2009 Award Winners
2009 Social Impact Award - Sponsored By Microsoft
Ekaterina Fedatova
Ekaterina Fedotova is the director for Information Dissemination and Equal Access (IDEA) project for PH International (Project Harmony, Inc.). She manages a network of 60 locally hosted and supported Internet community learning centers across 42 regions of Russia under Microsoft’s Community Technology Skills Program. The IDEA centers, run in partnership with libraries, educational institutions, and other non-profits and with the support of regional and municipal authorities, provide access to the Internet and offer free training in computer technologies and professional skill building to increase employability and marketability for underserved Russians.
Ekaterina has over 10 years of experience implementing educational projects in Russia and internationally focused on developing access to information and e-skills training. Before joining PH International in 2007, she was the project coordinator for International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), deputy director of Mari Regional Center for Internet Education, and educational programs manager at Mari State University International Office. As a fellow of the Contemporary Issues Program, a program of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the US Department of State, she studied ICT in education and assistive technologies at George Mason University. She holds a degree in English Philology from Mari State Pedagogical Institute, Russia, and has a strong background in instruction and translation.
Ekaterina is also a steering committee member for Telecentre-Europe, a network of organizations and people committed to increasing the social and economic impact of community-based telecentres, which promote digital inclusion for all. She was an invited speaker at the 3rd Global Knowledge Conference 2007 in Malaysia, Baltic IT&T Forum 2008 in Latvia, European Ministerial e-Inclusion Conference 2008 in Austria.
2009 Anita Boarg Technical Leadership Award - Sponsored by Cisco
Ruzena Bajcsy
Dr. Ruzena Bajcsy was appointed Director of CITRIS and professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at the University of California, Berkeley on November 1, 2001. Prior to coming to Berkeley, she was Assistant Director of the Computer Information Science and Engineering Directorate (CISE) between December 1, 1998 and September 1, 2001.
As head of National Science Foundation’s CISE directorate, Dr. Bajcsy managed a $500 million annual budget. She came to the NSF from the University of Pennsylvania where she was a professor of computer science and engineering since 1972. She was also Director of the University of Pennsylvania’s General Robotics and Active Sensory Perception Laboratory, which she founded in 1978. Prior to that, she taught as an instructor and assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and Department of Computer Science at Slovak Technical University in Bratislava. She has served as advisor to more than 50 Ph.D. recipients. In 2001 she received an honorary doctorate from University of Ljubljana in Slovenia and Lehigh University. In 2001 she became a recipient of the ACM A. Newell award.
Dr. Bajcsy received her master’s and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Slovak Technical University in 1957 and 1967, respectively. She received a Ph.D. in computer science in 1972 from Stanford University.
2009 Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award - Sponsored by Microsoft
Nadya Mason
Nadya Mason is an assistant professor of physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She received her bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard University and her PhD in physics from Stanford University. Before joining the department at Illinois, Nadya was a postdoc at Harvard, and then a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows.
A condensed matter experimentalist, Nadya’s research focuses on how electrons behave in low-dimensional materials such as carbon nanotubes, graphene, and nano-structured superconductors. She is especially interested in the interplay between electron correlations and reduced dimensionality, as enhanced interactions in low dimensions are expected to create novel phenomena. Improved understanding of such systems is important for applications ranging from superconducting power lines to nano-scale electronic elements to quantum computers.
Nadya has received multiple awards for her work, including a National Science Foundation CAREER award and a Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Award, and she was honored as an “Emerging Scholar” by Diverse Magazine in 2008.
In addition to her research and teaching, Nadya is committed to increasing the numbers of under-represented people in the sciences. Her activities in this area span from working on diversity committees at the departmental level to giving lab tours and presentations to K–12 students to playing leadership roles within the Mellon–Mays fellowship program and the National Conference of Black and Hispanic Physicists. Overall, she is an engaging and effective spokesperson for increasing diversity in the physical sciences and for creating a climate in the academy that embraces and supports minorities and women.
2009 Change Agent Awards - Sponsored by Google
This years Change Agent Award winners are Halima Ibrahim (Nigeria), Anne Ikiara (Nairobi), and Oreoluwa Somolu (Nigeria). These awards honor technical women living and working outside the United States who work in their commmunity to attract and support women in technology.
Halima Ibrahim from Nigeria
Halima Ibrahim is the Director of Mu’assassatul Mar’aatus Saliha Women’s Skill Acquisition Centre. The center provides ICT & Handcrafts Skills Training for underprivileged women. Halima Ibrahim has worked as a teacher for 23 years under the Ministry of Education Bauchi State, Federal Republic of Nigeria while pursuing her passion to aid young girls and women in handcrafts skills acquisition training programs. She participated in Microsoft’s “Unlimited Potential Programs” via the Professor Iya Abubakar Community Resource Center’s partnership with Microsoft.
