Nordic Women in Tech Awards event

Written by Stephanie Darvill, Moderator Women in Tech 2024.

Last week, on 13th November, 350 people gathered in Oslo, Norway for the annual Nordic Women in Tech Awards event. Each year, they change city and visit a different Nordic country to ensure all parts of the Nordic ecosystem is celebrated. This was the biggest event yet, just 5 years ago, it started with 5 people in a room wanting to create an event to celebrate the achievements of influential women in tech, and it’s very impressive to see how much it has grown!

The gala is the main event of the week where all the finalists for each of the awards, the national and international jury members, and many key players in the industry are in attendance. 

The Nordic Women in Tech Awards 2024 up for grabs were:

• Developer of the Year
• Digital Transformation Leader of the Year
• DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) Champion of the Year
• Entrepreneur of the Year
• Initiative of the Year
• Innovator of the Year
• Investor of the Year
• Social Impact Award
• Rising Star of the Year
• Women in Tech Ally
• The Liva Echwald Award
• Teen of the Year

Teen of the Year Award was a new award for this year, and personally our highlight of the evening. Along with the nominees, NWITA had invited over 50 teenagers to join the evening. It is wonderful to celebrate the role models within the tech industry right now, but it is also so important to raise up the next generation of Women in Tech, who are already making waves in the industry. 

There were also many side events, from relaxation at the spa, to sightseeing, to workshops about improving equity in the tech industry. 

The side events I attended were really interesting to be able to dive deeper into certain topics. On the Tuesday evening, I participated in a seminar about the future risks and opportunities of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) with Tonje Hessen Schei, a Norwegian Art Director who makes films mainly focused on international issues that question systems of power. One of the films she directed and produced, iHUMAN, is about artificial intelligence, power and social control.

On Wednesday during the day, I attended the HER fund event on “building a bridge between female founders and investors”. HER fund is an EU-funded initiative to aimed at building a community of gender-conscious investors to support female-led startups and create a more inclusive and gender-equal ecosystem across Europe. 

At the awards themselves, they had a finalist from each of the five Nordic countries (Iceland, Finland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden). We were obviously proud of the Swedish representation as that is where Women in Tech Sweden started, but we are so proud of everyone in the Nordic region because this really is a problem we need to solve together. As our community has now grown to over 25,000, we are so happy to see some remarkable members across all the Nordic countries and beyond.

During the gala, I was able to spend time with some very well-known faces in the Women in Tech Sweden community. To name a few: Degmo Daar – keynote speaker from 2024 – who was a finalist for DEI champion of the year. 

Annsi Krol – who has worked closely with the WIT team for many years, and is the CEO of Ventla – the event app we’ve used at our annual event. 

Nora Bavey – General Partner at Unconventional Ventures who won Investors of the Year 🥳 Nora spoke at our 2021 event.

It is amazing how many powerful connections have been made through the WIT Sweden platform. I personally met all of these incredible ladies through the WIT Sweden annual event, and am so happy to see them continue to contribute to the tech ecosystem and be role models for many of us. 

Thank you to Plamena Cherneva and the Nordic Women in Tech Awards for throwing an event to remember and well done to all the winners! 

The Nordic Women in Tech Awards Winners 2024:

• Developer of the Year: Kristina Devochko, Platform Engineer at Tietoevry, Norway
• Digital Transformation Leader of the Year: Sigyn Jónsdóttir, CTO & Co-Founder at Alda, Iceland
• DEIB Champion of the Year: Priyanka Banerjee, Partner at deidei, Finland
• Entrepreneur of the Year: Clionadh Martin, Founder & CTO at CM-Robotics, Denmark
• Initiative of the Year: Girls in Tech Nordics, Sweden
• Innovator of the Year: Carbfix, Iceland
• Investor of the Year: Unconventional Ventures, Denmark
• Social Impact Award: Viivi Marttinen, Head of Community and Talent at Herizon, Finland
• Rising Star of the Year: Annika Lundström, CEO of ReMinded Oy, Finland
• Women in Tech Ally: Reetta Siltasalmi-Kautto, Agile Project Lead & Business Developer, Finland
• The Liva Echwald Award: Kamilla Sultanova, DEI Consultant, Award-winning Keynote Speaker, Event Host, Finland
• Teen of the Year: Ada Sinangin, Age 16, Denmark