A year to build new solutions.
“What can you build in a year?”
Zinc will support an exceptional woman tech Founder on the next Zinc Venture Builder, starting in October 2023, to celebrate our former colleague, Rose Acton. Sadly, Rose passed away in December 2020, age 28, after being diagnosed with grade 4 glioblastoma.
About Rose
Rose was a Founder on Zinc’s first ever Venture Builder who later stepped down from her role as a co-Founder at Parla and joined Zinc’s team. Zinc’s Venture Builder offers brilliant individuals the opportunity to co-found and build their own mission-driven commercial business from scratch.
Rose was a polymath who deeply cared about financial inclusion, the empowerment of women through technology and solving some of the hardest societal problems. Some of Rose’s greatest attributes were grit, ambition, courage, passion, diligence and curiosity. You can read more about her 18-month journey here.
About the Rose Acton Award
We launched the Rose Acton Award in 2021 to keep Rose’s legacy alive and to cherish her memory.
The award will be granted to one exceptionally ambitious technical woman Founder on each of our Venture Builders. Each Founder in the cohort receives a £13,200 stipend across the first six months of Zinc’s Venture Builder to assist with living costs as they find their co-Founder and establish their business. The recipient of The Rose Acton Award will receive an additional six-month personal stipend, providing a full year of individual support.
Eligible candidates must:
- Identify as a woman
- Have a background in software development/engineering/data sciences/tech
- Demonstrate Rose’s values
- Have submitted an application for Zinc’s next Venture Builder (beginning in April 2023, with the mission to transform people’s financial resilience)
Announcing our latest recipient
We are thrilled to announce that the recipient of the Rose Acton Award for Women in Tech for our fifth cohort of Founders is Laura Woo.
Laura is British Born Chinese and prior to joining Zinc’s current Venture Builder (with the mission to transform the industries that have the greatest impact on the environment), Laura worked in tech for start-ups and scale-ups across various industries within engineering, product and management. Her love for eating and connection to food have inspired her to explore building a business that will improve food security in the face of climate change.
Our first recipient
Ntombikayise Banda is the very first Rose Acton Award recipient. She moved from South Africa to London to join Zinc’s fourth mission cohort, with the mission to improve the mental and emotional health of children and young people.
Prior to joining Zinc, Ntombi founded an education technology company that develops low-cost robotics platforms with the aim of nurturing young innovators to master Maths, Science and 4IR skills in South Africa, including townships and rural communities.
An accomplished computer scientist and engineer, Ntombi is a graduate of the University of Pretoria, the University of Cape Town and Cambridge University.
“I am truly grateful and honoured to receive the Rose Acton Women in Technology Award. I’m still in awe at Rose’s outlook on life and how she fought her battles with so much inspiration, wit and humour. I commit to ensuring her legacy lives on and to ignite others with the same fire she lit in me.
I will wear my advocacy for women in tech with pride and will work towards the upliftment of tech women.”
Ntombikayise Banda, the first Rose Acton Award recipient
How to apply
If you wish to apply or nominate someone please follow one or more of the steps below:
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- Apply to the Zinc Venture Builder as a Founder
- More details on how to apply will be released soon.
What are the criteria for selection?
The Zinc team and Rose’s family assess candidates based on demonstration of Rose’s value of courage, passion and grit in their professional and personal lives.
