International Women's Day is celebrated across the world as a day when women are recognized for their achievements without regard to divisions, whether national, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic or political. This day also marks a call to action for accelerating women's equality. Version 1 is always keen on celebrating women's success and at the same time support and encourages female professionals and female students to achieve a successful career in the IT industry.
Join us for an online panel event (Care, Share and Inspire) on 8th March 2021 from 12 pm – 1 pm to listen to the stories of inspirational women in the IT industry who have gone through different challenging stages and experiences and we hope to have an incredible and informative take away from the event.
About our speakers:
Shauna Quinn - Software Test Manager at Almac Group
Shauna has over 20 years’ experience in the IT industry. She has worked in so many roles such as a developer, programmer, business analyst before making a major decision to change her career path to be closer to her family. She joined Almac as a junior software test analyst and has moved up so many roles to become one of the Software test managers in Almac. She has played a great role in revolutionising the Almac test practise through breaking barriers and achieving business outcomes thought nearly impossible in the IT industry.
Shauna has also presented a few webinars sharing her immense knowledge in automation and test practises to improve application quality which is one of her passions. She is part of the Customer advisory board for ALM/OCTANE. Shauna’s life is a roller coaster ride where she has taken challenging career shifts putting her family as the priority and then has risen like a phoenix and has today reached her current position.
Geraldine Devine - Head of IT (DAERA) at Northern Ireland Civil Service
Geraldine started her IT career in the Northern Ireland Civil Service 19 years ago as a Programmer. During this time Geraldine has worked across 3 Government Departments in various technical areas and roles within software development. Her technical expertise, strong interpersonal skills, passionate and engaged leadership style has aided her progression to her current role as Head of IT for the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA).
Geraldine is a staff engagement champion in her department spending hours each month engaging with her staff, holding virtual sessions that enable her teams to bring forward ideas, give feedback and drop in for a chat with her. She has demonstrated unmatchable determination and confidence in leading DAERA to continue its successful digital transformation programme in the middle of a pandemic. In her role Geraldine leads 14 agile software development teams and a number of supporting functions. This includes large scale, mission critical programmes including the EU Area Based Schemes Common Agricultural Policy Payment Programme, enabling DAERA to become one of the lead paying agencies within the EU. 2020 has been the most successful year to date for DAERA in meeting ambitious ministerial targets and timescales resulting in 99% of farmers in Northern Ireland having received their full payments ahead of time.
Geraldine is also a mother to three young kids under the age of 8 continually balancing her role as a mother with her career. And during the pandemic embarked on a Couch to 5K programme to maintain her health and wellbeing during the pandemic.
Maria Diffley - Co-founder at SustainIQ
Having worked in the sustainability space for well over a decade both Maria and her business partner recognised the need for a solution which helped companies to navigate the complexities involved in the monitoring, measuring and reporting sustainability and CSR investments. They created an agile, integrated, real time reporting tool which calculates a company’s impacts on the Economy, the Environment and the Local Community. This data allows organisations to utilise this business intelligence that previously was not being considered in the strategic decision-making process. Prior to the establishment of SustainIQ, Maria offered consultancy to the private, public, and voluntary sectors. She also holds an Msc in Sustainability and CSR.
She is passionate about harnessing the power of business to positively impact the world and has advocated for long term partnerships between business and community development organisations since her teens. She has helped with the capacity building of many charitable and social enterprise organisations both locally in Northern Ireland and in the Developing World.
Lorna McAdoo-Director of Operations & Business Development NI
Lorna is heading Version 1 NI and she joined the organization in 2013 growing the team to 100+ people, providing services to over 20 local and international customers. She has over 20 years’ experience in Programme & Delivery Management in senior client facing roles on large complex system integration, business transformation and software development projects throughout UK & Ireland.
Lorna has been winning and being shortlisted for many awards across different recognition bodies in Northern Ireland including DTS Women in Tech - IT Business Leader 2019 .She has been recognized by ‘The Software Report on their ‘ The Top 25 Women Leaders in Software of Europe for 2021’ list.
As part of this initiative, we will be organizing a kid’s coding challenge in association with Bradbury hub. The winners of this challenge will be announced during the event.
Join us using the zoom details below:
https://zoom.us/j/92433963144?pwd=ckhaWU40RDJaM2xuVFROV3Y3YmRVdz09
Meeting ID: 924 3396 3144 Passcode: 663809
