Runako Celina | Investigative journalist
Runako Celina is a multilingual producer and investigative journalist based in Bristol.
Her debut documentary, Racism for Sale, broke several records for BBC Africa Eye, becoming the most watched, saved and commented-on video of all time on the BBC Africa Instagram account. Her work has seen her short-listed and receiving a special mention at the 2022 BBC News Awards as a rising star.
She holds a Masters in Investigative Journalism from City University, and another in International Politics and African Studies from Peking University, China.
When she isn’t producing factual documentaries, she is an avid narrative filmmaker, visual storyteller and a hobbyist genealogist.
Antonia Fox | Head of Learning and Development | dmg media
Antonia joined dmg media in 2014. She worked within the recruitment team for 2 years leading the dmg media graduate programme and recruitment of early careers talent.
She realised that she enjoyed the people and career development and progression aspect of the role.
She joined the learning and development team in 2016 working her way up and is now the Head of Learning and Development.
In her role she supports dmg media with all people, talent, learning and development related activities including training, apprenticeships, work experience, wellbeing, culture, engagement, performance and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.
Frida Nzaba | Rolls-Royce Plc
If someone told me 10 years ago I would be working for Rolls Royce, I would have asked them, why would I want to work in a dirty garage fixing expensive cars?
In year 10 I realised I genuinely loved engineering. I enjoyed learning about the different machining processes such as turning and milling and the fact that I was able to apply some of these techniques to basically manufacture my coursework. I remember engineering was one of the subjects I always looked forward to because it was fun, practical and contained maths and physics that actually made sense to me.
In year 11, my engineering teacher advertised the amazing apprenticeships available, which were rarely encouraged in my school.
Initially, an apprenticeship was not an option for my family, it was in my parents’ interest that I follow the ‘traditional route’ to higher education. Eventually after months of research and convincing my family, I decided to undertake an apprenticeship with Rolls-Royce in 2013.
I completed my apprenticeship and secured my first job in Rolls-Royce Hucknall as the Trent 700 component owner and a computer aided process planner (CAPP) alongside studying for my Mechanical Engineering Degree; I graduated in 2017.
I currently work as a Repair and Overhaul Manufacturing Engineer in Rolls-Royce Plc. This role consists of developing and implementing methods that can be used to repair various components from a jet engine. The main thing I enjoy is the fact that I can go into work and see various jet engines being stripped and assembled ready to dispatch to the customer; this is just simply mind blowing. I am also a board member of the WISE Campaign Young Professionals Board.
In 2019, I founded a non-profit social enterprise with two other great engineers. The enterprise aims to bridge the gap between STEM education and industry globally. I have mentored a dozen of young people, advising them of the options available to them after they finish their GCSEs and promoting them towards carrying out an apprenticeship. I am an advocate for Diversity and Inclusion, this has led to me becoming an active member and STEM lead for the Rolls Royce African and Caribbean Pioneers Network which is an Employee Resource Group within the company. I am also a STEM ambassador for Rolls-Royce and Nottinghamshire.
Ekaterini Tasiopoulou | IBM
Katerina Tasiopoulou was born in Greece, and is a graduate of Computer Science from Royal Holloway University of London.
She has experience with the creation and research of cryptosystems, malware systems and penetration testing. She is a very qualified programmer in a variety of languages, having developed games, websites, apps and robots.
Katerina works in IBM, and is currently a Client Engagement Lead in Europe, for X-Force IRIS (Incident Response and Intelligence Services). As part of this team, IRIS responds to security incidents globally and helps organisations contain and recover from cyber attacks. Katerina is recently focusing on business development strategy and proactive services; converting this real life experience and intelligence into training exercises to help train clients in advance.
Katerina enjoys public speaking, mentoring others, and anything related to astrophysics!
Love Oyeniran | LRO Consults
Having studied a Social Science degree, my first role after leaving university was working with a workflow automation tool to drive process efficiencies.
I designed and developed the application, integrating to other systems such as Slack and Tableau, and I was able to write my first lines of code! In doing this I was able to increase my understanding of the use of different programming languages, applications and software.
From that role, I moved to another finance organisation where I took ownership of technology changes as part of a major system upgrade and a redesign of an in-house application.
Outside of my day job, I have been on many professional coding courses with Code First Girls where I was keen to learn as much as possible from GIT version control to connecting with APIs. This appetite to learn more proven invaluable and my most recent role as an RPA consultant, where I worked alongside a team who were among the first to put robots in an Investment Bank. I have worn many hats as part of an automation delivery, comprising of business and process analyst, risk and strategy and also detailing technical solution documents comprising of Sudo code, which has not only provided a steep learning opportunity but had made my job both exciting and enjoyable.
