The UK’s Department for International Trade (DIT) Europe Network will host the first-ever DIT European Tech Women event on September 2nd, which will focus on, you guessed it, prominent female leaders in Europe’s tech sphere. The event was originally planned for March, until COVID came and ruined everyone's fun. Now set to be part of London Tech Week, the event will include a multitude of panels, keynote speeches, and conclude with an awards ceremony to recognize the excellence and achievements of 24 women and their work in the technology arena.

Among the awards’ finalists were 14 Israeli women, who have achieved something unique or innovated a certain tech field. In order to win an award and a spot as a keynote speaker, the women of tech had to meet certain criteria including: inspiring the tech field in which they work; take an active part promoting diversity and inclusion of women in tech; as well as being a truly inspirational leader for women in the industry. Out of the 14 Israeli nominees, 4 of them answered the criteria and won the prestigious award, as well as receiving a place on selected panels discussing their field of expertise during London Tech Week.

Amira  Bardichev, (Adv). Head of Inward investments at the DIT at the British Embassy, explains the selection process and the value such ventures add to the strong business ties with both countries. “The Embassy and DIT, encourage such platforms to promote women entrepreneurs, as we see it as a driver to economic growth, by supporting joint projects for British companies to partner with Israeli cutting-edge technology. For this event we identified initially 14 leading Israeli women entrepreneurs... 4 nominees from Israel were selected to showcase their unique story... Naturally, as a start-up nation, Israel had the largest representations among all.”

Let's take a closer look at the 4 female innovators who took home gold:

Inna Braverman, CEO & Co-Founder of Eco Wave Power

Eco Wave Power, uses the power of waves to create clean electricity. Founded in 2011, Eco Wave Power installed the first grid-connected wave energy array in Gibraltar, where it is connected to the grid of the Gibraltar Electric Authority through a Power Purchase Agreement. She is also responsible for securing 190MW of projects pipe-line for the company. Inna's story with clean electricity is very personal. She was born 2 weeks before the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster, and suffered respiratory arrest due to the pollution in the region. After getting a second chance at life, Inna decided to devote her brilliance and time towards mitigating pollution and creating a greener energy solution. Inna was recently awarded the United Nations “Global Climate Action Award” and her personal journey as a female entrepreneur was documented in a virtual reality film by Google, under the name “Female Planet.”

Inna’s panel will focus on sustainable technology and how women innovators can contribute to the field, as well as diving into finding solutions to fill the gender gap.

"According to C40, women represent only 17% of employees, 4% of software engineers and 1% of leadership positions in the combined science, technology, engineering, and mathematics sector. Only 3% of venture capital partners are women. These inequalities represent a significant barrier to developing inclusive climate responses. I am extremely proud to be recognized for the ”Green Innovation Award”, by the Department of International Trade and hope that my work with Eco Wave Power will serve s an example of the positive effects of including women in the global fight against climate change"

Hillary Harel, CEO & Founder of Serenus.AI

Serenus.AI uses the power of AI and ML technology to achieve positive impacts on healthcare by improving service, delivery and outcomes while saving valuable resources. Its unique patented technology was developed to empower medical decisions at critical crossroads. Serenus.AI’s world-class team includes top physicians from a range of medical fields and highly accomplished machine learning specialists. This innovative solution has already been validated in practice and is currently active in Europe and the US with leading healthcare organizations. Hilary graduated LLM Magna Cum Laude from The Hebrew University, Israel. She went on to found and lead several successful start-ups until founding MEDicide, which today is known as Serenus.AI.

Harel will participate in a panel focusing on supporting female talent in business and academia. Harel will also touch on a subject close to her heart, how women can make a difference in AI, and what skills does the future AI innovator need to hone.

“Thank you to the Department for International Trade for this amazing award. This is such an important recognition for years of hard work. Machine learning is making a real revolution in healthcare today, improving the quality of healthcare delivery while saving valuable resources. This is what Serenus.AI is all about We are very keen to continue collaborating with the UK and Europe to make our solution available to more and more people,” excitingly explains Harel.

Maya Gura, CEO & Co-Founder of Missbeez

Missbeez is a mobile marketplace for beauty services matching busy women with self-employed professionals. Prior to Missbeez, Maya was a founding team member at PicScout, where she led a multimillion global sales operation, and a Co-founder of The Gifts Project (a fintech platform acquired by eBay). Maya’s expertise span long and wide, from E-commerce and mobile to Fintech and more. She also won Geektime’s 2016 Female CEO of the year award. Gura seems like she can do it all, carrying a Masters in criminology and an MBA in business psychology, she also acts as a mentor at “She Codes”,  a coding workshop for youth.

Maya’s panel brings up a very important subject, especially for women in tech. She will speak on how to combat ‘Impostor Syndrome’, which is a phenomenon that many women in tech experience.

Orit Hashay, CEO & Founder of Brayola

Brayola, the world’s smartest personal bra shopper, was founded in 2012. Brayola partners with top brands and indie designers using technology, data and community to provide a personalized way to shop for lingerie online for each and every woman. Prior to setting up Brayola, Orit Hashay founded and coded Israel’s most successful wedding site and has over 15 years of experience in software and business development. She was awarded Female CEO of the Year 2017 by Geektime and in 2016, was picked for the top 100 Successful European Female Founders by Forbes.  

Orit’s panel will speak on fostering community development for young women across the retail sector and provide insight into how to inspire more women to join the tech revolution.

As the world focuses on the war against COVID, Israeli innovation has been key to the battle, while also continuing efforts promoting technological advancement, furthering our transition to a digital and technology-assisted future. Following this latest Israeli focused female founder recognition, Israel's ecosystem will continue to promote the necessary diversity that leads to further achievements such as these, showing that Israel’s tech ecosystem proudly produces great minds, regardless of their gender.