Portuguese Women in Tech Awards Celebrate Women in Portugal's Startup Ecosystem

In honor of the Portuguese Women in Tech two-year anniversary, the votes are in and the winners are announced for the Portuguese Women in Tech Awards.

In the first edition of the Portuguese Women in Tech Awards, eight women and one startup are awarded in nine categories:

Founder / Co-Founder – Award by Prozis
Developer – Award by XING
Data & Analytics Expert – Award by BLIP
Product Manager – Award by UTRUST
Lead Designer
HR & Talent Acquisition Pro
Marketing & Sales Expert
Community Leader – Award by Hostelworld
Best Startup in Portugal started by a Woman – Award by NATIXIS

The awards ceremony took place in Porto on Saturday, October 27.

Liliana Castro

Prior to the event Liliana Castro, founder of the PWIT community, said, “What we are looking for is rewarding the national women in technology that stand out the most. We want it to be a moment of networking and meeting the ecosystem, but also a moment of prominence for women and companies in Portugal.”

These awards are one of eight projects supported by the municipality of Porto, under the Scaleup Porto strategy. Each project will receive a maximum of 10 thousand euros, in a program that has a total budget of 70 thousand euros.

Here are the Portuguese Women in Tech Awards winners:

1) Founder / Co-Founder

Romana Ibrahim

This year’s winner is Romana Ibrahim, CEO at Keep Warranty.

2) Developer

Sandra Costa

This year’s winner is Sandra Costa, Group Leader at Bosch Car Multimedia.

3) Data & Analytics Expert

Isabel Portugal

This year’s winner is Isabel Portugal, Data Scientest at Hostelworld Group.

4) Product Manager

Sílvia Coimbra

This year’s winner is Sílvia Coimbra, Senior Product Manager at Farfetch

5) Lead Designer

Mariana Gomes

This year’s winner is Mariana Gomes, Senior Product Designer at dashdash.

6) HR & Talent Acquisition Pro

Liliana Cardoso

This year’s winner is Liliana Cardoso, People Specialist at Zalando.

7) Marketing & Sales Expert

Catarina Cardoso

This year’s winner is Catarina Cardoso, Marketing and Sales Manager at Jscrambler.

8) Community Leader

Patrícia Candeias

This year’s winner is Patrícia Candeias, Global Ecosystem Builder at ENTER Ready to Startup: Altice.

9) Best Startup in Portugal started by a Woman

This year’s winner is Talkdesk, which recently became Portugal’s third unicorn valued at over $1 billion.

This event had the support of the Porto City Council, through the open call of ScaleUp Porto. It also had the support of several national tech companies such as NATIXIS.

In May ScaleUp Porto announced that it had selected eight projects out of 57 to receive €70,000 in funding as part of the program’s second open call.

ScaleUp Porto aims to become a catalyst for the creation of an ecosystem of innovation and a network of individuals and organizations that share the vision of a scaleup program.

Last April, Portuguese Women in Tech announced it was putting together a list of Portuguese Female Speakers in Tech to help conference organizers create more gender-balanced events. The aim was to have at least 40% of female speakers in all panels and conferences.

Anyone can help add to the Portuguese Female Speakers List via the online form here.

The Female Speakers List initiative is led by Liliana Castro, Founder and Manager FES Agency, along with the Co-Founder of Portugal Startups and Startup Pirates, Inês Santos Silva.

Silva is also a Special Adviser for the Cabinet of the Secretary of State of Industry in Porto.

With the support of FES Agency, Marzee Labs, and Porto i/o, the mission of Portuguese Women in Tech is to improve the tech industry with great startups while looking to show the outside world a more comprehensive picture of the Portuguese Women in tech that work to make things happen.

The Portuguese Women in Tech platform aims to present a portrait of Portuguese women who make a difference in the technology industry, arousing the attention of the most curious to what is done well in Portugal by the hands of women entrepreneurs.

The idea arose from the understanding of the need for mechanisms that show that we women are equally present and undeniably involved in the achievements that bear the names of big startups and companies across borders.