Women in IT awards goes to Hilary Simpson of London borough of Camden
Hilary Simpson, head of ICT business partnering, service integration and multi agency working for the London borough of Camden, won the Public Sector Deployment of the Year award at last week's Women in IT Awards. Simpson won her award for leading the implementation of IBM InfoSphere MDM to obtain a cross-council view of the citizen at Camden, in collaboration with IBM and Entity Group.
The awards ceremony, compered by BBC presenter Maggie Philbin (Tomorrow's World) was attended by hundreds of the UK's leading IT innovators. The award recognises public sector ICT deployments over the last 18 months where a woman was instrumental to its success. The project must demonstrate innovation, best practice, alignment to business goals, impact on the business and return on investment.
Simpson led the development of a "Residents' Index", bringing together information to create a single, consistent view of residents across the borough and the council services they receive. The solution prevents and detects fraud ensuring the council allocates its resources fairly, improves collaboration, enhances data quality, and enables a "right first time" service. It identifies which services residents are engaging with, so Camden can provide a better, more joined-up service to them, and make more informed strategic decisions by looking at service patterns as a whole.
Other public sector entries came from the Home Office, Stockport NHS Foundation Trust, University of Huddersfield and Exeter College.
Simpson said: "I'm delighted to have won this award and hope this serves to inspire more women - particularly young women in Camden schools - into ICT. I've found my career in public sector IT to be hugely satisfying. I work with a wide range of cutting edge technologies, which not only save time and money but make a real, practical difference to the lives of the vulnerable people we serve.
Councillor Sarah Hayward, leader of Camden Council said: "It's fantastic that Hilary won this award. It is an example of the type of outstanding innovation that is being achieved by women across the IT industry. We know that women make up only 16% of the IT workforce. Anything that can be done to promote the role of women in a male dominated industry has my full support."
