Note from the nominator:

Edith is a passionate and dynamic woman dedicated to bridging gaps and fostering connections across various fields. Her commitment to inspiring the next generation of women in technology is unparalleled.

Edith leads the Swiss TecLadies program, an initiative aimed at attracting more young girls to technical and IT careers. Her innovative approach has transformed the landscape, encouraging a new wave of female talent in STEM fields.

Through her mentorship program, Edith and her dedicated team provide individualized support to girls aged 14 to 19. Each mentee is paired with an active female mentor in a scientific or technical profession, ensuring personalized guidance and inspiration.

Edith’s passion for connecting people from diverse backgrounds is evident in her work. She creates a supportive community that empowers young women to explore and excel in technical fields, fostering a sense of belonging and confidence.

Note from the nominator:

I would like to nominate Anna Maria Blengino for the Empowered Woman in Tech Award. Throughout her career, she has consistently demonstrated unparalleled drive, innovation and leadership. She began her journey with a Master’s degree in Engineering and transitioned from construction to telecommunications at a time when the industry was burgeoning.

Anna Maria’s career is marked by her relentless curiosity in STEM (but not only!) and adaptability. She has worked across various industries and countries, holding roles that range from hands-on technical positions to strategic leadership. In her current role at Sunrise, she continually drives digital transformation and fosters a culture of innovation, passion for the job, empowerment and much more.

Anna Maria is not only a leader in her field but also a mentor and inspiration to many. She passionately shares her experiences and learnings, emphasizing the importance of continuous movement and adaptation in staying ahead of technological advancements. Her commitment to empowering others, especially women in technology, is evident in her active participation in conferences and mentorship programs.

Moreover, Anna Maria is inspired by strong female role models who advocate for justice and equality, and she embodies these values in her professional and personal life. Her dedication to breaking barriers and paving the way for future generations of women in tech is truly commendable.

For these reasons and more, I wholeheartedly recommend Anna Maria Blengino for the Empowered Woman in Tech Award. Her contributions to the tech industry, her innovative spirit, and her unwavering commitment to empowering others make her an exceptional candidate for this honour.

Note from the nominator:

Dr. Elsa Callini is a physicist by training, but an innovator, connector, and empowerHER at heart. She uses her vast academic (EMPA & EPFL) and industry experience (Business Development & Sales @ ebeam Technologies & METAS) to support researchers and students on their 1st entrepreneurial steps as an integral part of the Innovation Office of the University of Bern.
In addition, being a woman in the STEM field, she experienced first-hand which struggles and challenges females are going through and knows what would have been helpful and empowHERing in these moments.

This is how „Women who start up – bring your idea to life“ was born. The urge to make sure current and future generations of women in STEM, and specifically those choosing to move forward into academic entrepreneurship, find a place of exchange and inspiration.
On top of all that, Elsa is a great person to work with and be surrounded by: Always having an open ear, thoughtful questions to broaden your horizon, or tips to make it through a challenging situation.

Note from the nominator:

Nina is a prominent female AI tech entrepreneur in CH, having successfully bootstrapped two AI companies. With her extensive experience as an AI Product Director at UBS and builder of chatbots for SBB, local search, Swiss Post and more she is recognized AI expert. She trains over 300 people/month on Gen.AI, from strategy to prompt engineering. Dedicated to educating about AI’s opportunities, risks, and biases, she contributes significantly to a more inclusive and secure AI future.

Note from the nominator:

She’s one of the world’s most innovative, curious and clever women. As Wonderwoman she fights for a better world, dignity, knowledge and good mental health. She is Wonderwan!

She works in innovation, especially AI about adopting new technology, „ethic“ diversity and inclusion through the workplace.

Note from the nominator:

Ute is an essential member of the Operations Team of the BRNC cleanroom, a shared facility between ETH Zurich and IBM Research.

She is a nanofabrication expert with decades of experience in both production and research cleanrooms and has enabled groundbreaking research and technologies throughout the years.

