Micky Chen has won the 2025 Dianne Bevelander Prize, becoming the fourth winner of an award that honours an individual who has furthered gender equality during the previous year.
Chen is being honoured for being the driving force behind HerFuture, a community, platform and mobile app that is built by women in tech, for women in tech, and that aims to empower females in IT and STEM while helping companies reduce their gender gap.
“What makes Micky unique is that she truly is a role model who has real focus and who embraces sisterhood – both literally through the impressive founders work she has done with her sister, and through the creation of communities within HerFuture,” said ECWO’s Executive Director and Dianne Bevelander Prize jury chair, Prof. Hanneke Takkenberg.
Embodying everything Dianne Bevelander stood for
“Micky really embodies everything that Dianne stood for and built at ECWO, and it was no surprise that the jury found her to be a worthy winner.”
Together with her sister, Linky, Chen founded Minite in October 2020, a platform which helps students and companies find each other, based on data, and that is driven by a mission based on fairness, inclusiveness, equal opportunities and creating study-relevant job opportunities.
Powered by Minite, HerFuture was founded four years later, in 2024, with Linky now leading Sales & Operations at both organisations and Micky taking on the role of CEO. This year has seen the launch of HerFuture+ for mid and senior-level women in tech.
“I am truly honoured to receive the Dianne Bevelander Prize,” stated Chen. “Dianne’s work continues to inspire generations of women to lead with courage and to champion those who come after them. She was a pioneer of gender equality, and her fearless leadership created space for women not only to take their place, but to rise together. With HerFuture and HerFuture+, we continue that legacy with the same conviction: when women are supported at every stage, the entire tech ecosystem advances.”
Micky and Linky Chen: in tech since childhood
“My sister Linky and I have been in tech since childhood, building our first platform aged seven,” shared Chen of the foundational motivation for Minite, HerFuture and now HerFuture+. “Today, women still make up less than thirty percent of the tech workforce, and seventy eight percent of students can’t name a famous female in tech. When you can see her, you can be her, is the principle on which we built the platforms.”
With a bold mission to close the gender gap in STEM, HerFuture has built the biggest, fastest growing female STEM talents platform in the Netherlands, reaching thousands of STEM women and partnering with over 35 top companies, including Booking.com, ING, KPN, Port of Rotterdam, IMC Trading, Robeco, Rabobank and Capgemini.
Launch of HerFuture+ for mid and senior-level women in tech
In 2025, Chen expanded the platform’s impact with the launch of HerFuture+, a new label for mid and senior-level women in tech. While HerFuture has become the leading community for early STEM talent, HerFuture+ responds to what Chen calls a “lifelong need for belonging”. The platform recognises that women need a tribe at every stage of their career, not only at the beginning, and creates a space where experienced women in tech can connect, exchange knowledge, access career opportunities, and support both each other and the next generation.
Chen’s personal impact can be further measured in her work leading the development of HerFuture’s whitepaper, a research project that interviews and surveys over 200 women in STEM. These insights are shared with companies to improve workplace inclusion, hiring practices, and retention strategies - not just in gender diversity, but in creating truly equitable, culturally inclusive environments. In this way, HerFuture is helping organisations evolve, and in doing so, is contributing to systemic change across the Dutch tech landscape.
What makes Chen stand out is her ability to work across levels - connecting early female STEM talent, mid and senior-level women in tech, corporate leaders, and policymakers into a single shared mission. She understands both the systemic barriers and the personal ones, and HerFuture addresses both: whether it is helping one student land her first internship or helping a company rethink how it defines "potential".
Chen was chosen following an open nomination process by a jury comprising Prof. Takkenberg, prof. dr. Angela Maas (Emeritus professor of cardiology for women at Radboudumc), Dr Natalie Cleton (Prof. Bevelander’s daughter and adjunct faculty of ECWO's Women in Leadership programme), Prof. Nicola Kleyn (Extraordinary Professor, Gordon Institute of Business Science, University of Pretoria), and the 2024 winner, women’s empowerment advocate, Georgina Lara Booth.
As the winner of the 2025 Dianne Bevelander Prize, Chen will be awarded a sum of money to be used for a project – of her choosing – that amplifies gender equality.
Recipient of Alumni Award in 2023
This is not the first time that Chen has been recognised for her work.
In 2023, she was the recipient of the Alumni Achievement Award at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University’s (RSM) Distinguished Alumni Awards. Her other accolades include being named one of MT/Sprout’s Inclusive30 leaders of 2025, recognised for her role as a changemaker and role model in driving diversity in tech and business.
