Congratulations to Claire and Nicola for making the DevelopHer Awards shortlist. The awards acknowledge the efforts of women across all areas of technology.
Unsung Hero Award
Claire is shortlisted in the category of Unsung Hero for the work she has been doing to improve our agency culture. Claire is deeply invested in creating an environment where team members can thrive.
Claire trained as a Mental Health First Aider for the agency about 3 years ago, and really used her skills to support staff during the stress of the pandemic. She continually raises awareness of the importance of mental wellbeing.
Recently, Claire took on the mantle of feedback champion and set about creating a culture of feedback in the agency. Claire wanted honesty and empathy to flourish. She wanted the team to acknowledge when they were struggling and for them to receive appropriate support.
Claire has given the team confidence, given us stability in very unstable times and given us the motivation to do our best work for the agency.
Tech Star Award
Nicola has been shortlisted for Tech Star. Nicki came from self-taught beginnings to rebuilding the website for W3C. As part of this work, Nicki developed an accessible front-end starter kit. She had to explain to people like Bert Bos (the co-creator of CCS) why W3C should consider using our own front-end starter kit, rather than an established framework like Bootstrap.
The W3C project also involved working in the open, where Nicki’s code was scrutinised by a wide range of people; from those who consider themselves specialists to junior developers just starting out.
Nicki has become something of an expert in accessible web standards and this all started from her self-taught beginnings. If Nicki’s story encourages other women to take up front-end development then it will be a result she’ll be very proud of.
The winners will be announced at a ceremony on 24th November at the Epic TV studios in Norwich. Good luck Claire and Nicki!