The Operations Team has the role to keep the cleanroom running smoothly and Ute does this excellently by driving innovative technological processes, handling energetically her day-to-day tasks and taking great care not only of the equipment and infrastructure, but also of all its users and their requests. She has helped, guided and inspired hundreds of students and researchers at different levels of their careers, with technical and professional advice. Her real strength is in using her technical skills to innovate and support users, constantly being available and helping them also in challenging projects while updating her skills to meet their needs. She enjoys her work and is always present in the cleanroom, where she comes up with innovative nanofabrication processes, makes sure that everything is in order and quickly addresses any issue that comes up, often bringing new ideas to improve the workflow. She loves nanofabrication and treats the cleanroom like her own home, always on the lookout to help others.

Ute has mentored many women in various stages of their careers with encouragement, practical advice and no-nonsense attitude. She has empowered several women in the founding and growing phases of start-ups, by providing open and gentle reality checks on the planned fabrication. Critically, she went out of her way to minimize the fabrication steps (therefore costs and complexity) for start-up products, often working behind the scenes to leverage common material purchases and fabrication steps to help start-ups. This was only possible due to her warm personality, affection towards innovative young people, and optimistic attitude. Her combination of the helpful and communicative personality is a role model to many women who want to offer their expertise while establishing healthy boundaries.

Note from the nominator:

Marion Schleifer is an exceptional leader and mentor in the technology industry. Her work focuses on empowering women in developing countries to achieve their dreams in technology. As the co-founder of Code Blossom, she created a non-profit organization that provides a free certification program to help women find jobs in the tech industry. Her technical skills combined with her passion for teaching and community involvement make her an inspiring role model. Marion is not only a dedicated and experienced professional but also has strong leadership qualities and is always ready to support and encourage those around her.

Marion Schleifer is one of the founders of Code Blossom – a non-profit organization that focuses on technology education and women’s empowerment in developing countries. Code Blossom provides a free certification program aimed at women in these regions. Code Blossom’s mission is to provide women with marketable skills by empowering them to become full-stack developers through comprehensive training that includes hands-on experience.

Upon completion of the program, Code Blossom helps graduates find internships or jobs, launching them into technology careers. The organization believes in empowerment through education, preparing women for the job market by teaching them the most in-demand technologies. Code Blossom also emphasizes equality through education, giving women in developing countries the autonomy and independence to thrive in often male-dominated cultures. Additionally, the organization fosters a sense of community by encouraging women to support each other while providing targeted mentorship to support the next generation of women in technology. This holistic approach not only equips women with technical skills but also creates a support network that promotes ongoing growth and empowerment.

Note from the nominator:

Dr. Eleonore Poli is a material scientist and engineer, with top scientific skills, possesses true leadership and management genius, and the utmost passion. She is a strong, motivated, empathetic and funny person, who is curious about everything and everyone around her. I met Eleonore when she was creating her own organisation, CHASM, for which I am nominating her, and completing her PhD. She wished to collaborate with Mars Society UK to help in setting a conference and she had contacted me – and we worked together for several years following that. She showed true diligence, motivation, incredible organisational skills and versatility and was a pleasure to work with. She spends most of her time working, learning and pushing boundaries forward. Since I met her, 3 years ago, she has gone through difficult times but always persevered, and has completed her PhD, created several organisations, taught classes and developed new classes and even done missions and expeditions. She is an inspiration for all, from her passion but also her incredible motivation skill set, and energy to share and bring everyone forwards with her.

Note from the nominator:

Olivia is a game-changer. For days, she helped out at her grandparents‘ dairy farm – she was particularly fascinated by processes, mechanics, and technology. Since there was no agricultural machinery mechanic nearby, she opted instead for an apprenticeship as a polytechnic. Later in her career, Olivia founded several companies, successfully designed digital solutions, and managed to save 25.8 tons of bananas on the side. Bringing the right people to the table, thinking outside the box, finding solutions together, and implementing them – these are still the qualities that define Olivia as a managing director of the food-tech start-up and NPO Circunis today.

For years, Olivia has been advocating for the meaningful use of technology and turning good ideas into reality when the time is right. She is a true game changer, as evidenced by Circunis.ch. She has what it takes to make an impact and set the wheels in motion.