My most recent challenge includes developing an application hub that acts as a personalised virtual assistant. Having been recently awarded as a TechWoman, coupled with dealing with my father’s health complications, I was propelled to make an app that facilitates a proactive and mindful approach to ensuring good health and lifestyle.
Rebeka Marton | Deloitte
I started university in 2013 with a very exciting educational background, having attended school both in Hungary and the UK, alternating every few years.
It set me up with a desire to be constantly challenged and be exposed to new things, meet new people and make friends that would need to last over distance and time. I graduated with a Natural Sciences degree from Cambridge, where still I enjoyed the variety of knowledge that I could learn the most. It also left me with a burning curiosity to learn programming and become a developer - an area that at that time was still mysterious and out of reach; yet at the same time amazing and powerful, since it can enable so much good in today’s society at very little cost. I joined Deloitte Digital as an engineer - and from their first coding bootcamp to now I have had the chance to both learn an incredible amount, and become a valuable member of my project team at work - I have effectively become its beating heart. On the project, that I have watched grow almost since its inception, despite my relatively junior position, I have been able to lead various work streams, while also taking ownership for building and maintaining various core components of the platform.
The best part for me, however, is being able to pass on my understanding and my undying enthusiasm for solving problems with my colleagues, inspiring and encouraging particularly those that seem shy or hesitant. This passion for spreading my curiosity in programming, and the reason why I was drawn to this art in the first place, can be seen in my outside-of-project activities. I love hackathons, side projects to build awesome products that have amazing impact, whether that is about reaching out to society to raise awareness, inspire and drive solutions to large scale problems, or solving people's individual problems directly. I also really enjoy teaching, so have been involved with Coder Dojo events - which I can only recommend - and teaching Python to children on Saturdays whenever I can. Inspiring others to learn and be ambitious is probably the greatest privilege one can experience!
Martha Imprialou | QuantumBlack
After completing a diploma in Computer Engineering Diploma at the National Technical University of Athens, I moved to the UK where I completed a master’s degree in Computer Science and then a PhD in Statistics at the University of Oxford.
I went on to postdoctoral research role at Imperial College London, where my research involved analysis of DNA sequencing data to better understand the genetics of autoimmune diseases.
I joined QuantumBlack in 2016 as a Data Scientist, where I worked across projects that drove business decisions for clients by building advanced analytics and machine learning models. I leveraged my technical skills, initially developing machine learning models to optimise R&D procedures for pharmaceutical clients, before broadening my experience to work across the automotive, financial services and banking sectors.
I was promoted twice in less than two years and was appointed first as Senior Data Scientist and then Jr Principal Data Scientist, leading the technical development of projects and harnessing analytics to deliver strategic problem-solving for clients.
In April 2018 I was promoted again to Analytics Engagement Manager. This was a significant transition, as it involved taking on full end-to-end responsibility for leading and delivering client projects - rather than a purely technical position, I was now responsible for leading a team comprised of data scientists, engineers, designers and developers. Moreover, it saw me take on a hybrid leadership role, communicating between QuantumBlack’s project teams and our clients. This involved engaging with a range of different stakeholders across our client organisations, from operations to C-suite, discussing their commercial challenges while also communicating how our deeply technical analytics work could help them address these issues.
Despite only joining QuantumBlack three years ago, I have become one of the most rapidly promoted employees in the organisation’s history and was the first employee to transition from an analytics-focused technical role into this hybrid management position.
Claire Donoghue | 3M
Dr Claire Donoghue works the Corporate Research Lab at 3M, where she is researching disruptive technologies such as Artificial Intelligence(AI) and computer vision to invent and engineer new products.
Prior to this she completed her PhD in computer vision and machine learning at Imperial College London. Computer vision is a discipline in which engineers teach a computer to “see” and interpret images, giving computers capabilities analogous to human vision.
Her first major innovation was during her PhD, where she created world leading computer vision algorithms to automatically diagnose arthritis of the knee from medical scans. For this academic work, Claire received 9 prizes for excellence in research and communication, a fellowship from the Software Sustainability Institute and was awarded two research grants to continue developing these algorithms for commercialisation. The most prestigious competition was SET for Britain (now STEM for Britain) and targeted the public communication of science, held at the Houses of Parliament, attended by MPs and awarded by the RAEng.
