Wow – What an incredible night! Last night (Tuesday 9 May) saw BIMA host the 5th annual BIMA 100 and Hall of Fame celebrations – with 200 of the industries finest talent gathering for a night dedicated to celebrating the people making the British digital industry on the map.
Conceived in 2013, the BIMA 100 identifies the most influential, promising and innovative people working across the UK digital industry today.
The full list of this year’s BIMA 100 can be viewed here >>
The BIMA 100 2017
Congratulations to all of this year’s BIMA 100 inductees!
Recognising the outstanding lifetime contributions to the UK digital industry, the BIMA Hall of Fame sees new inductees joining the likes of Jamal Edwards MBE, Stephen Fry and Dame Martha Lane Fox.
This year, two truly inspiring individuals were inducted into the BIMA Hall of Fame. It was our pleasure to induct IT pioneer Dame Stephanie Shirley and Kathryn Parsons, co-founder of technology education company Decoded.
Kathryn Parsons founded technology education company Decoded in 2011, from a coffee shop in London.
Famous for teaching anyone “Code in a Day”, today their face-to-face and online learning experiences span data, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cyber security, machine learning and beyond.
To date Kathryn and the team at Decoded have taught boards and leadership teams in over 65 different cities worldwide across every industry and sector.
In addition to running the business, Kathryn is non-executive on the Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, Chairwoman of the UK Institute of Coding, member of the London Mayor’s Business Advisory Board and UK Government Cyber Security Skills Advisory Board.
She is a champion for future skills, code on the curriculum, women in technology and business.
Kathryn’s background is steeped in language following studying classics and classical languages, literatures, and linguistics at Downing College, Cambridge. For her code is just another language, but one that will impact the live of billions.
Welcome to the BIMA Hall of Fame Kathryn!
Dame Stephanie “Steve” Shirley – named by Woman’s Hour as one of the most powerful women in Britain – founded software house Freelance Programmers, staffed by and for women. These women, in a society where they could not drive a bus, fly a plane or open their own bank account, built the code for the black box for supersonic Concorde and created software management protocols that were adopted by NATO. Citing her inspiration for Freelance Programmers, Shirley said:
“I wanted to give women a chance… I was looking for a way in which I wanted to work.” Dame Stephanie Shirley
This pioneering approach dismantled traditional work practices, and changed the position of professional women in high-tech.
Freelance Programmers grew to be worth $3 Billion dollars and when it floated on the stock exchange, and thanks to her philosophy of co-ownership, made over 70 predominantly female millionaires.
Since retiring in 1993, her focus has been increasingly on philanthropy. Her charitable Shirley Foundation has initiated and funded a number of projects that are pioneering by nature, strategic in impact, totalling £68m to-date.
It’s an incredible honour to welcome Dame Stephanie Shirley into the BIMA Hall of Fame!
Dame Stephanie Shirley in conversation with Nadya Powell
Following announcing the BIMA Hall of Fame inductees, Nadya Powell sat down to discuss Dame Stephanie Shirley’s incredible career, and picked her brain for any pearls of wisdom that she could impart on the room.
Her words of advice came from a poet Nobel laureate who suggested a Hippocratic oath for her and her team:
” I promise to insure that I will never work on projects that damage people or the environment.
I promise to work for a world that is a better place, using science and technology in a socially and beneficial way.
And I will always consider the ethics of my job before I start to do it.”
Read more about the BIMA Hall of Fame inductees here >>