2008 Conference Information: 2008 Award Winners
2008 Anita Borg Social Impact Award - sponsored by Microsoft
BlogHer Inc and its co-founders: Elisa Camahort Page, Jory Des Jardins and Lisa Stone
Founded in February 2005 as a labor of love by bloggers Elisa Camahort Page, Jory Des Jardins and Lisa Stone, BlogHer’s mission is to create opportunities for women who blog to pursue exposure, education, community and economic empowerment. Today BlogHer provides the number-one community for and guide to blogs by women, via annual conferences, a Web community and blogging news hub (http://www.blogher.com), and a publishing syndicate of more than 2,200 qualified, contextually targeted blog affiliates (http://blogherads.com).
Elisa, Jory and Lisa have diverse backgrounds in media, high tech product management and business strategy. Lisa is BlogHer’s CEO, and in this role leads product development, working across the organization to advocate for both bloggers and partners. Lisa is an award-winning journalist who was the first Internet journalist to land a Nieman fellowship at Harvard University. Prior to co-founding BlogHer Lisa was Editor-in-Chief for women.com and subsequently helped Glam Media, American Lawyer Media and Knight Ridder launch their early blog networks.
Elisa is BlogHer’s COO, and in this role leads all events, marketing and public relations for BlogHer while working to ensure that all company operations deliver on plan. Elisa is a professional blogging pioneer and a long-time product management and marketing executive in Silicon Valley. Prior to co-founding BlogHer Elisa was one of the earliest social media consultants, having left her last corporate position: Senior Director of Product Management for Terayon (acquired by Motorola.)
Jory is BlogHer’s President of Strategic Alliances, and in this role develops strategic relationships with Fortune 1000 brands and leads innovative campaigns to integrate sponsorships into communities of women interested in every topic, from food, health and family to business, finance and technology. Prior to co-founding BlogHer Jory was a media strategist who helped start-ups such as Pluck and Rojo launch successful blog syndication initiatives and produced Third Age’s successful network of bloggers. Jory has also been frequently published in publications from Fast Company to the New York Times.
BlogHer’s mission is served every time both trained and self-taught geeks find ways to use our site, our events, our activism projects and our publishing syndicate to raise their voices, bolster their personal platforms, and change the world.
2008 Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award - sponsored by Cisco
Elaine Weyuker
Elaine Weyuker is an AT&T Fellow doing software engineering research at AT&T Labs. Prior to moving to AT&T she was a professor of computer science at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. Her research interests currently focus on software fault prediction, software testing, and software metrics and measurement. In an earlier life, Elaine did research in Theory of Computation and is the co-author of a book “Computability, Complexity, and Languages” with Martin Davis and Ron Sigal.
Elaine is the recipient of the 2007 ACM/SIGSOFT Outstanding Research Award. She is also a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, an IEEE Fellow, and an ACM Fellow and has received IEEE’s Harlan Mills Award for outstanding software engineering research, Rutgers University 50th Anniversary Outstanding Alumni Award, and the AT&T Chairman’s Diversity Award as well has having been named a Woman of Achievement by the YWCA. She is the chair of ACM’s Committee on Women in Computing (ACM-W) and a member of the Executive Committee of the Coalition to Diversify Computing.
2008 Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award - sponsored by Microsoft
Naomi Chesler
Naomi Chesler was recently promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin, where she also holds affiliate appointments in Mechanical Engineering and Clinical Medicine. She completed her BS degree in General Engineering at Swarthmore College and then earned her MS and PhD degrees in Mechanical and Medical Engineering, respectively, at MIT.
In her research, Naomi takes an engineering approach to clinically relevant cardiovascular problems including pulmonary hypertension, impaired uterine vascular remodeling in pregnancy and age-related arterial stiffening. Overall, she is interested in the ways in which arterial mechanical properties change in states of health and disease, the ways in which arterial mechanics affect blood flow dynamics and the ways in which altered blood flow affects organ (lung, uterus, heart) function. She has published 16 high quality peer-reviewed manuscripts in these areas and been funded by the American Heart Association, Whitaker Foundation, NSF and NH.
