The ceremony marked the culmination of a national competition to find the country’s top female computing students. Run by Edinburgh-based software company Axios, and this year sponsored by Microsoft, Accenture and IBM, the ‘A’ Star awards, now in their fourth year, are a major industry initiative to promote IT as an exciting career for women and redress the gender imbalance in the sector. Event founder Ailsa Symeonides, sales and marketing director of Axios Systems, commented: “This year’s awards are bigger than ever before and have received unprecedented support throughout the IT industry.”