Celebrating our 9th birthday! - HER+Data MCR Meetup - September 2026

HER+Data MCR is a community working to connect, inspire, support and empower the NW UK’s Women in Data. Our goal is to bring together women and non-binary people who work in data or who would like to work in data - to support one another, share experiences and talk data - big or small! Whether you’re a student just embarking on a career or a seasoned data professional, this group is for you. We want to connect and inspire amazing data women with diverse expertise and experience.

This event is very generously hosted by Autotrader.

✨ Please note:

• Due to venue policies, this event is for 18+ attendees only.
• If you have any allergies/special dietary requirements, please let us know in advance, and we’ll do our best to accommodate you.
• If you have any access needs, please get in touch beforehand so we can ensure you have the best experience at the event.

Agenda
(All times in BST)
18:00 - 18:30 Networking with food and drinks
18:30 - 18:40 Welcome and announcements
18:40 Lightning talks and Q&A
20:30 Close

Speakers
Katie Bickford is a Junior Software Developer at the Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science at the University of Oxford, where she works on services supporting secure and transparent health data research. After around a decade in international medical communications and medical education, Katie transitioned into software engineering and is passionate about supporting tech communities through PyCon UK and Django Girls. In her talk, “Why Doing Difficult Things Is Good for You and Good for Your Team,” Katie will share lessons from tackling an unfamiliar challenge early in her engineering career, exploring what it means to be a beginner, how to approach problems when you don’t yet know what you don’t know, and the importance of persistence and knowing when to ask for help. She will also reflect on the value of supportive teams and how taking on something that feels far beyond your current capabilities can be one of the best ways to learn. The talk offers a reminder to more experienced engineers and leaders of what being new actually feels like, and the huge difference that good support can make.

Lilia Dagger is a Principal Data Engineer at Kalibrate, with experience spanning software development, data science, database development, and data engineering. She has built fraud-detection models, led cost and performance optimisation projects, and now focuses on platform modernisation and data strategy. In her talk, “Querying My (Data) Life Choices,” Lilia will explore how familiar data concepts can be applied to career decisions, from filtering out the noise and connecting different experiences to recognising when a past choice needs a refactor. She will share a practical framework for reflecting on and navigating your own career.

3rd Speaker TBC

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Our Meetup page is very generously sponsored by KrakenFlex!