Naomi is also committed improving mentoring for women in engineering both theoretically with scholarly work and practically by designing mentoring programs, starting peer-mentoring groups, and the like. She has published her scholarly work in the Journal of Engineering Education, Journal of Women in Minorities in Science and Engineering and presented findings at the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) and Women in Engineering Programs and Advocates Network (WEPAN) national meetings. She is also a founding member of the national Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Committee on Diversity, which is actively engaged in increasing visibility and success of women and under-represented minorities in Biomedical Engineering.
Naomi’s enthusiasm about teaching engineering is evidenced by her strong student evaluations and teaching awards. She hopes to inspire young women and men to use their engineering knowledge to solve problems in engineering, medicine and biology and become leaders in the field.
Last but not least, in addition to being a researcher, mentor, and teacher, Naomi is also a wife and mother. She has two young daughters (aged 2 and 4) who keep her life very full — very busy and very satisfying.
2008 Change Agent Award Winners - sponsored by Google
This year’s Change Agent Award winners have been selected: Reyyan Ayfer (Turkey), Zahara Khan (Pakistan), and Dorcas Muthoni (Kenya). These awards honor technical women living and working outside the United States who work in their community to attract and support women in technology.
Reyyan Ayfer
Upon receiving her Master of Science degree in Computer Engineering from Middle East Technical University in 1981, Reyyan worked at various institutions as Systems Analyst and Project Manager. Throughout her early professional career, she noted the increasing demand for expertise in programming and decided to pursue a role in the field of education, specifically in information technology. In 1988 she began working at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey and currently holds a multitude of titles including: Department Chair at the Department of Computer Technology and Programming, where she also teaches courses in Programming, Data Structures, System Analysis and Design; Assistant Chair at the Department of Computer and Instructional Technology Teacher Education; General Coordinator of BITS (Bilkent Instructional Technology Support Team) and the Director of the Institutional Relations and History Unit. In addition to her current work, she also contributes her time to international committees in the field of computer education; most notably representing Turkey in the Association for Computing Machinery – Women (ACM-W) as Ambassador, and leading a community of students at Bilkent University who have come together to form the first international ACM-W Student Chapter.
Zahara Khan
Zahara Khan is CEO of Sehat First, a social enterprise targeted at delivering affordable, quality basic health care & pharmaceutical services across Pakistan through self-sustainable franchised tele-health centers. Company Web Site URL: http://www.sehatfirst.com
Zahara Khan was the Co-founder and President of d.o.t.z Technologies. Her primary area of expertise is social development using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).
Zahara did her Masters in Computer Science (cum laude) from FAST National University of Computer & Emerging Sciences (FAST-NUCES), the leading computer science education institution in Pakistan. A true believe in individual social responsibility & sustainable business models for development, Zahara left her lucrative job in the corporate sector and co-founded d.o.t.z technologies to develop various software applications, such as e-stores, used to market the “one village, one product” products internationally, and e-Sehat which provides basic health services to rural communities.
Zahara has led many multi-stakeholder public-private partnership (PPP) projects such as the National Education Database Program (NEDP) for informed policy-making, the Family Resource Center project, and the Pakistan Education Initiative which envisions connecting the 175,000 schools in the Pakistan Public School System.
Zahara has envisioned and implemented many programs aimed at inclusion of women in the ICT sector. She is the founding member of the community-based Institute of Computer Studies (Karachi), Graduates of FAST (a scholarship program by FAST-NUCES alumni) and a Mentorship Program for young social entrepreneurs & computer science students.
Dorcas Muthoni
Ms. Dorcas Muthoni is the Chief Executive Officer and founder of OPENWORLD LTD (www.openworld.co.ke) an Open Source Consulting firm in the East African region. Through her stewardship, the company was recognized as the Kenya’s best OpenSource Solution Provider in 2006. OPENWORLD has established itself as a open-source center and plays key role in supporting the bi-monthly “skunkworks” technical community forum meetings. This has earned her a role as an open-source enthusiast, supporter and expert in the region, with her organization having an important seat on the Kenya Bureau of Standards Technical Committees a range of public fora speaking opportunities and media article citations.
Muthoni is also a member of the council of the Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa – FOSSFA. Ms Muthoni was elected, in her individual capacity, during the 3rd African Regional Conference on FOSS and the Digital Commons held in Dakar, Senegal in recognition of her leadership potential and her capacity to contribute to the growth of FOSS in the continent and to the global FOSS community. Muthoni’s trusteeship shall be the driving force behind the vision and the policies of the Foundation till 2010.