(LAS VEGAS, Nev.) – The 4th Annual Las Vegas Women in Technology Awards was held Friday, June 2 at Fresh Wata, www.freshwata.com, Las Vegas to recognize and honor local women making impressive contributions in the technology sector. The sold-out event acknowledged five local award winners including High Tech Woman of The Year, Entrepreneur, Mentor, Community Service and Rising Star; and 12 young women interested in technology and computing with the Aspirations in Computing Program award presented by the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT).
The 200-person ceremony commenced with speeches from the presenting organizations including Las Vegas Community Tech Fund, the owner of the Las Vegas Women In Technology Awards, President and Chairman, Lori Nguyen, NCWIT Regional Affiliate Manager, Kathy Zettl-Schaffer and Las Vegas Affiliate Coordinator for NCWIT, Snehal Bhakta, HiTech Vegas President, Lori Nguyen and WomenAdvancing Founder, Jack Myer.
This year’s award winners include:
High Tech Woman of the Year
Ruth Hedges
CEO and Founder of TheGCCWorld.com
Executive Producer of Global Crowdfunding Convention
High Tech Entrepreneur
Shannon Wilkinson
President and Co-founder of Axiom Cyber Solutions
High Tech Mentor
Penny Grandon
Senior Manager of MTC Operations at Cox Communications – Southwest Region
High Tech Community Service
Sonia Petkewich
Founder and CEO of Taurean Consulting Group
High Tech Rising Star
Heather Parks
CEO and Principal Consultant at Healliam Inc.
“These awards symbolize the great accomplishments of many outstanding women working in tech in Las Vegas. We are grateful for our sponsors, businesses, local community, volunteers and judges for helping us recognize these women,” says Lori Nguyen, founder of the Las Vegas Women in Technology Awards. “Together, we are the Las Vegas Technology Community.”
The 2017 National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) Aspirations in Computing Program award winners include:
Hannah Felize De Luna, Winner – Liberty High School
Jaylen Abrego, Honorable Mention – Coronado High School
Cynthia Sze Nga Kar, Honorable Mention – Southwest Career and Technical Academy
Oceana Ling-Kurie, Honorable Mention – Ed W Clark High School
Anya Rajan, Honorable Mention – West Career & Technical Academy
Julianna Tin, Honorable Mention – West Career & Technical Academy
Rachel Wurmbrand, Honorable Mention – Ed W Clark High School
Ariana Zandi, Honorable Mention – West Career & Technical Academy
Tandreana Chua, Certificate of Distinction – Ed W Clark High School
Solange Nhan, Certificate of Distinction – Southwest Career and Technical Academy
Julia Ramirez, Certificate of Distinction – Virgin Valley High School
Summer Reyes, Certificate of Distinction – Foothill High School
This year’s Educator award recipients include:
Katherine Burns, Educator Winner – Legacy High School
Matthew Mayhood, Educator Honorable Mention – Foothill High School
Nominations for the 2018 Las Vegas Women in Technology Awards will open by November 2017. To nominate a woman for these awards, please visit www.vegaswomentechawards.net
To learn more, please contact [info@lasvegascommunitytechfund.com]info@lasvegascommunitytechfund.com.
ABOUT THE AWARD WINNERS
High Tech Woman of the Year: Ruth Hedges
Ruth E. Hedges is one of the world’s foremost authorities on Crowdfunding and one of the original pioneers of the legislation that was ultimately signed into law as Title lll 4(a)(6) -the crowdfunding bill in the JOBS Act- on April 5, 2012. She was honored with an invitation to the White House for its Crowdfunding Champions of Change event and to Capitol Hill to showcase her technology to members of congress and the world bank.
Ms. Hedges is the founder and producer of the Flagship annual Global Crowdfunding Convention, now entering its 6th year. Ms. Hedges is also the founder of
CrowdfundingCRM.com – the industry’s first Marketing Automation CRM and Social media platform built for Crowdfunding and Crowd Financing, that helps you bring your crowdfunding campaign to life and market it to the world.
