Our Team 

Stephanie Itimi

Founder and Executive Director

Stephanie is passionate about upskilling girls and women from ethnic minority groups with digital skills needed to compete in the modern-day world. She has a track record of supporting global initiatives and was part of the BBC World Service team that developed the world's first public health information service on the WhatsApp platform. Tackling fake news on Ebola, Stephanie led a data restructuring project which supplied text, pictures and audio to over 16,000 consumers in West Africa. She has six years experience of delivering high-profile initiatives in Slovakia, Morocco, UK and several African nations through her experience with the UK Government, UN Women, Balloon Ventures and the European Commission. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Information Security at Royal Holloway.

Maria Grazia Vigliotti

Education Advisor

A lifelong experienced computing professional, who has worked as academic at Imperial College London specialising in writing AI algorithms to aid in cybersecurity and formal code verification. Maria has worked in cyber security by convening and leading the development of the cyber security strategy for the entire British railway industry and worked on prevention of cryptographic attacks on the European Railway Traffic Management Systems (ERTMS). Maria has also advised most of the major players in the UK nuclear industry on smart device security.   Currently, Maria Grazia Vigliotti leads Sandblocks Consulting , a boutique consultancy specialising in blockchain technology and cybersecurity. Maria is the author of “The Executive Guide to Blockchain”. 

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Zarina Camal

Strategy Advisor

Zarina is a project delivery professional currently responsible for delivery of the cyber review.  

She has worked in both private sector and public sector and she is a trustee governor shaping young students futures in S.T.E.M. Zarina has worked overseas, she is a creative and strategic thinker with insights that shape digital portfolios. She has led on Industrial Strategy, Innovation & Skills, Science & Tech and supported a major programme. She is an advocate supporting the tech ecosystem as it navigates through transformation.  

Zarina is married with one child that she hopes will follow in her technological footsteps.

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Helen Babalola

Finance Advisor

Helen is passionate about finance, education and diversity and enjoys bringing the three areas together. Whilst at Goldman Sachs, she not only immersed herself in the world of long-term investing as a professional but also ran various initiatives designed to educate and inspire employees across the firm as a committee member of the Goldman Sachs Firmwide Black Network. Her passion for education and finance has taken her to the Department for Education where she has held various roles including as a financial policy and strategy adviser for the apprenticeship programme in England. Here she advised on how the programme’s finances could be managed better both in the present and the future and engaged directly in negotiations with HM Treasury to secure funding for future years.

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Stephen Chapendama

Cybersecurity Advisor

Stephen Chapendama is a DevSecOps & Cybersecurity professional currently working for Foundervine as the Technology Manager. He is alumnus of the University of Hertfordshire with a BSc in Computer Science (Networks).

Stephen has previously worked for the Infrastructure Development team at the University of Hertfordshire, focusing on SIEM and cybersecurity. Stephen has experience within the tech sector having worked for BlackBerry as a Global Network Operations Centre Operator and also Bulletproof as a Security Operations Centre Analyst. Further experience in cybersecurity includes working for global IT services company Fujitsu as Platforms Lead (Infrastructure Engineer) working within the Advanced Threat Centre. 

Serah Francis

Head of Community

Serah is passionate in promoting digital skills for women and girls as well as online safety and awareness.  She has ran various initiatives designed to promote women and girls education. She co-founded ISES initiative that facilitated discussion, information sharing and input into the policy space provided by the UNESCO on issues and developments of digital transformation.  The initiative brought together experts from government, academia and  private organisations from different countries to share their experiences and implementation models to help in tackling information security issues. It included submitting proposals as well as speaking in Workshops and Conferences such as annual WSIS forum in ITU Geneva and International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP) World Computer Congress in Poland and Korea.