Talk title:
Women Making History - Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Meeting extraordinary women is one of the greatest pleasures of my job as President and CEO of the Anita Borg Institute. These are people who have changed and are changing the face of technology; Seasoned leaders in creating the technology of today and young innovators building the technology of tomorrow. A young student, a participant of our Virtual Development Center, recently shared with me, that she wanted to change the world, and believed that she could. Her words, passion and resolution reminded me of what is possible, and how often what seems like dreams does change the world.

We welcome a new partner, the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), and together we celebrate ten years of the Grace Hopper conference. When Anita Borg and I co-founded the GHC it was our goal to promote, encourage and highlight the achievements of women in computing. This year's theme "Making History” provides a unique opportunity to recognize a spectrum of women's outstanding technical achievements, and highlight many with a vision of changing the world in a positive way. This year's award winners include a spectrum of amazing individuals.

The 2004 Anita Borg Early Career Award winner, presented by the Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) is Joanna McGrenere, for her important and groundbreaking work on the Aphasia Project – Anita, who suffered from aphasia because of her cancer, was the first participant of McGrenere's Aphasia project. What more appropriate award recipient could represent Anita's belief that technology can and does change the world that we live in.

The 2004 Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarships were awarded to four female undergraduate and four graduate students earning computer science degrees during the 2004-05 academic year. These young women are the leaders of tomorrow and are with us here this year at the Grace Hopper Celebration.

IBM honored five of its female interns by sponsoring them to attend the Anita Borg Institute's Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) of Women in Computing Conference. These students, who recently completed the highly competitive internship program, were chosen based on the leadership skills that are representative of the ideals held by Anita.

The Institute is proud to award the first Anita Borg awards, one for technical leadership and the other for social impact. In their very personal ways, each winner is increasing the impact women are having on technology and increasing the positive impact technology has on the world's women. Each award winner epitomizes the hopes, dreams, work and vision of Anita Borg.

The Anita Borg Social Impact Award, sponsored by Microsoft, honors Karen Banks and the Association for Progressive Communication's Women's Networking Support Program. Their work to support women networking for social change and gender justice through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT's) has served to extent and magnify women's collective voice and empowerment in over 36 countries. Karen has crisscrossed the globe working tirelessly finding new and exciting ways to use technology as a tool for social action and positive social change.

The Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award, sponsored by Greg Papadopoulos, is presented to Fran Allen. Fran Allen is known to many of you as one of computings true pioneers and as such has been a role model for many people, and 1000s of women. Fran remained committed to the challenges of a technical career, and through her work demonstrated how to be both passionately technical, and be a leader. She was IBM's first female fellow but also found time to mentor women, including Anita, and serves her community in uncountable ways.

All of these women and so many more we don't have time to recognize here, women such as you, are changing the technology of today and of tomorrow in positive ways. Our future depends on them and on each one of us. Together we can create a better tomorrow, one typified by technical excellence and innovation, equity and compassion, thoughtfulness and care. We have made history and with passion, hard work and vision we will make even more history in the years to come. Congratulations!