Kate Samuelson | CHEAPSKATE London
Kate is a freelance journalist and the in-house copywriter and editor for ActionAid, the international women's rights charity.
Previously, she worked as a reporter for TIME magazine, based in the London bureau. There, Kate covered culture, current affairs, health and technology, which meant she wrote anything from detailed explainers on the Yemen crisis to 3,000-word think pieces about Craig David's comeback (her magnum opus).
In May 2019, Kate founded CHEAPSKATE London, a free weekly newsletter listing the city's best free events, including film, plays, comedy, music, exercise classes, talks, workshops and more. CHEAPSKATE has been featured in the Evening Standard twice and Kate has worked on competitions and give-aways with high-profile brands including National Geographic Traveller, the London Podcast Festival, the New Scientist, the Underbelly Festival, the Vagina Museum and the Donmar Warehouse, among others.
A diverse range of free events are featured in the newsletter; recent editions have included everything from pedal-powered film screenings on the South Bank to meetings at the HUMEN Space, an anonymous safe space in Covent Garden for men to talk and connect. Kate prioritises smaller, less-mainstream events in the newsletter, with an emphasis on community values and social change, as well as fun.
Over the past 10 months, Kate has grown CHEAPSKATE on her own and in her spare time. The newsletter now has thousands of subscribers, with many finding it an invaluable resource that enables them to get the most out of London while living on a shoestring. "Thank you for this eclectic, welcoming newsletter; a great way to explore the wonders of London and still have enough pocket money to buy an appreciation coffee for the CHEAPSKATE team," wrote one subscriber.
That London is staggeringly expensive is no secret. How to enjoy it should be no secret either. CHEAPSKATE helps everyone get the best out of what is such an incredible city – no matter what their income is.
Maya Welford | Barclays
After graduating from King’s College London in 2018 with a First Class BSc Psychology degree, where she received the Desmond Tutu Award for her commitment towards serving society, Maya joined Barclays on their Human Resources Graduate programme.
Maya has made a positive impact both through her day role at Barclays as well as through extra-curricular endeavours. Within her first 6 months at Barclays, Maya received a Barclays Values Recognition Award in recognition of her commitment to the Barclays values. Beyond her day role and as part of her engagement with Win, Barclays’ Gender Network, Maya founded and launched the Charity Mentoring Programme, which connects Win members with staff at charities aligned to driving gender equality. In addition, Maya is committed to the cause of social mobility and mentors young people from less privileged backgrounds to raise their aspirations. Alongside employment and given her hunger for continuous self-development, Maya is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability at Birkbeck, University of London.
Oishi Deb | Rolls Royce
Oishi is working at Rolls-Royce (RR) in the Control System department. Oishi’s current role is in Software Verification where she works in Hardware Software Integration (HSI) Test. Oishi previously completed a placement at Rolls-Royce working in software design for safety-critical software for aircraft’s engine control system.
Furthermore, she has been highly involved in promoting Engineering to the younger generation and dedicates a lot of her personal time towards STEM-volunteering. Oishi is a member of the Rolls-Royce STEM group and has volunteered and organised several activities to promote engineering. Oishi’s volunteering activities includes mentoring, judging UK Space Design regional competition, speaking at schools, volunteering at Maker’s-Fair & Big-Bang fair among others. She has received recognition twice from Rolls-Royce for STEM volunteering work.
Oishi graduated with BEng Software and Electronics Engineering with Industry degree from the University of Leicester. Oishi received the President and Vice Chancellor Student of the Year Award 2017. Oishi was shortlisted for the UK Telegraph STEM award 2017 in the power system category sponsored by Rolls-Royce. Oishi received the Achievement Award – Undergraduate Grant 2016 from the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and also the recipient of the UK Naval Engineering Science and Technology scholarship award 2016.
