Anita Borg was an American computer scientist celebrated for advocating for women’s representation and professional advancement in technology. She founded the Institute for Women and Technology and the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.
Kathryn A. Finney is an American author, researcher, investor, entrepreneur, and businesswoman. She is the founder of Genius Guild, a $20 million dollar venture fund & studio that invests in Black entrepreneurs building scalable businesses that serve Black communities and beyond. She is also founder and Board Chair of The Doonie Fund, a social platform that provides micro-investment to Black women entrepreneurs. Finney first made her mark as a tech entrepreneur when she sold “The Budget Fashionista” after running the site-turned-media company for 11 years.
Deborah Estrin is a Professor of Computer Science at Cornell Tech. She is co-founder of the non-profit Open mHealth and gave a TEDMED talk on small data in 2013.
Ayanna MacCalla Howard is an American roboticist, entrepreneur and educator currently serving as the dean of the College of Engineering at Ohio State University. Assuming the post in March 2021, Howard became the first woman to lead the Ohio State College of Engineering.
Diane B. Greene is an American technology entrepreneur and executive. Greene started her career as a naval architect before transitioning to the tech industry, where she was a founder and CEO of VMware from 1998 until 2008. She was a board director of Google and CEO of Google Cloud from 2015 until 2019. She was also the co-founder and CEO of two startups, Bebop and VXtreme, which were acquired by Google and Microsoft, for $380 million and $75 million.
AnitaB.org is a global nonprofit organization based in Belmont, California. Founded by computer scientists Anita Borg and Telle Whitney, the institute's primary aim is to recruit, retain, and advance women in technology.
The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC) is a series of conferences designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. It is the world's largest gathering of women and non-binary technologists. The celebration, named after computer scientist Grace Hopper, is organized by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology. GHC 2022 conference was held hybrid in Orlando and virtually at the end of September 2022.
Angela Benton is an American businesswoman. Benton founded NewME (acquired), the first startup accelerator for minorities globally in 2011. She is a pioneer of diversity and one of the most important African-Americans in the technology industry. She has helped minority-led tech companies raise over $47 million in venture capital funding.
This is a timeline of women in computing. It covers the time when women worked as "human computers" and then as programmers of physical computers. Eventually, women programmers went on to write software, develop Internet technologies and other types of programming. Women have also been involved in computer science, various related types of engineering and computer hardware.
Alice Yvonne Bentinck is a British entrepreneur. Along with Matt Clifford, she is the co-founder of Entrepreneur First, a London-based company builder and startup accelerator. Based in London and Singapore, EF funds ambitious individuals based across Europe and Asia to create startups. In 2017, it was announced that Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and Partner at Greylock, was leading a $12.4million investment into Entrepreneur First.
Oreoluwa Somolu Lesi is a Nigerian social entrepreneur and UK-trained economist and information technology expert. She is the founder and executive director of Women's Technology Empowerment Centre (W.TEC), a non-profit organisation that empowers women and girls socially and economically through education in Information technology. W.TEC was established in the year 2008. She is a fellow of Ashoka and a recipient of the Anita Borg Institute (ABIE) Change Agent Award.
Kriti Sharma is an artificial intelligence technologist, business executive and humanitarian. As of 2018, she is the vice president of artificial intelligence and ethics at UK software company Sage Group. Sharma is the founder of AI for Good UK, which works to make artificial intelligence tools more ethical and equitable. Sharma has been named to Forbes magazine's 30 Under 30 Europe: Technology list, and appointed as a United Nations Young Leader. In 2018, she was appointed as an advisor to the UK's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Sharma's initiatives include Pegg, an accounting chatbot, and rAInbow, a platform to support survivors of domestic violence. She has called for a philosophy of "embracing botness", arguing that artificial intelligence should prioritize utility over human resemblance.
Clarisse Iribagiza is a computer scientist in Rwanda. She is the CEO and co-founder of the mobile technology company HeHe Limited and she is one of the UNCTAD's seven "eTrade for Women Advocates from the developing world". She was previously the winner of the East African entrepreneur reality TV show Inspire Africa Season 1.
Ayori Selassie is an American software engineer who worked at Salesforce and founded Selfpreneur, a personal development company focusing on the "Life Model Canvas". She also worked with the U.S. State Department on the TechWomen initiative.
Dr. Shikoh Gitau is a Kenyan computer scientist. She finished her undergraduate studies in Computer Science at the Africa Nazarene University and attained her PhD at University of Cape Town. She is known for inventing M-Ganga and Ummeli, mobile applications for promoting health and medicine and matching unemployed workers with employment opportunities. Gitau was the first African to win the Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship, received in the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing based on her inventions and thesis. She contributes and manages the Technology Innovations for Inclusive Growth program, where she is presently employed in the Africa Development Bank (AfDB).
Unoma Ndili Okorafor is a Nigerian computer scientist and entrepreneur. Okorafor founded Working to Advance African Women, a non-profit that supports the education of African women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) in 2007. She is the chief executive officer at Herbal Goodness and Fairview Data Technologies. She is the fifth child of Frank Nwachukwu Ndili, the first Nigerian nuclear physicist and the 7th Vice-Chancellor (President) of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
Larissa Suzuki, also known as Lara Suzuki, is a Brazilian-Italian-British University Professor, computer scientist, former CEO, angel investor, Government Advisor, chartered engineer, inventor, scientist, author and entrepreneur. She is also a pianist and violinist.
Neha Narkhede is an American technology entrepreneur and the co-founder and former CTO of Confluent, a streaming data technology company. She co-created the open source software platform Apache Kafka. Narkhede now serves as a board member of Confluent. She co-founded risk detection platform developer, Oscilar, in 2021, where she is the CEO. In 2020, she was listed as one of America’s Self-Made Women by Forbes.
Laboratoria is an organization empowering women who dream of a better future to start and grow careers in technology. It seeks this through totally remote bootcamps, focused on technical and life skills, aimed at women who haven´t been able to start their careers. After the bootcamp, they guide their graduates to find quality jobs in the tech sector. Laboratoria also has a very powerful community of more than 3,500 women who are each playing a key role in a more diverse and competitive digital economy.
Nashlie H. Sephus is an American computer engineer and entrepreneur specialized in machine learning and algorithmic bias identification. She is a technology evangelist at Amazon Web Services. Sephus is co-founder and chief executive officer of Bean Path, a nonprofit startup company developing Jackson Tech District, a planned community and business incubator in Jackson, Mississippi.
