{"id":47205,"date":"2023-10-20T15:52:48","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/it-entrepreneur-recognised-in-australia-day-honours-list-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:52:48","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:52:48","slug":"it-entrepreneur-recognised-in-australia-day-honours-list-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/it-entrepreneur-recognised-in-australia-day-honours-list-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"IT entrepreneur recognised in Australia Day honours list – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian IT entrepreneur Sonja Bernhardt has been honoured for her contribution to the industry with a Medal of the Order of Australia as part of the Australia Day celebrations. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In addition to starting her own software development company, Bernhardt is also the founder of two not-for-profit industry groups designed to encourage women and girls into technology careers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She began her career as a HR consultant for a software company, despite having no initial interest in IT.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 \u201cI actually did IT in my original degree and I failed it hopelessly\u2026 I watched people in my computer course at university writing computer programs for fun and I struggled to do the assignments,\u201d Bernhardt says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThen when I did my post grad in human resources, I applied for a HR consultant job, which happened to be a consultant for HR software systems. I loved it and I\u2019ve never, ever looked back.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After being made redundant in the late 90s, Bernhardt decided to set up her own company, ThoughtWare Australia, which has since won a string of awards for its innovations.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI realised I love having my own company and actually writing software and looking after the architecture and the future of software itself,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bernhardt is the mastermind of various campaigns designed to encourage women into IT, including Million $ Babes, the Screen Goddess IT Calendar, and Doing IT Around the World.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She is also the founder of Women in Technology, and co-founder of Australian Women in IT and Science Entity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bernhardt has since removed herself from the WiT board, although she takes an active interest in its growth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI like to start and give something a good structure and a framework and get it going, and then hand it over for it to grow its own legs and to be able to fully develop so it has a life outside of me,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bernhardt says despite her efforts to empower more women within IT, the industry is still perceived as a male domain.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYou will find a lot of women in areas such as project management in IT but there is still \u2013 and I imagine there is always going to be \u2013 a genuine, serious lack of women in the design of technology; in the architecture and the design and the building of software,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very, very tough for women who are in those fields and unfortunately they\u2019re running away from it, so we\u2019re getting less and less [women] in those key fields.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is definitely not a lack of ideas, of innovation and creativity from women in the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just that the barriers from years and years ago are unfortunately still around a bit and so my advice is this: know who you are and why you are doing what you are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cSecondly, don\u2019t be put off by any barriers or perceived barriers. Be strong, proud and firm in what you do, and just keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australian IT entrepreneur Sonja Bernhardt has been honoured for her contribution to the industry with a Medal of the Order<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9,28,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47205"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}