Prior to joining Rolls-Royce, Oishi was the chair of the ‘Women in Computer Science Leicester (WCSL)’ group at the University of Leicester from 2016-17. As the university is championing the UN’s goal of gender diversity through the HeforShe campaign, Oishi’s work as the chair contributed to the university’s objective of gender diversity. Apart from being the chair, she was also selected as a member of the Athena Swan Committee for the Informatics Department. For all the contributions Oishi had made, she was a finalist for the Frank May volunteer of the year award 2017.
Nicky Zachariou | Government Digital Service
Nicky Zachariou is a mathematician by training and a data scientist by practice. She has an MSci in Mathematics, a PhD in Physics from Imperial College London and her research focussed on a complexity and networks science approach to the sustainability of socio-economic systems. As a recovering network scientist, she sees connections everywhere and believes that this knowledge can be applied to everyday interactions across government and everyday life. She believes that networks science can help you be more successful in your career and personal life as she she explains in her recent TEDxWhitehallWomen talk.
As the co-founder of DataBeers London, she loves bringing data enthusiasts together from industry, government, academia and the arts to share stories. She helps break down the barriers between previously siloed industries through fun, beer and storytelling, with data as a universal language.
Nicky has been working in Government since 2014 and is determined to help government get better at understanding patterns in data and being more innovative at using cutting edge technologies. Her superpower is explaining complex technical topics to non-specialists to show the value of data science and its application to real world problems. She’s currently leading the data science work on GOV.UK and using artificial intelligence, deep learning and network science to make GOV.UK better for its users.
Desy Kristianti | Deloitte
Desy Kristianti is an Analyst in Technology Consulting at Deloitte. Having worked there for 1.5 years, her work thus far has been technically focused in areas such as DevOps, Enterprise Integrations and Web Development. She has delivered multiple digital transformation programmes for private sector clients, implementing technical solutions and utilising new technologies.
Previously, Desy interned at a startup as a front-end developer, owning 1 of the 3 key offerings of the web app. She also assisted the Founder in brainstorming, refining and prioritising requirements, designing the solution while applying Gamification concepts. Her love for programming as well as designing a product led her to her career in tech consulting.
Moreover, Desy believes in making an impact in the community and inspiring others. She is a City Leader at Women Who Code Belfast, and a Co-Founder and VP Events at Women of Indonesia (WIN) Career Network. Gender diversity is her passion and she enjoys organising various events from coding tutorials to talks and panel discussions.
Seren Davies | Elsevier
Seren is a Software Engineer who is passionate about making the web accessible to people with all sorts of abilities, as a Dyslexic herself she understands how frustrating it can be to use.
She recently graduated with a BSc in Software Engineering from Oxford Brookes and is a member of the team working on Elsevier’s ecommerce site.
At the age of 20, Seren gave her first conference talk. ‘Death to Icon Fonts’ explored the problems that a popular web development technique caused for people who have dyslexia and led to several large internet sites changing their approach to a more dyslexic friendly one. She has since given other talks highlighting techniques websites use that are unfriendly to people with accessibility needs and offering advice on how to improve them.
Seren has written for a few projects such as an article on icon fonts for Net Magazine and automated accessibility testing for 24 Ways.
Xiao-Si Selina Wang | BT
Selina is a promising technologist and research scientist with a track record of delivering innovative technologies and research findings with high impacts and addressing real world problems. She is very self-motivated and thrives when facing challenges.
Before joining BT, Selina worked for 10 years as a Data Scientist & Mathematician in world-top academic research institutions including University of Oxford and LSHTM on national and global scale projects, as well as in the software development industry. She has a list of high-impact scientific publications in population health with more than 1400 citations worldwide and she has a winning machine learning model in one of ITU’s standardisation competitions, outperforming several global tech companies and resulting in a patent filed in both US and Europe.
After joining BT’s cyber security research practice in December 2016, she quickly discovered and established new research directions in tackling malware epidemics. She now leads the Malware Analytics & Propagation Research within BT’s Research & Innovation Headquarter and is gradually establishing herself as the thought leader in this area internally and externally. She has established several projects including applying AI & machine learning technologies and transferring population health knowledge to prevent malware attacks.
