We are immensely proud our founder Rhiana Spring who was crowned runner up in the Fem Biz Swiss Award 2021. Rhiana was honoured alongside other intelligent, innovative and trailblazing women like Jolanda
Spiess Hegglin, Xiao Chen, Valentina Valeda and many more. Thank you Global Digital Women for such an amazing opportunity and Gala Night.
Rhiana was one of three finalists in the tech category for Sophia – the world’s first chatbot to empower survivors of domestic violence gather potential evidence and get the support they need. Let us introduce these amazing fellow finalists here. Be ready to be amazed!
Introducing
the FemBizSwiss Award Finalists 2021
Finalists in the category Innovation
Ella Cullen is the co-founder of Minespider a company building a powerful set of tools that give customers secure blockchain access to products’ traceability data with a simple QR code. Ella and her team built a protocol designed to transform the entire raw materials industry so that dark money and illicit practices become a shadow of the past.
Jolanda Spiess-Hegglin is the founder of #NetzCourage and Winkelried & Töchter. #Netzcourage is an organisation that takes an active stand against hate speech, discrimination and racism on the Internet. With her nominated project #NetzPigCock, Jolanda and her team developed a way of filing charges within 60 seconds of receiveing DickPics . In the first month of operation, 1,178 criminal complaints were generated, showing the magnitude of this societal issue.
Linda Ambruster is the Managing Partner at Spark Works AG – an international strategic innovation company helping large organisations become self-sustaining innovators. With her nominated project, Linda and her team are bringing Zürich’s UNESCO world heritage site of lake dwellings to life in a new dimension through an augmented reality app and therewith sparking the interest of the next generations in 5000 year old heritage sites.
Finalists in the category Tech
Myriam Lingg is the founder and CEO of macu4 – a company developing software that can adapt socket designs for arm prostheses to different arm stumps within seconds. Their vision is to create telemedicine-based care that brings added value for those affected from low to high income countries.
Rhiana Spring is the Founder and President of SpringACT, an organisation connecting human rights and tech to empower people in vulnerable situations. She is a finalist for the FemBizAward for developing the world’s first chatbot empowering survivors of domestic violence gather potential evidence and seek help, 24/7, anonymously, and without leaving a digital trace.
Sylvia Stocker is the Founder and CEO of ARABESQUE LLC – a company facilitating access to robots for the health, retail and hospitality sectors by providing trial subscriptions that lower the threshold for working alongside robots in companies.
Finalists in the category Digital Transformation
Federica Suardi is a Big Data Architect and Engineer at Scigility – a company providing solutions for Big Data by facilitating the journey towards a data driven company, whilst establishing a transparent and fair distribution of the costs of the disposal and the recycling system. Frederica and her team have implemented a Data Platform with the latest state-of-the-art technologies which, with the help of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, is capable to analyze the data and capture anomalies and fraud, and as well as supporting the investigation work.
Leonie Flückiger is the co-founder and CTO of Adresta AG – a company developing digital product IDs for watches, which contain information, documents, images and a forgery-proof certificate. The digital ID accompanies the product during production, sale, service or inheritance and therewith can ensure complete authenticity from start to finish.
Nicole Wenger-Schubiger is the CEO of Schooladvisor GmbH – the only school according to the curriculum21 that works completely digitally and therefore enables self-organised learning independent of time and place.
Finalists in the category Diversity
Frederike Asael is the co-founder and Managing Partner of Impact Hub Bern – a co-working space catalyst for innovation and entrepreneurship, offering access to training, support, workspaces, keynotes, community networking events and incubation programs. With her nominated projects, Frederike and her team are empowering and supporting young women to embark on the journey of entrepreunership, as well as, hosting the Women Empowerment Day: a VIP conference for ambitious women from business, society and politics.
Valentina Velandia is the co-Founder of Capacity – a talent and start-up incubator for persons with refugee and migrant background who would like to launch a business or a socio-cultural initiative in Switzerland. Valentina and her team offer specialised and bilingual programmes, which bring together locals and persons with refugee and migrant backgrounds in a space of collaborative skill-sharing.
Xiao Jean Chen is the CEO and Founder VenturePole AG – a venture investment platform and venture capital firm with a vision to facilitate better, faster and equitable venture capital by raising female founders and founders of color and helping investors make better investments faster.
Finalists in the category Communication
Aileen Zumstein is the founder of aizu communication GmbH (Forbes Dach) – a business working and strategically advising at the interface of business, technology and communication. With her nominated project, Aileen and her team show how you can make people visible digitally and with it unite, strengthen and build a community.
Olga Miller is the co-Founder and Managing Director of Smart Purse providing accessible, impartial financial education to every woman, thereby increasing the financial independence of every woman and driving change in the financial services industry. Amongst others, Olga and her team have created a weekly blog on “Women and Money”, communicating financial knowledge in an independent and fun way, reaching over 10,000 readers every week.
Yaël Meier is the co-Founder of ZEAM – a company bridging the gapbetween decision-makers and Gen Z. Yaël and her team help companies take advantage of the opportunities that Gen Z offers and how they can benefit from the knowledge of a generation of doers, entrepreneurs, and people who think differently who are shaping and developing society and the professional world at a young age, thus placing familiar structures with challenges and opportunities.
Finalists in the category Leadership
Anja Wyden Guelpa is the Founder and CEO of CivicLab – a business uniting people into creative and functioning teams by recognising the energy of each individual and help to channel it into the right direction. With over 20 years of experience as a leader, Anja draws from her tireless optimism and her immense life experience to bring the best out of people and guide them towards success.
Susanne Laurentia Häcki is an Intrapreneur New Work & Mobility at SBB. Susanne and her team created the project “Work-Here” where commuters have the opportunity to work in so-called “third places” within a few minutes’ walk from their home or place of work, thereby avoiding the flow of commuters.
Yasemin Tahris is the co-Founder and Managing Partner FLOWIT AG – a platform promoting target-oriented commitment and leadership culture as well as agile handling of development goals, establishing an active feedback culture in short cycles by using AI and and systematic analyses, facilitating forward-looking, targeted decisions for all employees in a given company.
Huge congratulations to every single finalist and congrats to the winners:
Dr. Myriam Lingg, for your project facilitating access to arm protheses in high and low income countries and your well-deserved win!
Jolanda Spiess-Hegglin for your Innovation Prize creating a tool for women to report unwanted dick pics to the police in less than 60 seconds with #NetzCourage.
Xiao Jean Chen for your Diversity Prize for creating an investment platform making venture capital faster, better and equitable through Venture Pole.
Olga Miler for your Communications Prize for inspiring women to achieve financial freedom through education, resources and coaching through Smart Purse.
Susanne Haecki for your Leadership Prize for redefining spaces for remote work with SBB.
Frederica Suardi for your Digital Transformation Prize for implementing a Data Platform capable of capturing fraud and supporting the investigation work of SCIGILITY.
Thank you Tijen Onaran, Patrizia Laeri, GDW Global Digital Women GmbH, Accenture, Swiss Re, University of St. Gallen – HSG, PostFinance, HWZ University of Applied Sciences in Business Administration Zurich, Salesforce for making this happen!
