The fourth annual Women in IT Awards is set to take place at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane next week, furthering the cause of diversity in the IT and tech industries.

The awards ceremony, organised by Information Age in partnership with Amazon Web Services, will bring together over 1,100 business and technology leaders on 31st January to celebrate the leading women in the IT industry. It is the leading initiative among extensive efforts from the tech world to rectify a gender imbalance in the sector, which sees women occupy just 17 percent of IT roles in the UK.

Ben Rossi, Information Age’s director and the brains behind the event, said the event’s biggest impact was being a “national platform to identify role models” for women hoping to start, or further, a career in IT.

The lack of visibility for women in IT is a big reason why female students are discouraged from embarking on a career in the sector. As Rossi puts it, “you can’t be what you can’t see”.

Last year the event attracted plenty of media attention after the keynote speaker, MI6 chief Alex Younger, revealed that the real-life Q is a woman. This was a big coup for the awards’ organisers, getting the initiative widespread publicity.

The 2018 ceremony, hosted in Grosvenor House Hotel’s prestigious Great Room venue on Park Lane, will be the largest tech-related diversity event ever staged, pipping last year’s audience of 1,000 and bringing together the industry’s top stakeholders. Its keynote speaker will be Baroness Lane-Fox, one of the most successful women in technology and an inspiring role model to further the event’s cause.