Liverpool 5G at IoT and Women in Tech event

Jen Fenner, Managing Director of Defproc, a Liverpool 5G project partner, has been speaking at an event to celebrate the role of women in technology throughout the ages, and more recently in the development of socially-impactful IoT devices. The Innovation Festival event was hosted by Liverpool City Library,

Defproc is currently trialling the ‘Push to Talk’ device on Liverpool 5G’s community-based 5G network at Kensington. Push to Talk is an IoT device that gives people who are at risk of becoming socially isolated the chance to talk to others in a similar situation, at the push of a button.

Jen addressed an audience about the value of IoT devices in different sectors and the role women have played throughout the ages in the development of new technologies.

Jen referenced the work of Hedy Lammar, the ‘golden age’ film actress who also made a substantial contribution to digital communications, when she co-created the ‘Secret Communications System’ that helped combat the Nazi’s in World War ll by manipulating radio frequencies at irregular intervals between transmission and reception.

The ‘Spread Spectrum’ technology that Lamarr helped invent, galvanized the creation of digital communications; the importance of Lamarr’s invention was only fully realised years later.

In addition her talk at the event, Jen’s own IoT creation, Push to Talk, took pride of place in a display case at the Liverpool library for the duration of the festival.