50/50 by 2020 – Living Anita’s vision and the importance of gender equity in technology
- Telle Whitney | President and CEO of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology
Anita Borg Institute Mission: To increase the impact of women on all aspects of technology, to increase the positive impact of technology on the lives of the world’s women, and to help communities, industry, education and government benefit from these increases.
The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology is a nationally recognized organization that provides platforms allowing women’s voices, ideas and spirits to influence technology. Microsoft and the Anita Borg Institute have a close partnership, working together to attract and retain women in computer-related majors and careers through Microsoft’s gender equity initiatives (run out of Microsoft Research University Relations). The participants in the Anita Borg Institute’s programs are an unusual mix of academics and industry, and include many of the technology thought leaders of today. Its impact is significant on the lives and careers of women who both work in the technology field and are affected by technology. The Anita Borg Institute sponsors the premiere women in computing conference – the Grace Hoppers Conference – help every 2 years. Microsoft is a gold sponsor this year; key Microsoft women are featured speakers and panelists. The Anita Borg Institute also sponsors successful University pipeline programs and has a Senior Women’s Series that Microsoft is involved with – please see www.anitaborg.org for more information and contact sarahst if you are interested in learning more or getting involved..
Speaker Details
Dr. Telle Whitney joined the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology as President and CEO in October of 2002. A long-time friend and colleague of Institute founder Dr. Anita Borg (1949-2003), Dr. Whitney brings a shared passion for technology and a long commitment to increasing the presence and impact of women in the field. She also brings 20 years of technology and executive experience in the semiconductor and telecommunications industries.Before accepting the position with the Anita Borg Institute she was part of the founding management team at Malleable Technologies, a startup in the programmable communication area. Malleable was acquired by PMC-Sierra in June 2000. She served as Vice President of Engineering at Malleable until its acquisition. Prior to joining Malleable, Telle was an executive at Actel Corporation, where she held a number of diverse positions in the software engineering and chip design.In 1994 Dr. Whitney co-founded the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC) conference along with Dr. Anita Borg. The GHC conference is one of the Institute’s flagship events, and the largest technical gathering for women in the world. She served as program chair of the 1994 GHC conference, workshop chair of the 1997 conference, general chair of the 2000 conference, and fundraising chair for Grace Hopper 2002.Dr. Whitney serves as Secretary/Treasurer of the ACM, and serves on the ACM Queue advisory board. In 2003 she became a member of the National Science Foundation Committee for Equal Opportunity in Science and Engineering (CEOSE). Telle received her Ph.D. from Caltech in 1985, and her BS at the University of Utah, both in Computer Science.