As an industry expert, Ms. Hedges has been interviewed or quoted in over 57 major publications and was selected to teach the first university-level course on securities-based crowdfunding in the nation at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV), and will soon be continuing that work in her new Crowdfunding Education Center in Las Vegas where she will teach the educational programs she has created. Ms. Hedges is also the co-publisher of Crowdfunding America Magazine.
High Tech Entrepreneur Award Winner: Shannon Wilkinson
Shannon is a graduate from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas with a Bachelors in Management Information Systems. She also earned her Master’s in Information Systems Management from the University of Phoenix. Shannon spent 12 years overseas working for the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations building software platforms for the organization from a human resources recruitment system to a sexual misconduct tracking system. While in Kosovo, Shannon met her husband, Troy, and they started their family. Deciding that peacekeeping missions were not the ideal place to raise a young family, they decided to return to the US and settled in Las Vegas. During her time as the Director of Software Development for an eHealth company, Shannon led teams building software platforms for some of the largest healthcare organizations in the US. Both Troy and Shannon quickly saw the need for cybersecurity solutions and services for businesses that did not have a dedicated IT security team, and so they founded Axiom Cyber Solutions in 2015 with the mission to protect America’s businesses from cyber criminals by combining a robust software platform with world-leading hardware. In addition to running day-to-day operations, Shannon heads the software development arm of the company’s SecureAmerica Automated Threat Defense Platform that provides automated updates and threat defense to the company’s clientele.
High Tech Mentor Award Winner: Penny Grandon
As the Senior Manager for Master Telecommunications Center (MTC) operations for the Southwest Region of Cox Communications, Penny Grandon supervises the work of 58 highly skilled telecommunications supervisors and technicians. In her role, she is responsible for analog and digital video as well as infrastructure support for telephony and high-speed data. She has oversight of FCC compliance as it pertains to state Emergency Alert System compliance, digital levels compliance for MTCs and FAA compliance for cell towers. She also ensures compliance with state, local and franchise video requirements, and tracks expense budgets for MTC operations.
Grandon has worked her way steadily upwards through the organization during the last decade. She began as an MTC engineering manager and was promoted after three years to MTC engineering and operations manager where she had responsibility for fiber, infrastructure, power, standby power for data, telephony, video and commercial service accounts for 10 Master Telecommunication Centers and 20 Remote Fiber Hubs. She also managed contract negotiations for some 38 cell tower sites. Most recently she was senior manager of MTC operations for Arizona prior to accepting expanded responsibility for the Southwest Region of Cox encompassing Arizona and Nevada.
She was an installation team leader with Sub-Tronics, Inc. before joining Cox and started her career in telecommunications as an engineering assistant at US West Communications.
Grandon has been recognized as a change agent given the manner in which she inspires women in the organization to transfer into technology jobs, assists lower performing technology employees to achieve their potential, and develops mentoring curricula that facilitates career progression in technology.
She created the Tech Career Progression Program at Cox Communications, a career program for the Southwest Region of Cox that supports the development of 20 competencies among program participants.
Grandon is Vice President of the Southwest Chapter of Women in Cable Telecommunications, a member of the Standards and Compliance Committee for Technical Facilities at Cox and a member of the Arizona State Emergency Communications Committee. She has a Bachelor of Science from Arizona State University and is the mother of two adult children.
