How accelerators can help us solve the diversity challenge that the technology industry faces?
Watch the video
There will be a keynote speaker, and then a moderated panel discussion with 3-4 accelerators followed by Q&A.
Panelists
- Keerthi Lal Kala, tGELF (moderator)
- Nathan McNally, P4 Precision Medicine Accelerator
- Kim van Haalen, WeWork Growth Campus
- Margaret Sheyindemi, Wayra UK
- Cecil Adjalo, Director of Operations, Foundervine
Synopsis
Please join a discussion on how accelerators can help us solve the diversity challenge that the technology industry faces. How can programmes shape what culture exists in future unicorns beyond capital raising and PR? We will have thought leaders, and some of the world's largest incubators and accelerators on the panel. Learn about initiatives, programmes, and trends driving a more inclusive technology sector.
About the speakers
Keerthi Lal Kala, Vice President, New Technologies, SUN Group & Advisor, The Global Education & Leadership Foundation
Keerthi Lal Kala is a technocrat, strategic advisor, an entrepreneur and a hobbyist theatre performer. His 16yr professional career spans business and developmental engagements at the intersection of emerging technology, public policy and socioeconomic growth. Strategic investment, M&A, VCF diligence, innovation management, tech regulation, industrial promotion policy, public-private partnerships, especially R&D commercialization, G2G/G2G2B collaborations, and startup promotion are his strengths. His work spans a wide spectrum of industries ranging from AI to Ayurveda to Aerospace and in between. He currently serves as in-house advisor at SUN Group and has previously worked with the Office of Advisor to the Prime Minister (India), India Electronics & Semiconductor Association, Indian Institute of Technology – Madras, founded an innovation consulting firm, has helped setup the International Institute of Information Technology – Naya Raipur, and is an advisor to startups, industry advocacy bodies and philanthropic organizations. Keerthi dropped out of a PhD in Architectures for Intelligent Systems and is always open to exploring the unknown in pursuit of excellence. He holds a Master’s in Computer Science and a Bachelor’s in Mechatronics.
Kim van Haalen, Senior Manager, WeWork Labs UK & Ireland
Kim is the lead for WeWork's start-up activities in the UK, including WeWork Labs and WeWork Growth acceleration platforms. Before joining WeWork, she worked across technology start-ups in the AI and Proptech (B2B) space in the Netherlands, Singapore, and the UK, where she focussed on scaling revenue, operations and go-to-market strategy. She also founded an edtech startup within social impact accelerator Zinc VC in London, and holds a degree from UCL (MSc in Technology and Entrepreneurship). Additionally, Kim spent time at Salesforce in Dublin.
Nathan McNally, Founder / Programme Director, P4 Precision Medicine Accelerator
Nathan has worked and led multimillion-pound initiatives supporting tech entrepreneurs for the last 10 years. Nathan is now Programme Director at Capital Enterprise and Co-Founder of P4 Precision Medicine Accelerator, creating a more coherent, connected pathway for AI enabled precision medicine companies by bringing together the key stakeholders and decision makers that will improve precision medicine adoption and more importantly improve patients’ lives.
Margaret Sheyindemi, Investor Relations Manager, Wayra UK
At Wayra UK, Telefonica’s Venture Growth hub, Margaret drives commercial opportunities between scale-ups and Telefonica’s global ecosystem bringing in new product innovation, as well as managing Wayra's investor ecosystem. Margaret is also one of the founding team members of Future VC, a Diversity VC initiative to develop the first ever VC internship programme in the UK, she now sits on their Advisory Board and Future VC has now expanded across the globe with operations across Europe and in the US. Margaret is a mentor for Future Startup Now’s programme which helps diverse creative entrepreneurs aged 18 – 24 take their first steps to starting up their own business or social enterprise.
Cecil Adjalo, Director of Operations, Foundervine
Cecil is a Director at award-winning Social Enterprise Foundervine and is the head of Business Intelligence at the rapidly growing Danish Tech Scale-Up Dixa. He started his career troubleshooting problems with hospital database software and progressed over the years into management consulting, start-up creation, and business advisory.He has worked for Accenture, EY, and Slalom on both large digital transformation to small technology strategy projects across a range of industries including finance, consumer retail, media and more.Cecil has been recognised by Yahoo Finance and EMPower as a one of 100 top global ethnic minority executives and separately by the Financial times as 1 of the 100 topmost influential BAME Leaders in UK Tech.
Keynote Speaker: Rebecca George OBE, Managing Partner, Government and Public Services, NSE, Deloitte LLP and Past President - BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT
Rebecca led Deloitte’s Public Sector practice in Europe and the Middle East until March 2021, responsible for work including Health and Social Care, Education, Transport, Defence, National Security, Justice and Home Affairs, and Central and Local Government, and has worked exclusively with the Public Sector since 2001. She joined Deloitte as a Partner in 2006 after spending nearly 20 years at IBM.
She has extensive experience working with health organisations and health providers, specialising in transformation enabled by IT, including electronic patient record systems, population health infrastructure, and health data collection and processing.
Rebecca has been involved in activities to increase the participation of Women in the IT industry since the mid-1990s. She is President and a Trustee of the BCS, a Liveryman at the Worshipful Company of IT, and on the Board of the City Mental Health Alliance and is keenly interested in health and well-being at work and working with both the CMHA and the Institute on responses to Black Lives Matter. She is Non-Executive Chair of the T-Level Reform Programme Board for the Department of Education and a member of the Business Advisory Group for the Secretary of State for Education.
She was honoured with an OBE in 2006 for work she did for the Government on Sustainable Communities.
This event is brought to you by: BCS EMBRACE specialist group