Congratulation to Isaline Muelhauser (Pilea.ch)

Isaline is one of the smartest women I ever met and she strongly believes in empowering women. As a result, many of her unpaid activities are related to that. She was able to become a very successful consultant in our domain. Her brain never stops and her capacity of analysis is clearly above average. 

Isaline opened her own consulting company in SEO. However, in her “free time”. She works on SEOnerdSwitzerland which is an association that has a goal to make SEO knowledge accessible to everybody. What makes it special is not just the fact that it’s the largest SEO event in Switzerland but also that we work to make sure that women are visible. Her engagement for this is tireless. Moreover, she went an extra mile to make the association be also well-known in the Swiss German part of Switzerland. Making sure that she was able to have Swiss speakers in our in-person events. 

Isaline is an SEO consultant and an entrepreneur running her SEO consultancy Pilea.ch since 2019, specializing in multilingual websites. Isaline navigates the tech and the entrepreneur fields with grace showing that it’s possible to grow a business beyond gender. Isaline is caring and attentive to her surroundings. She is both able to communicate her enthusiasm for her field of expertise as a public speaker and set a stage to support someone who is a speaker for the first time 

Congratulations to Sabrina Badir (pregnolia AG)

Preterm birth is still one of the biggest challenges in modern obstetrics, not only in developing countries but also in developed countries. And as in many other areas of women’s health, innovation in antenatal care is progressing far too slowly. 

This was Sabrina Badir’s motivation and incentive to act to help solve a problem that affects many pregnant women around the world. During her PhD at ETH Zurich, Badir developed a device that measures the stiffness of the cervix during pregnancy, an important parameter in assessing the risk of preterm birth. 

After completing her PhD in biomechanics in 2015, she was awarded the Pioneer Fellowship to translate her academic research into a medical product and founded Pregnolia a year later. Badir’s vision is to use her medical device – the Pregnolia System – to create a new standard for detecting preterm birth to improve pregnancy care for millions of women around the world. 

When she took on the role of CEO of Pregnolia, she was a scientist (and not yet an entrepreneur) who had no idea how to build a business. She had to acquire this know-how through various professionals and thus refined her excellent networking skills. 

Her ability to convince investors and gain their trust, raise money and build a network of supportive doctors, clinics, midwives, health insurers and other stakeholders is her unique expertise. 

Pregnolia AG, a spin-off of ETH Zurich, is now a Swiss medical technology company with 15 employees. The team around Badir has developed the world’s first CE-marked and patented medical device for measuring cervical stiffness. 

Congratulations to Safia Agueni (Women in Tech Switzerla)

Switzerland, the home to numerous STEM giants, is also the abode of Safia, a dedicated computer scientist who now successfully leads a Global Tech program in a top pharma company, a mother of three and a Woman in Tech who generously lives to help other women rise in STEM. 

Safia is founder and president of the Swiss Chapter of Women in Tech, an international organization with a double mission: to close the gender gap and empower 5 million girls and women to embrace fields linked to technology by 2030. Safia has played an exceptional role in the establishment and growth of the Swiss Chapter, which has so far not been acknowledged. Based on all of the above, Safia Agueni is an exceptional woman who deserves the recognition and honor of being nominated for the Hidden Figures Award 2023.

Congratulations to Anaïs Salson ( 42 Lausanne)

Anais is an absolutely amazing person, engaged on different levels to make a change in the society through tech and education. As head of partnership @42Lausanne, she made reality a new way of teaching tech to students from any backgrounds in Switzerland. She travelled extensively and is recognized for her expertise in several domains such as education, innovation management and digital transformation. She is multi-talented and also a professional photographer and story-teller. Her curiosity and vivacity, her people-centric approach, her amazing capacity of connecting dots and linking people enables her to always find new ways of doing things and empowering people. 42Lausanne is a break-through organization teaching tech in a completely new way: it is all about peer-work and review, no teachers, gamified curriculum – it is a paradigm shift in the way we imagine and design the future of teaching. She has been carrying this project since the beginning, without her passion, engagement and commitment, nothing would have been possible. 

