ‘be brave, lead and realise that we can just do it’.
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