High Tech Community Service Award Winner: Sonia Petkewich
Sonia Petkewich is the founder and CEO of Taurean Consulting Group, an Information Technology Staffing and Professional Services company headquartered here in Las Vegas, NV. As a business owner and community service volunteer, Sonia has had the opportunity to become a team member, coach, and mentor to countless people, helping them to achieve their personal and professional goals. Whether assisting a candidate to create a solid resume, preparing them for an interview, or celebrating a recent promotion or personal success, she and her team consistently work to the find the best opportunities the market has to offer our IT Professionals. When working with clients, she and her team look for unique, strategic solutions and niche IT talent to help them exceed their individualized goals. Sonia serves on various boards of associations, including the Association of Information Technology Professionals of Southern Nevada (AITP); Commissioner for a local youth soccer league and volunteers with IT Works. She loves new adventures with her husband and three children. Over the years, she has found her inspiration in seeing people collaborate to accomplish something for the greater good and believes we should always leave everything better than we found it. Regardless of the industry, Sonia says she has found that the most successful people are those that go above and beyond without a motive and believes in the philosophy of givers gain. She looks to emulate these principles in all areas of her life.
High Tech Rising Star Award Winner: Heather Parks
Heather Parks is a development and database engineering maven living in Las Vegas. For over 20 years, Heather has driven success for her clients with her approach to database technology and has evolved the gaming technology industry with her unprecedented patents. She has been a role model for women in technology, giving back to the community as a board member of Las Vegas NCWIT and active with Girls in Tech. In 2010, Heather founded Healliam Inc., a database database company that provides enterprise-class database solutions to mid-size to Fortune 500 companies. Healliam Inc. brings the same level of conviction to database architecture that Heather does.
Heather Parks is a technologist, an entrepreneur, an inventor, a devotee of family and fun. Although, not necessarily in that order.
About the Las Vegas Women in Technology Awards #LVWTA
Founded in 2014, HiTech Vegas LLC., and WomenAdvancing Las Vegas launched the Las Vegas Women in Technology Awards(#LVWTA), now owned by Las Vegas Community Tech Fund, a Nevada non-profit, to recognize the achievements of leading women in technology fields working in the greater Las Vegas metro area. The Las Vegas Women in Technology Awards are awarded annually to five women representing technology industries including: Information Technology (IT), Computer Engineering, Startups and Entrepreneurs. Learn more about the Las Vegas Women in Technology Awards #LVWTA at http://www.VegasWomenTechAwards.net.
About the Las Vegas Community Tech Fund
The Las Vegas Community Tech Fund is a Nevada-based non-profit organization that is aggregating the technology community in Las Vegas by providing programs with a focus on Women Working in Technology, Gaming Technology, STEM, Corporate and Education. The Las Vegas Community Tech Fund owns the Las Vegas Women in Technology Awards program. A key mission of the tech fund is to market “How to Plug in to Las Vegas Tech Community” and introduce new programs to grow and support the Las Vegas Technology Community.
About WomenAdvancing.org
WomenAdvancing.org provides commentaries, education, advice and support for the 65% of media, advertising and marketing community employees who are female, supporting women through dual mentoring at all stages of their lives and careers. WomenAdvancing reaches and engages men and women through their common passion for advancing gender and multi-cultural diversity, achieving women’s income equality, and enhancing women’s careers and lives.
About HiTech Vegas
HiTech Vegas is a professional event organization for local Las Vegas technology organizations. HiTech Vegas is an outlet where Las Vegas technology companies can meet regularly to network, partner, and conduct commerce. HiTech Vegas is comprised of six bi-monthly mixers, mega-mixers, special events and will soon be launching a new business educational luncheon series.
About NCWIT
The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) is a non-profit community of more than 850 universities, companies, non-profits, and government organizations nationwide working to increase women’s participation in computing and technology. NCWIT equips change leaders with resources for taking action in recruiting, retaining, and advancing women from K–12 and higher education through industry and entrepreneurial careers. Find out more at www.ncwit.org. NCWIT receives significant financial support from Lifetime Partner Apple, Strategic Partners NSF (the National Science Foundation), Microsoft, Bank of America, Google, Intel and Merck, as well as from Investment Partners Avaya, Pfizer, AT&T, Bloomberg, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. View all of NCWIT’s supporters at www.ncwit.org/about/supporters.