Congratulation to Sinja Christiani (Zurich Insurance)

Sinja is an inspiration for women in tech – anyone who has ever worked with her is in awe of her ability to simplify complex technical (and people!) challenges and successfully coach teams to find solutions.
She is 100% impact, 0% ego – which explains the strong followership she has been able to build in her former roles as Deloitte Risk Analytics Consulting Lead and Agile Coach, as well as in her current role as Transformation Lead Zurich Data & BI.

Congratulations to Sanjana Rao (Miyara)

Dr. Sanjana Rao is extremely passionate about making women’s health accessible to all. She has a strong entrepreneurial spirit while at the same time being driven by the social cause. With a background (Ph.D. and Post Doc) in Biological Sciences, she brings to the table her scientific and research expertise in developing the business which has the main goal of making health information and solutions accessible to women. 

Congratulations to Nour el Houda Bourbia (PwC Switzerland)

Houda is a dedicated and motivating person who has encouraged people to achieve goals and given them new opportunities. She and her sister put this quality into practice in their NGO “Backpack2School”. They support teachers in their training so that they can teach students from all backgrounds in the best possible way. In a world where a traditional classroom is becoming more and more diverse, they have seen the importance of this aspect.

Congratulation to Alexandra Diening (EPAM Systems)

Alexandra is the head of Research for a large corporation in the tech industry. She built a team from 0 to 10+ experts, is part of senior leadership and driving the global research competency. Empowering others and driving the excellence in research in tech is at the heart of her work. All that meanwhile having her first child (now 2 years old), she embodies a true example of resilience and women power. 

Congratulations to Zulma Prieto (Emilian AG)

Zulma has co-founded Emilian AG, an insurtech startup offering an insurance platform helping small insurance advisors, particularly in emerging countries, to digitize and contribute to closing the insurance gap in those countries. Thanks to Zulma’s vision, Emilian has developed a platform with the power of getting more people in the world protected. Emilian, being white label platform, allows insurance advisors to strengthen their business and their own brand and thereby contribute to their community with their business. Emilian is innovative because there currently exists no insurance platform which seeks to establish end-to-end-connectivity by connecting the data silos that currently exist in the sector.

Congratulations to Sonia Karkare (Adavanced to Ampify)

Sonia has co-founded Advanced to Amplify, to serve professionally at-risk women in reskilling and preparing for the digital economies of tomorrow. Advance to Amplify (AtoA), is a venture born out of the Roxbourg MBA program – a special, one-of-a-kind MBA program focused on social impact. The goal of our venture is to make a difference in gender diversity, especially for women who are professionally at-risk.

Congratulation to Emmanuelle David  (EPFL Space Center)

Emmanuelle is a role model for so many women. After being a rocket scientist for several companies, Emmanuelle applied with a new born for an executive role at EPFL and became the executive lead of the space center of EPFL. She is questioning the status quo and supports young women as a mentor. Because of passion for sustainable development she aims that the space field gets more sustainable. I think Emmanuelle can change the world. She is a scientist, leader, mom and amazing friend. She is also very humble and I think more people need to get inspired by her, so that she can leverage her positive impact on society!

Congratulations to Siew-Veena Sahi (Testmate Health)

Siew-Veena Sahi is an incredibly devoted and inspirational co-founder. Whilst studying to become a medical doctor in the United Kingdom, Siew-Veena did an additional year of study completing a degree in Public Health. During these studies she came across the fact that there was no instant test available on the market for STIs. This had far reaching implications, one of which was linked to woman’s health and empowerment – an example being sexual health clinics in developing countries overprescribing antibiotics due to women not being able to visit clinics to receive results of testing. Having identified this as a woman’s health and empowerment issue and mulling it over for two years working as a Doctor in the NHS, she decided finally to take the plunge.

Congratulations to Corina Schedler (Code Excursion)

Corina is an inspiration, her energy and her soul are empowering. As a self-taught web developer, she is a true inspiration to any woman who wants to change her career to tech. Also as a co-founder of Code Excursion for 3 years, she is making it possible for numerous women to get started in tech. Her friendly, open go-getter personality and the Code-Excursion-Vibe with the flexible courses especially for women that they created are truly unique if we think about learning experiences in Switzerland.