She has since single handedly driven change in Bauchi and other communities in the North East of Nigeria by empowering underprivileged women and girls. Her initiative, the Mu’assassatul Acquisition Centre, is the biggest initiative that has emerged from the Community Technology Skills Program in Nigeria over the last three years. It has so far empowered over a 1000 other women in ICT and Handcraft skills whilst fostering local innovation and creating jobs and opportunities for people. This is despite challenges centered around funding, power and infrastructure.
These women have been motivated and equipped with knowledge that has made most of them financially stable and independent from the comfort of their homes in their seclusion status. The rate of divorce amongst this group of women has reduced due to the economic empowerment of women because they now have more value in their homes. Through her Adult Literacy classes and the Islamiyya School, adults and children are being equipped to ensure that their lives are improved with the use of technology and other resources. Support systems have emerged, where women can count on groups to provide assistance in times of need. Women now have a stronger voice because they are aware of the values and what they bring to the table.
In addition her work is helping to preserve and export their culture as they are working toward uploading local recipes for the world to copy. Most importantly, the socio-economic status of the community has changed.
Halima has a National Certificate for Education (NCE) from the College Of Education Azare, Bauchi State.
Anne Ikiara from Kenya
Anne Ikiara is the General Manager of Nairobits Trust, an organization dealing with youth/women empowerment through ICT, where she also serves as a gender and HIV/AIDS focal person. Anne has been with Nairobits for six years. Within this time, hundreds of women/girls from non formal settlements have gained ICT skills that have improved their lives economically, socially, culturally and politically. Most notable is the entry of women/girls from disadvantaged communities to the formal ICT economy.
This hard to reach group would otherwise have no chance of ever having access to ICT/Computing. Through her leadership, the Nairobits concept has grown in Kenya and has been replicated in the non formal settlements of Nairobi with five training and information centers being opened. Through the training and exposure of these girls/women to ICT, lives of other women in their localities have significantly improved and positive ripple effects are being felt in these localities.
To expand the benefits of this successful concept in the developing world, Nairobits is replicating the concept in similar settings such as Addis Ababa, Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar by giving African women a significant stake in the ICT arena. To further strengthen the replication and make it possible for a larger number of women to benefit, Anne together with Butterfly Works is setting up an organization called Mamabits to develop content and concepts that utilizes ICT’s for the benefit of a wide range of youth throughout the developing world. Mamabits envisions developing online curricula in entrepreneurship, life skills and creative multimedia skills and ICT concepts that improve lives.
Besides the field of ICT, Anne has made a remarkable contribution in the field of research specific to women. In recognition of this contribution, Anne has won several international research grant awards competitions. Her contribution in poverty alleviation in youth and women in ICT has been recognized by key organizations both in Kenya and abroad. The International Youth Foundation has appointed her into the partner advisory committee representing the African region.
Anne holds a Diploma in HRM, BA social work and MA in Gender and Development studies from University of Nairobi.
Oreoluwa Somolu from Nigeria
Oreoluwa Somolu is the Executive Director of the Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre (W.TEC), a non-profit based in Nigeria working to encourage Nigerian women to use technology to empower themselves socially and economically. W.TEC’s work is carried out through projects which build technology skills among women, technology literacy workshops, research, career counseling and mentoring. Notable among these is the Girls Technology Camp, which seeks to help girls develop an early interest in computers and other information and communication technology.
Oreoluwa worked for several years in the United States at an educational non-for-profit organization on a number of projects which explored the interplay between gender and technology and which sought to attract more girls and women to study and work in science and technologyrelated fields. She managed an oil and gas career awareness program for secondary school and higher education students in Nigeria prior to setting-up W.TEC.
She has a Bachelors degree in Economics from Essex University, U.K., a Masters degree in Analysis, Design and Management of Information Systems from the London School of Economics & Political Science and a Certificate in Applied Sciences from the Harvard University Extension School. Her interests are the applications of technology in improving lifelong learning and raising the economic and social conditions of people (especially women and children) in the developing world.
Oreoluwa’s published work include ‘Telling Our Own Stories: African Women Blogging for Social Change’ (Gender & Development Journal, Nov 2007) and ‘Making the Most of On-line Learning: An Introduction to Learning on the Internet’ (Education Development Center, 2004). She also maintains personal and professional blogs.