Women’s network Everywoman announces the winners of its 2017 Everywoman in technology awards, sponsored by FDM.
Everywoman has announced the winners of the 2017 FDM Everywoman in Technology awards, which showcases the great women working in the technology industry.
Sponsored by FDM, Everywoman runs the awards every year to celebrate the achievements of women in the science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) industries.
Everywoman co-founder Maxine Benson claimed the awards help to remind the country and the tech industry that women play a “vital role” in the growth and success of both the UK and its tech sector.
“With research telling us that gender-balanced teams provide better outcomes, there has never been a better time to applaud women’s success and demonstrate their impact, thereby encouraging younger generations to embrace the opportunities offered by a Stem career,” s he said.
Many claim a lack of role models in the industry is the reason girls do not choose Stem careers, as they are unaware of the jobs available in the industry and cannot see anyone like themselves in these roles to encourage them to work towards these careers.
Everywoman uses its women in technology awards to make great women in the technology industry more visible and accessible as role models for others looking to join the industry.
Sheila Flavell, chief operating officer from event sponsor FDM Group , said it was increasingly important that role models showcased in the awards are seen by younger women.
“This year’s FDM Everywoman in Technology Awards showcase the outstanding women who work in technology today,” she said. “They are role models for all of us, demonstrating that IT is a great career option for young women today. It’s particularly important that we get this message across to young women to create a gender-balanced workforce and build the pipeline for future talent.”
Research has found that 74% of young girls are interested in Stem subjects at school, but just 18% choose these subjects in higher education.
With the skills gap in the UK meaning there is not enough technology talent to fill vacant roles, Julian David, CEO of TechUK, which supported the event, claimed the industry cannot afford to miss the opportunity to attract so many more young people into the industry.
“The digital skills gap is one of the most urgent policy challenges facing the UK – without enough talented workers, the UK will fall short of its potential in supercharging its already successful digital industry,” he said. “In particular, we need to encourage women to enter and thrive in the tech industry at all levels. That way, we become more robust, more competitive and more innovative. Through targeted action, techUK is committed to facilitate the attraction and retention of talent from as broad a demographic as possible to increase diversity in the tech sector.”

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Ordinary citizens with no connection to terrorism are caught up in surveillance by the US, but have little right to redress, Dublin’s Commercial Court heard on Friday 10th February. US attorney, Ashley Gorski, who specialises in US surveillance for the American Civil Liberties Union …
Ordinary citizens with no connection to terrorism are caught up in surveillance by the US, but have little right to redress, Dublin’s Commercial Court heard on Friday 10 th February.
US attorney, Ashley Gorski, who specialises in US surveillance for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told the court that US surveillance law allows “extraordinary access” to the private data of non-US citizens.
Gorski was speaking on the 4 th day of a three week hearing into the legality of data transfers between the EU and the US brought by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner, following an original complaint by Austrian lawyer, Max Schrems against Facebook.
The case, which will test the legality of legal agreements – known as Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) – which allow data transfers between the EU and the US, has potentially huge implications for US-EU privacy rights.
Gorski, told the court that the American government claims “broad authority” to acquire communications and data of non-US people located abroad.
The vast majority of those subject to US surveillance have “no viable avenue” to get “meaningful “ redress for violation of their rights resulting from such surveillance, she said.
The US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act 1978 (FISA) and presidential Executive Order 12333, allows the US government “extraordinary access” to the private communications and data of US and non-US persons around the world, Gorski said.
The case stems from a complaint by in June 2013 by Schrems to the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC), following the Snowden disclosures on US warrantless surveillance programmes including Prism .
Shcrems alleged that Facebook Ireland’s transfer of his personal data to the US was unlawful.
Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner, Helen Dixon , has formed a “provisional” view that there are “deficiencies” over the rights of EU citizens to access remedies under US law for any breach of their data protection rights.
The court has been asked to decide whether to make a referral to the European Court of Justice (CJEU) to decide whether SCCs are legally valid and provide adequate protection for the rights of EU citizens.
The huge potential implications of the case for EU-US trade and privacy rights are underlined by the US government’s involvement in litigation in the Irish courts.
It will argue “significantly enhanced” protections have been put in place in recent years to ensure privacy rights of EU citizens are not at risk from transatlantic data flows.
The US government claims that any finding by the Irish or European courts that the safeguards are inadequate could have “sweeping” commercial ramifications for data flows and risk undermining international co-operation to confront “common threats.”
The Irish High Court ruled in favour Schrems in June 2014, in a judgement which included a determination that the US was engaged in “mass and indiscriminate surveillance.”
The case caused shockwaves when the European Court of Justice ruled that the legal agreement used to govern data transfers between the EU and the US, Safe Harbour, was invalid in October 2015.
Facebook Ireland switched from the Safe Harbour to Standard Contractual Clauses following the ruling, prompting Schrems to file a revised complaint over the legality of SCCs.
The Irish Data Protection Commissioner, brought the current case after both the Irish High Court and the European Court of Justice, ordered her investigate Schrems‘ complaint.
She decided she could not complete her investigation without a ruling from the CJEU on the validity of three European Commission decisions of 2001, 2004 and 2010 approving the SCCs.
The case continues.

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5G is likely to be a hot topic at this year’s Mobile World Congress, which kicks off at the end of February, but operators should be paying more attention to getting more out of their 4G networks.
Ahead of Mobile World Congress (MWC), which begins in Barcelona on 27 February 2017, attention is turning to 5G networking , but according to analysts at CCS Insight, enhancements to 4G mobile networks still hold a lot of promise.
The first 5G networks are expected to be deployed in 2020, and widespread testing is likely to take place in Russia, South Korea and even the UK as early as next year.
At a pre-MWC event in London, CCS’s Ben Wood said most mobile network operators (MNOs) would struggle to find a solid business case to support 5G deployment before 2020, and suggested that gigabit long-term evolution (LTE) was arguably the headline story when it came to mobile network development.
In the UK, mobile market leader EE has well-advanced plans to test gigabit LTE on its LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) network, which went live in 2014 .
EE’s LTE-A network uses carrier aggregation technology – a bonded mix of high and low frequency spectrum – to increase 4G download speeds to up to 150Mbps in ideal conditions, with a theoretical maximum of 300Mbps – more than double regular 4G speeds. Gigabit LTE is likely to more than treble this maximum speed.
At the end of January 2017, mobile chipset specialist Qualcomm Technologies, alongside network suppliers Ericsson and Netgear and Australian MNO Telstra, showed off the potential of gigabit LTE services at a demonstration event in Sydney .
At the event, a Netgear Nighthawk M1 mobile router incorporating Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X16 LTE modem and 802.11ac Wi-Fi achieved download speeds of 930Mbps and upload speeds of 127Mbps on Telstra’s live 4G network.
According to Qualcomm, smartphones incorporating X16 gigabit LTE-capable modems are expected to come to market later this year.
“Gigabit LTE is incredibly disruptive,” said Wood. “I recently used the first commercial deployment of this technology on Telstra’s network in Australia, so I’ve had first-hand experience of what a dramatic change it offers consumers.
“Network operators see gigabit LTE as an opportunity to extend the return on their investments in 4G networks, and this is going to be one of the hottest tech topics in 2017 as leading operators around the world upgrade their networks.”

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