ARN is proud to announce the winners of the 2017 ARN Women in ICT Awards (WIICTA), playing host to the most comprehensive and competitive line-up in the history of the awards.
Highlighting the success of female front runners across the channel, more than 50 individuals made the final shortlist in 2017, representing more than 40 organisations.
Specifically, WIICTA 2017 honoured the channel across seven categories - Achievement; Rising Star; Shining Star; Entrepreneur; Innovation; Technical and Community.
Held at a jam-packed event at The Hilton in Sydney, the awards ceremony was keynoted by Emma Poposka, co-founder and CEO of Brontech, a start-up specialising in the development of blockchain solutions for decentralised data management, digital identity and alternative currencies.
Maintaining the start-up theme, an industry panel of Gwenda Phillips (ANZ); Michelle Zamora (IBM); Lisa Bouari (outThought) and Victoria Kluth (Araza) debated the tech start-up scene in Australia, outlining opportunities and challenges for emerging businesses.
From an awards perspective, and in response to a wealth of standout submissions, three categories exceeded the traditional six finalist limit, with Rising Star, Shining Star and Achievement shortlisting 10, 13 and 10 individuals respectively.
The end result was the most hotly contested WIICTA since launching in 2012, acknowledging the achievements of a talented group of female leaders and innovators, who have become influential figures across the local ICT industry.
Following an overwhelming response, finalist submissions were selected by a shortlist panel consisting of ARN president and publisher, Susan Searle; ARN editor James Henderson and ARN senior journalist Julia Talevski.
The winners were selected by a selected panel of 28 industry judges, acknowledging creativity, innovation and excellence.
ARN congratulates all winners and finalists and thanks all organisations and individuals for taking the time to submit nominations.
TECHNICAL
The Technical award recognises the candidate who has excelled in the technical and engineering segment of the ICT industry, demonstrating a proven depth of knowledge and abilities.
The candidate will demonstrate excellence in problem-solving and decision-making skills, and an exemplary level of accomplishment in job performance.
Winner - Alana Reynard (The Missing Link)
Alana wins this award in recognition of over 13 years’ experience working for managed service providers in both Australia and the UK, providing pre-sales and support services to clients varying from 50 to 1000 users and across a range of different industries. Alana holds over 19 vendor specific certifications, some of which are very specialised and difficult to attain.
Finalists -
- Taran Cunningham - Veeam Software
- Simona Lewis - VMware
- Carina Tu - Enghouse Interactive
- Sarah Dewan - BigAir
- Sophie Vigors - Arrow ECS ANZ
ENTREPRENEUR
The Entrepreneur award recognises the candidate who has achieved outstanding results in the ICT industry, an enterprising individual who has achieved success through risk-taking and proven initiative, often challenging the status quo in business in order to set up new ventures, products or new services.
Winner - Victoria Kluth (Araza)
Victoria wins this award in recognition of continued success as an entrepreneur and technology executive. After starting out as a coder, Victoria has started three new businesses in the past two years, and is now managing director of Araza, a leading technology company that specialises in implementation of highly complex solutions including cloud based applications and robotics.
Finalists -
- Emily Dela Pena - Coding Kids
- Cindy Nicholson - Optus
- Maryanne Demery - Seccom Global
- Ana Ouriques - Ruppells Griffon
COMMUNITY
The Community award recognises the candidate with exemplary service to the ICT sector, through initiatives and efforts to foster positive diversity outcomes.
The candidate will be actively making a difference by working towards the advancement of gender and general diversity in ICT and going above and beyond to give back to the community.
Winner - Vikki Morris (Cisco)
Vikki wins this award for giving back to the industry during a career spanning more than 30 years. Vikki is involved in several female mentoring initiatives, and also spearheads philanthropic initiatives around disabilities awareness.
Finalists -
- Jade Moffat - IBM
- Heather Opdam - VMware
- Kirsty Hunter - Datacom
- Angela Moutinho - Solista
