Danobatgroup’s participation in the Gladys Award contributes to raising the profile of female scientific talent in the Basque Country

Human capital has been at the heart of Danobatgroup´s business strategy since its inception. As part of its commitment to people, promoting equal opportunities for all has become a fundamental element. For this reason, the group collaborates with different initiatives to promote female STEAM vocations in its area of influence, the Basque Country.

In this context, the leading industrial group in machine tools and advanced manufacturing has sponsored the Gladys Award for the third consecutive year, sponsored by the PuntuEUS Foundation and the Faculty of Computer Science of the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU with the support of the Equality Body of the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa and Emakunde - the Basque Women´s Institute. The award, which pays tribute to the computer scientist Gladys del Estal, seeks to recognise the work of young professionals working in the digital environment and to raise visibility for their work, while also setting an example for young people.

This year the award has acknowledged the work of Amaia Abanda, data researcher at the Tecnalia technology centre. The award ceremony took place this morning in Donostia-San Sebastián.

The researcher who won the award, worth 4,000 euros, is also given the option to hold motivational talks at schools to stir young people´s interest in STEAM professions.

Boosting STEAM vocations

The members of the jury valued the interdisciplinary nature of Abanda, a graduate in Mathematics from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), whose career is focused on computer science.

The great initiative the researcher displayed is but one merit that made her worthy of the Gladys Award. In recent years she has participated in various projects linked to cooperation, dissemination and gender equality, such as the INSPIRA STEAM project in which she collaborates as a mentor to promote STEAM professions among girls.

After graduating in Mathematics, Abanda earned a Master´s degree in Computational Engineering and Intelligent Systems at the UPV/EHU´s Faculty of Computer Science, for which she got an award for the best academic record. In addition, in 2018 her thesis project was given an honourable mention at the Congress of the Spanish Association for Artificial Intelligence.

The visibility of the work of STEAM professionals such as Abanda helps to promote scientific vocations from an early age and encourages science and technology to become an attractive option for professional development from childhood also for women.

In the future, as Iker Usabiaga, Director of Social Management at Danobatgroup, stresses, "promoting women´s access to scientific and technological careers will be a key tool for guaranteeing the sustainability of the industrial sector in the coming years".

Danobatgroup´s support for the Gladys Award is yet another contribution to a series of initiatives, such as the sponsorship of the Ada Byron awards, organised by the University of Deusto. All these initiatives aim to make visible the presence of women in the technological field, promote scientific vocations and provide female references to the STEAM field.