Rosanna Flamer-Caldera is a Sri Lankan LGBTIQ rights activist. She is the founder and executive director of EQUAL GROUND, the oldest LGBTIQ advocacy organisation pursuing LGBTIQ rights as part of the larger Human Rights framework in Sri Lanka. She was also the co-founder of the Women’s Support Group in 1999. Rosanna served as the first Sri Lankan Female Asia Representative (2001-2003) and then Co-Secretary General of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Association (ILGA) (2003-2008). She is the co-founder and former chair of the Commonwealth Equality Network (2015-2022), a broad network of LGBTIQ organisations within the Commonwealth. In September 2021, she spearheaded the first of its kind legal case in the Sri Lanka Court of Appeals, against homophobic, discriminatory and inflammatory speeches made by police trainers in Sri Lanka. The police issued an island wide circular to all police stations in the country that stated that LGBTIQ persons could not be arrested or harassed for being who they are. Through her guidance, in 2015 EQUAL GROUND commenced Diversity Equity and Inclusion programs within the corporate sector and to date has sensitised over 45000 staff members of over 50 companies in Sri Lanka. In 2017 she received the Zonta award for Social Impact and in November 2022, she received the APCOM Community Hero award for her work for the LGBTIQ community in Sri Lanka.
Kimberly Bryant is an American electrical engineer who worked in the biotechnology field at Genentech, Novartis Vaccines, Diagnostic, and Merck. In 2011, Bryant founded Black Girls Code, a nonprofit organization that focuses on providing technology and computer programming education to African-American girls. After founding Black Girls Code, Bryant was listed as one of the "25 Most Influential African-Americans In Technology" by Business Insider.
Eileen Burbidge MBE is a British-American venture capitalist based in London, UK. She is a founding partner of Passion Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm that has invested in Monzo, Go Cardless and Lulu, a private social network for single women.
Rebecca Gay George is 2020 President of the British Computer Society, and active in encouraging girls and women to participate in technology and IT.
Lopa Patel, MBE, is a British Indian businesswoman and a strategically minded leader in executive and non-executive roles. She is best known for delivering transformational change via the implementation of digital technology.
National Coding Week was founded by former headteacher Richard Rolfe and tech entrepreneur Jordan Love, who was appointed EU Code Week Ambassador for the UK. It took place during the week commencing September 21, 2014 with the aim of helping adults to improve their digital literacy in order to fill the growing skills gap.
Jayanthi Kuru-Utumpala is a Sri Lankan women’s rights activist with 20 years of experience and a rock climber / mountaineer for nearly as long. She has worked at national, regional, and global levels as a technical advisor, advocate, trainer, researcher, and program manager on issues relating to gender, gender-based violence, sexuality, masculinity, women’s human rights, and more recently, women in sports. In 2016, she became the first Sri Lankan to summit Mount Everest. In recognition of this achievement, from 2016-2019 she was appointed the Goodwill Ambassador for Women's Rights by the Sri Lankan Ministry of Women's Affairs. In 2017, she was also included in the BBC’s list of 100 inspiring and influential women from around the world. In 2023, she was the recipient of the International Olympic Committee’s Gender Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Champions Award for Asia(Olympic Council of Asia). Since returning from Everest, she has delivered over 500 motivational speeches, to schools, universities, clubs, professional sports teams, corporate entities, government, and non-governmental organizations, as well as the military and police. She is currently the Gender and Human Rights Advisor at the Family Planning Association in Sri Lanka, working to address stigma and discrimination faced by people seeking HIV services, and is a co-creator of ‘Delete Nothing’ – a local web-based initiative aimed at addressing online gender-based violence in Sri Lanka. Jayanthi serves on several boards and is the current Chairperson of the Women and Media Collective and the International Centre for Ethnic Studies. She is also a trustee of the ‘Women of the World Foundation’, a UK-based charity. Jayanthi holds an MA in Gender Studies from the University of Sussex (UK) and a post graduate diploma in Women’s Studies from the University of Colombo. For more details, find her on LinkedIn.
Heather Patricia Melville is a British banker, Senior Managing Director of Teneo and Chancellor of the University of York.
Avid Larizadeh-Duggan OBE is an Iranian-French-American entrepreneur and venture capitalist. She is a managing director at Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Innovation Platform, EMEA and is a non executive director of Barclays Bank UK.
Erica Joy Baker is an engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area, Chief Technology Officer for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and known for her outspoken support of diversity and inclusion. She has worked at companies including GitHub, Google, Slack, Patreon, and Microsoft. She gained prominence in 2015 for starting an internal spreadsheet where Google employees reported their salary data to better understand pay disparities within the company. Kara Swisher of Recode called Baker the "woman to watch" in a profile in C Magazine.
Sophie Deen is a British children's author and leader in the field of coding and STEM for young people. She is the CEO of Bright Little Labs, a kids media company that makes animations, books, games and toys with a focus on 21st century skills, inclusive role models, and sustainability.
Carrie Anne Philbin is an English teacher of computer science and an author. She is a director of educator support at the Raspberry Pi Foundation and chairs the Computing At School (CAS) diversity and inclusion group, #CASInclude. She wrote the computing book Adventures in Raspberry Pi (2013) for teenagers. She runs the YouTube channel Geek Gurl Diaries and in 2017, was the host for Crash Course Computer Science.
Amali Chivanthi de Alwis MBE FRSA was the CEO of Code First: Girls. Replaced by Anna Brailsford. She is currently UK Managing Director of Microsoft for Startups. She is a board member of Ada, the National College for Digital Skills, and the Institute of Coding.
Natasha Sayce-Zelem is the Global Head of Partner Engineering at Amazon Prime Video. She is a founder of 'Empowering Women with Tech', a social enterprise showcasing female role models working in digital media, science, and technology with the goal of getting more women to consider a career in STEM in England.
Karen Rafferty is the Head of the School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Queen's University Belfast. She works with virtual and augmented reality for health care and automation.
Jennifer Marie Arcuri is an American technology entrepreneur. She lived in London from 2011 to 2018, before moving back to California. Self-described as an "ethical hacker", she founded the white hat consultancy Hacker House in 2016 and organised the Innotech Network from 2012. Her connection to then Mayor of London Boris Johnson from 2012 came to national attention in the UK in September 2019 when he became Prime Minister, triggering investigations into alleged conflicts of interest. She said in 2021 that she had an affair with him from 2012 to 2016.
Nicola Rollock is a British academic, writer and activist. She is professor of social policy and race at King's College London, having previously been reader in equality and education at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and has written several books, including The Colour of Class: The educational strategies of the Black middle classes (2014). She has been included in the Powerlist of the most influential black Britons and has received the PRECIOUS award for her work in racial equality.
Gail Suzanne Jones is a British businesswoman, entrepreneur and wife of Lawrence Jones. She is co-founder and former CEO of the Manchester-based colocation, dedicated and cloud hosting provider, UKFast.
Nneka Abulokwe, OBE is a British Nigerian tech and digital governance entrepreneur. She is one of the first Afro-Caribbean professionals in the UK to serve on the board of a leading European digital transformation organization, she is the founder and CEO of MicroMax Consulting. In 2019, she was honoured by Queen Elizabeth II as an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) for services to Business.
Farmida Bi is a British corporate solicitor and the EMEA Chair of Norton Rose Fulbright, having also served as Global Chair in 2022. She is the United Kingdom's first female chair of a major law firm, and has been named one of Britain's top five most powerful Muslim women. She stood as a Labour Party candidate in two elections, and founded Progressive British Muslims three days after the 7/7 London bombings. She was appointed a CBE in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to Law and charity.