Within only a year at BT, Selina has discovered new and in-depth malware threat knowledge and subsequently proposed transformation solutions or guidance to improve BT’s anti-malware operation, for which she received BT R&I’s End of Year Recognition. She also proves to be a great inventor. It only took her five months from identifying a malware research theme to submitting her first malware invention to the patent attorney. Currently she has three patents being filed and more inventions in the pipeline. Last but not least, she works with large organisations from different EU countries on a European Commission funded project on cyber information sharing and she leads the engagement of BT business lines on that project.
Selina has a Bachelor’s degree in Automation and Control Engineering, and MSc and PhD in applied mathematics and statistics.
Abigail Carpenter | CAA
I have always had a passion for sports: I rowed and played football at school and for Oxford University, and I was brought up in a football supporting family, which is where my love of sport came from.
I became interested in sports law as a career when I started reading about super-injunctions. I realised at that point that the worlds of sports and law are intertwined at many levels and I could forge a career in two areas I was interested in. I successfully applied for work experience at a media law firm that did some sports work and then joined top sports law firm Harbottle & Lewis to train as a lawyer.
Shortly after qualification, in the summer of 2015 I joined the multi-award-winning BT media legal team, at an exciting time just before BT began broadcasting the UEFA Champions League and had the EE acquisition on the horizon. I spent two and half years as a Commercial Lawyer working in a small team which managed all the legal aspects of BT Sport, reporting directly to the Head of Legal.
Towards the end of my time at BT I became aware of CAA’s increasing presence in the European sports market, as their relationships with Formula 1, Manchester City and sports stars like Dele Alli gained increasing publicity.
I joined CAA in January 2018, as the sole sports lawyer in London, supporting the London and Munich offices, across areas including sponsorship and consulting. I report to the Global Head of Legal for CAA Sports, in New York.
I was recently honoured to be named a Sport Industry NextGen Leader for 2018.
Alongside my career I have coached rowing at a school in London and I volunteer on my university college’s boat club committee, supporting with sponsorship and purchasing of equipment to ensure future generations can have access to the sport without worrying about the cost. I am also very active in fundraising for Diabetes UK and run half marathons and marathons to fundraise in memory of my father, who passed away from diabetes nine years ago.
Stacey Copeland | Boxer
I have represented England in two sports, football and boxing. As a youngster I loved both sports but boxing was banned for females back then so I never had the chance to compete, and so I went into football. After a successful football career where I played for England, played in an FA cup final, and played abroad in America and Sweden, I decided to finally pursue my dreams in boxing (it was by then legal for women.) As an amateur boxer I won a European silver medal, multi nations gold, and three national titles. I have now turned pro and I am Manchester’s only female professional boxer and one of only 16 in the UK with a 4-0 undefeated record.
Misba Khan | Women's Euro Arabian North Pole Expedition
My finance post in the hospital has enabled me to priorities & manage tasks, of which i have taken in my personal life too.
I am first and foremost a mum of two I have always encouraged my children to outdoors, this gave me great satisfaction, I slowly started transferring the skills from what my children were learning in outdoors to myself.
I am a keen walker which has given me skills in confidence and I starting pushing myself both physically and mentally, Manchester has great access to the Lake district and the Peak district. I am part of The women euro arabian northpole expedition
The team involves 12 women from across Europe and the Arabian Peninsula; and I have the honour of representing our country. The team members are not elite athletes but ordinary women, - representing a diverse variety of occupations and backgrounds from journalist, scientist outdoor professionals, teachers, businesswomen and mothers - selection from over 1000 applicants.
The core purpose of the expedition is to foster greater dialogue and understanding between women from the Western and Arabian cultures, in addition, the expedition will work to inspire women to reach beyond the expectations, To demonstrate the potential of greater intercultural understanding and to raise awareness of women in the North Pole who will find exceptional courage and teamwork to overcome the extreme conditions.