DCWW Award Winners 2014
DC Web Woman of the Year – Shannon Turner
Shannon Turner is a software developer and founder of Hear Me Code, offering free beginner-friendly coding classes for women. In addition to teaching Python, SQL, and how to get started with APIs, she also serves as a mentor with Code for Progress. Her side projects include ShutThatDown.com (exposing who gives money to misogynist, racist, and anti-LGBT politicians); a site that tells you whether a movie passes the Bechdel test (and to suggest other movies if it doesn’t); and games to help people discover, learn about, and share art from museums around the world. She can be found on Twitter at @svt827
Employer of the Year – Taoti Creative
Taoti Creative is a digital strategy and web design firm in Washington, DC hell-bent on designing smarter websites. Our team of expert Drupal developers design websites that do more than just look pretty. They design websites that move the needle forward. Websites that get the right hand talking to the left hand within an organization. Websites that make sure that when you search for something, you can actually find it. Websites that show you what you want, even when you weren’t sure what you were looking for. Websites that have landing pages that don’t look like they were designed by a whole other firm. Websites that leverage common features and functions across various ‘swim lanes’ in order to maximize ROI. Websites that focus on goals and objectives—not technical blueprints. Websites that convert. Websites based on digital strategy and data instead of guesswork and personal preferences. Websites that are smarter.
DCWW Volunteer of the Year – Kristen Wehmueller
Director of Production @TaotiCreative
Kristin is a key leader and day-to-day facilitator of project workflow, process, and digital services team management. She has contributed extensively to strategy, development, Drupal content management, and enterprise web governance as well as writing, research, and production implementation for numerous for-profit, not-for-profit, and politically progressive clients. Kristin is actively involved in the DC tech community where she volunteers as Workshops Director for DC Web Women and produces the monthly Code(Her) workshop series aimed at educating attendees on various aspects of digital production and/or development.
Tech Woman of the Year – Aliya Rahman
Aliya Rahman is Program Director at Code for Progress, where she leads the recruitment, in-residence training, and job placement of people of color, women, and low-income social justice activists from around the country into full-time developer positions. Her work is informed by a background in legislative, electoral, and community organizing for racial and economic justice campaigns, and by a former life in public higher education conducting curriculum research and teaching computer programming and educational foundations/policy.
Aliya is the former Field Director of Equality Ohio, where she built a statewide field program focused on bridging gaps between racial justice organizers, LGBT rights groups, and labor. Prior to that, she worked for the Center for Community Change, first as their Ohio organizer in the passage of employment legislation supporting formerly incarcerated people, and later as a national circuit rider working with immigrant rights groups on voter engagement.
Aliya has developed Django applications, conducted tech trainings, or performed data analysis and targeting for every campaign, nonprofit, and university she has ever worked for – despite none of those tasks explicitly appearing on her job descriptions. Now based in Washington, DC, she is thoroughly enjoying life as a non-accidental techie, and is grateful to be part of an active ecosystem of women who believe tech has a pivotal role to play in creating social change.
President’s Award – Mary Fumento
Mary Fumento thinks and breathes digital libraries, resources, and technology. Mary is an advocate of combining old technologies with new and she likes to explain these resources to others on how they can help their work or enterprise.
She joined DCWW in 1999 when her librarian job led to web duties as well. Mary started volunteering in 2001 when she took over the existing library lunch bunch, and she ultimately became lunch bunch wrangler. Mary became DCWW president for two years. She became list admin in 2010 and has continued this role.
President’s Award – Karen O’Donnell
Karen O’Donnell joined DC Webwomen when she started working on Internet projects for the Head Start program. Karen taught herself HTML and needed to find classes and a friendly atmosphere. She began volunteering in 1998 to give back to the organization that helped her so much. Karen has worked on projects as diverse as the Aspen Institute, the State Department, SEIU, and a host of smaller businesses. Karen says, “I always found the support and information I needed from DCWW.”
Some of the DCWW volunteer positions she has held included the Resume Wrangler, the Jobs Wrangler, Secretary to the Steering Committee and to the Executive Board, assistant List Admin, and Assistant Exhibits Director. Karen wrote a column for the DCWW website for several years called “LegalEase” and also provided photographs from DCWW events for the website.