Cybersecurity expert is this year's female role model of the digital economy

For the fourth time, the IVSZ – Digital Entrepreneurship Association and the Women in Technology Hungary Association (WiTH)announced their competition entitled Women role models in the digital economy for women professionals. The award was presented at the conclusion of the IVSZ SMART conference: The professional jury recognised the careers of Gabriella Biró, cybersecurity expert with the grand prize, and Alexandra Kulcsár and Gabriella Földesi-Badó, professionals with outstanding achievements in the digital economy with the two organizer special prizes.

With the award, IVSZ and WiTH aim to present and recognise female professionals working in the digital economy who have contributed their professional work to the development of technology and IT fields, where the presence of female workers remains low, and in addition, the proportion of female digital professionals who have recently entered the labour market remains below the EU average.

Cybersecurity expert is the main prize-winning role model

This year a total of 35 female professionals were nominated by companies, of whom the professional jury awarded this year's grand prize to Gabriella Biró, cybersecurity expert, which was presented on behalf of the jury at the IVSZ SMART conference by Gyöngyvér Papp-Gerlei, CEO of 2Connect.

During her nearly two decades of career, Gabriella Biró has become one of the leading experts and leaders of the Hungarian cybersecurity and financial information technology sector. Currently, as a freelance expert, lecturer and doctoral student of the National University of Public Service, she is also active in academia, his research areas concern the border areas of cybersecurity, digitalisation and financial stability.

This year's special award for digital role models

The WiTH special prize was awarded to Alexandra Kulcsár, founding managing director of NOREX ERP Consulting with 29 years of consulting experience and 150 successful projects. He specializes in ERP implementations and digital transformation, before his own business he worked for multinational and BIG4 companies. As the founder and board member of the Hungarian DigiLean Association, he works for the digitalization education and change of attitudes of Hungarian manufacturing companies, and as an honorary associate professor and mentor he has been supporting future professionals and female entrepreneurs for decades.

“With this year’s WiTH special award, we wanted to draw attention to women professionals who not only teach, motivate, but also shape the future. Technological trends, the changing needs of the labour market and new developments are monitored – and can then be matched to the individual abilities and abilities of students and workers. Alexandra Kulcsár is an award winner whose work is based on knowledge sharing and cooperation", said Emőke Flakstad, President of WiTH, on the award of the special prize.

Gabriella Földesi-Badó's career was recognized with the special award of the IVSZ Bridge between Technology, Business and Man, who first dealt with application support and IT auditing as an economic informatics expert, then at SimplePay she became a product owner from a business analyst and takes a key role in the development and operation of online payment systems serving hundreds of thousands of users. She pays special attention to transparent communication, the support of women's empowerment and the professional mentoring of junior colleagues.

Members of this year's jury of the Women's role models in the digital economy competition were:

• Magdolna Csömör, IVSZ Board Adviser, President of the Week, Deputy Regulatory Director of the 4iG Group
• Gyöngyvér Papp-Gerlei, CEO of 2Connect Telecommunications Infrastructure and Network Services Ltd.
• Nóra Kudari, Vice-President of WiTH
• Imre Branyiczki, HR Director, EPAM Systems
• Zoltán Kovács, Chief Technology Officer of HungaroControl

At the roundtable discussion opening the awards ceremony, it was said that Hungary performs moderately in the digital presence of women and that the proportion of women professionals entering the profession remains below the EU average. In particular, women are scarce in high-skilled and managerial positions, so retaining and supporting female talent remains a major challenge for the sector.

“With this award, we would like to highlight not only outstanding individual achievements, but also the indispensable role of women professionals in the digital economy. The inspiring career paths presented in the nominations clearly show that the success of the digital economy now depends not only on technological advancement, but also on the diversity of professionals. The doors to the tech sector are open to women who are still considering a digital career. A more active presence of women professionals is not only a matter of equal opportunities, but also one of the most important reserves of Hungarian competitiveness", commented Krisztina Tajthy, Secretary General of the IVSZ.