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Article: Dr. Anita Borg, scientist and visionary

Article Group List / Diversity / Dr. Anita Borg, scientist and visionary

Dr. Anita Borg, scientist and visionary

We featured Dr. Anita Borg - scientist, equal rights advocate, and inspiration to thousands of women - in the October 1, 1999 edition of Women and Business ("Dr. Anita Borg: High Priestess of High Tech"). We explored her many accomplishments, from founding the Institute for Women in Technology to winning the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer Award.  Here we speak with Dr. Borg about the future of technology - and how female professionals can be a large part of it.

Vault: What do you consider your primary accomplishments thus far?

A: The creation of Systers is definitely something I'm proud of. Systers started out as a result of women talking at an operating systems conference. We realized there was a great deal of information to share - so we started [making] a list of people. [We realized that] women involved in technology and computing need a community in order to share their ideas. Women in Silicon Alley can network and bounce ideas off one another. [But elsewhere] there's a crying need for connection.

Systers has now evolved its own etiquette and its own method of sharing information. All told, there are over 2,500 systers in 38 countries. And there is probably a core of 1000 women who come back again and again.

Vault: You're President and Founding Director of the Institute for Women and Technology. Part of the mission of this organization is to gear women toward technology; and part of it is to gear technology toward women. This seems like a cyclical strategy. Can you elaborate?

A: What's unique about the Institute is its connection between these two ideas. There's been a considerable amount of work done on young women and girls who are thinking about their careers. These studies, such as the one on high school girls in Vancouver, show that girls want to do something good for the world. Unfortunately, they also show that girls don't think engineering and technology are fields where you can "do good."

~ Vault: In 1994, You and Dr. Telle Whitney of the Actel Corporation founded the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. What kind of influence did Grace Hopper, who was a computer science and mathematics visionary, have on you?

A: I saw Grace Hopper speak once when I was in grad school - that was probably 1974 or 1975. I was a bead-wearing, motorcycle-riding hippie then. Getting me to hear any speaker was a feat. But once I was there, I thought she was amazing. Her enthusiasm for the field was abundant. She loved leaning about it; and she loved getting young people to learn about it. It was her enthusiasm that struck me. It was a different kind of enthusiasm than I'd seen from my professors - it didn't have any of that elitist flair you sometimes find at universities. She was an inspiration to me.

Vault: Do you think that other women consider you an inspiration?

A: Absolutely. I hear it every day. And I take this responsibility very seriously. I do a great many speaking engagements - at colleges especially. I accept committee assignments that give attention to the issues I think are important. I also take my science credentials very seriously. The Institute for Women and Technology addresses technology that women believe will have a positive impact on other women.

My credentials, reputation, and visibility also allow me to [be more] bold. I don't shy away from some very difficult issues that would be hard for a junior person to bring up. There are some mine fields that I am willing to step into that I wouldn't expect a junior woman to do. For example, there has been a tendency to shy away from talking about the differences that women might bring to technology. People like to say - and feel comfortable saying - technology is gender-neutral. But that's not entirely true. I agree that technology is gender neutral only in the sense that anybody can do it. Technology is available to anyone.