Claire co-founded and directed the London Chapter of the Geekettes. The London Geekettes goal is to champion and promote excellent women in technology, highlighting the achievements of inspirational female leaders. She conceived and hosted events, attended by 100-300 people, usually ‘sold’ out, collaborating with contacts in industry (Facebook, Google, Winton Capital and more) to fund the events and secure event space. One of the most memorable events was a hackathon for girls aged between 6 and 16, where they transformed creative ideas in to reality using Scratch and Python. Claire also supports collaborators’ STEM events by presenting her engineering work at Science Festivals and evening events.
Claire actively participates in technical communities outside of 3M. She regularly attends technical conferences, has been a keen participant in several hackathons and co-MC’ed London’s TechCrunch Disrupt Hack 2016 and Berlin TechCrunch Hack 2017, both attended by hundreds of software engineers.
Mariapia Angelino | WSP
Mariapia Angelino is a civil and forensic engineer who has built an international reputation as an expert in standards for the construction industry.
She leads strategic consultancy works in the UK related to standards and policy development activities, and has been a key advisor to government departments and public clients including Highways England, National Grid and HS2.
She has shaped the future of international design standards. Heavily involved with the activities of CEN/TC 250 (the European committee responsible for the Eurocodes, structural and geotechnical design standards used worldwide), Mariapia helped build international consensus and unanimous agreement on the strategy to enhance the usability of the second generation of the Eurocodes. She is currently implementing the strategy as the sole appointed Technical Reviewer in Europe, and is enhancing the quality of documents used by over 500,000 engineers in Europe alone, with expecting savings of hundreds of millions of euros in the European construction market.
Mariapia holds two engineering degrees and an EngD. Over the last six years, she has combined her award-winning doctorate research with work on WSP projects. She led strategic consultancy work for Highways England that redeveloped over 350 standards applicable to the design, maintenance and operation of the UK strategic road network. With an expected saving of over £50m per year, this project will have a huge positive impact on everyone engaged in the design, maintenance and operation of motorways and trunk roads across UK for decades.
In 2018 alone, Mariapia passed the viva for the doctorate, attained her Chartership status through the Institute of Civil Engineers (ICE), was shortlisted as one of the potential candidates for the Karen Burt Award by the ICE, was shortlisted Best Consultant at the European Women in Construction and Engineering Awards, and got a promotion to the role of Principal Engineer in WSP.
She invests significant time and energy in standards and policy development activities in the UK and globally, promoting her research through papers and at conferences. She is passionate about motivating and guiding students as a teaching assistant in Structural Engineering at the University of Bristol. She mentors colleagues and client staff through career transitions and progressions, and helps them build confidence in their skills and capabilities. Her next achievement will be to become mum in May, and she is really looking forward to it.
Lorna Bennet | Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult
Lorna Bennet is a Mechanical Engineer for the Operational Performance team at the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult, the UK’s leading technology, innovation and research centre for offshore renewable energy.
She works with academics, researchers, SMEs, technology developers, manufacturers and operators to drive improvements in the operation and maintenance of offshore renewable energy assets through developing new technologies, procedures and advancing research. Working in collaboration to reduce the cost of offshore renewable energy, transforming industry and delivering UK economic benefit.
Since graduating with an honour’s degree in Product Design Engineering from the University of Glasgow in 2011, Lorna has had a varied career showing the diversity and transferable skills engineering offers. Starting in the drafting office of a structural engineering company, before being offered her first job as a Mechanical Design Engineer designing offshore lifting and handling systems. This was an intense role but provided a unique opportunity to travel the world. In 2013 she accepted a position with Pelamis Wave Power working at the cutting edge of wave power development. Moving to the aerospace industry in 2015 as a Development Engineer working to improve aeroplane engines, before finding her way back to the renewable energy industry with the ORE Catapult in June 2016.
In 2018 Lorna was given responsibility for the engineering intern recruitment in the Glasgow office and was able to almost double the number of interns by working with various charities and organisations. She has driven the development of a company STEM policy and has coordinated engagement in Glasgowand Hull. She has promoted STEM activities and cultivated an engagement strategy in collaboration with schools, local and national charities and organisations. As an enthusiastic STEM ambassador for nearly 10 years, promoting engineering and science to children, parents and teachers through a variety of projects and events.
In March 2018 she was awarded a Royal Academy of Engineering Ingenious Award to set up a pilot STEM engagement strategy with local primary schools in Glasgow. She has since recruited 18 new STEM Ambassadors to run the programme and developed a series of renewable energy and sustainability-related lesson plans. This dedication to promoting STEM lead to Lorna receiving the prestigious Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Young Woman Engineer of the Year Women’s Engineering Society (WES) Prize in December 2018. This is a significant honour as she is the Ambassador for WES during their centenary in 2019, and will play a key role in the 100th anniversary celebrations.