Louisa Denly

product manager, degree apprentice graduate, open source advocate, bookworm, flautist, heavy-metal fan | views are my own

Category: Uncategorized

  • TechWomen100 & South Coast Tech and Innovation Awards

    TechWomen100 & South Coast Tech and Innovation Awards

    What a brilliant few days. I have been fortunate enough to be shortlisted for the South Coast Tech and Innovation Awards for the Rising Star of the Year category and I have won the TechWomen100 individual award.

    The South Coast awards were held in the Leonardo Royal in Southampton on Thursday 15th October, and I turned up for the drinks reception at about 6.15pm before the awards started at 7pm. I didn’t know anybody but Lauren, the lady that runs Women in Tech Hampshire, so Lauren introduced me to a few people and off I went. My table included LABL.IT, Lloyds Bank, and EntustIT which was interesting, totally different types of companies that I would usually deal with. Jason Bradbury announced the awards and had a brilliant skit that involved re-creating a rollercoaster that mimics Moores Law on Minecraft and then giving us a potted history of computing in the time it took him to build it. Absolutely hilarious and incredibly niche which I enjoyed.

    Unfortunately, I didn’t win the category, but I did have a great evening – the company was brilliant, the food was great, and the laughs I got around my table were well worth the travel. I’m proud to have gotten to the shortlist nonetheless.

    On Friday 16th October, I went to the TechWomen100 awards in Mansion House in London. I went with Emma Dawson, also an IBMer, and it was great to spend time with her. We turned up at 12pm and the reception had a large queue around the corner of the building. The drinks reception was great – a choir sung in the background, the Apps for Good charity were taking raffle tickets, and we were able to get some photos earlier before the ceremony. It was highly packed and busy though, with the beautiful chandeliers of the house.

    The awards ceremony was in one of the main halls, with over 300 people in the audience. We had Julia Streets as the M.C., and then Vanessa Vallely as the founder of WeAreTechWomen which have organised the awards. We then had a few speeches before calling up the groups of women which was great to see. We had people giving the awards from all sorts of companies – PWC, KPMG, HSBC, Lloyds Bank, Accenture. It was great!

    I feel totally overwhelmed with how excellent the entire experience was, to see all the inspirational women there and because you had no idea why they were there, it was great to see the Champion of the Year and the Editors Choice of the Year too which were more individual awards. There was just a lot of warmth and celebration coming from the end of Women in Tech week and a lot of discussion about how we’re not moving quickly enough on bringing diverse talent into IT. We have more work to do.

    What a brilliant couple of days. I’m incredibly fortunate that it feels like a brilliant end to this chapter. I’m excited about what lies ahead! Onwards and upwards.

  • Skills for Life Campaign Advert

    It all started in July 2023, when I sent off a video of myself speaking for 30 seconds and some information about my apprenticeship, company, and background. In September, I was contacted by the casting agency working on behalf of the Department for Education to be part of a filming shoot in mid-October. I was understandably really excited, what could this mean – they gave me an idea that it could be billboards, adverts, posters, and banners, but I didn’t know which part of that I’d be involved in.

    They sent me all the information running up to the event where I’d be off to shoot for a TV advert in Manchester in mid-October 2023. I took the 5 hour train up to Manchester one Wednesday afternoon, and stayed in a hotel overnight anxiously awaiting the call sheet they would send me later. The taxi call was 6am, and I went down to find 3 other apprentices and an actress waiting for the same mini-bus, and we were off to the set outside Manchester. We arrived at some trucks stationed outside in the car park of an old school being used as the set and got some breakfast from the truck outside. The truck had been converted into a canteen area, I had never seen that before, felt like I was on the set of something really exciting. I got taken to wardrobe to show them which clothes I was wearing and had to get changed into some new clothing as I was told the director didn’t agree with skinny jeans. The shoot was fascinating – so completely different to my life at IBM – watching the camera, lighting, and staging crew asking extras to walk up and down stairs multiple times took ages but was really interesting to see how this was all put together. I was featured in the classroom scene, along with Harrison and Bolu, and I was seated next to the main actress, and my job was to greet her as she sat down.

    I felt really excited coming out of the shoot, not knowing how it was going to be edited together and whether I was going to be part of the edit. As part of this, I was then asked lots of information from the PR company about my experience as an apprentice and my story. They absolutely loved that I had completed two apprenticeships at various stages of my career and it really gave me a boost to be recognised for the achievements that I’d made. Consequently, they’ve featured me in multiple places: CareerMag, the local radio lunchtime news, and 4 international news outlets.