Anita Borg Institute Taps Data Scientist in Residence at Accel Partners to Keynote 2014 Women of Vision Awards Banquet

PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwired - Jan 7, 2014) -  The Anita Borg Institute (ABI), a non-profit organization focused on the advancement of women in computing, announced today that Hilary Mason, Data Scientist in Residence at Accel Partners, Scientist Emeritus at bitly, co-founder of HackNY, co-host of DataGotham, and member of NYCResistor will be the featured keynote speaker at the annual Women of Vision Awards Banquet. ABI also announced that Penny Herscher, serial entrepreneur, mathematician and CEO of FirstRain, will emcee the Santa Clara, CA event to be held on May 8, 2014.

The Anita Borg Institute's Women of Vision (WOV) Awards Banquet honors women making significant contributions to technology. Last year, the winners included Maja Matarić, Genevieve Bell, and Vicki Hanson, who were honored for Innovation, Leadership, and Social Impact respectively. Also presented at the May event in Santa Clara, is the Top Company for Women in Computing ABIE Award, recognizing an organization that has demonstrated measurable results in attracting, retaining and advancing women in technical roles at all levels. Intel was the 2013 recipient of this award.

"We are very excited to have these two dynamic women who are accomplished scientists, mathematicians, and leaders in their respective fields as our keynote speaker and emcee for our awards banquet," said Telle Whitney, CEO and President of the Anita Borg Institute. "This event brings together our growing community of executives, partners, sponsors, and women technologists who come to celebrate the achievements of women, and a leading company, that has made a significant and measureable impact on advancing women in technical roles." 

Hilary Mason serves as the data scientist in residence at Accel Partners, a company with over $6 billion under management that has helped entrepreneurs build over 300 successful category-defining companies like ComScore, Etsy, Facebook Veritas, Walmart.com and Zimbra. Mason is also an advisor of the Accel Big Data Fund. After four years as Chief Scientist at bitly, a URL shortening, bookmarking, and tracking service, she is now Scientist Emeritus, advising a team that studies attention on the Internet in real time, doing a mix of research, exploration, and engineering. Mason is also an advisor to several start-ups around the country including Mortar, knod.es, collective[i], and DataKind, and a mentor to Betaspring and TechStars New York.

Mason is a leader in the New York technology industry, and she co-founded HackNY, a non-profit that helps talented engineering students find their way into the startup community of creative technologists in New York City. She is a Computer Science Professor at Johnson and Wales University with a background in machine learning and data mining. She started the data science blog Dataists (dataists.com) and is a member of hacker collective NYC Resistor. This past year, Mason has received the TechFellows Engineering Leadership award, and was on the Forbes 40 under 40 Ones to Watch list and Crain's New York 40 under Forty list. She is widely published and regularly speaks at academic and industry conferences. She serves as a member of the Business Advisory Board of Maternova, Inc. Mason holds an undergraduate degree from Grinnell College in English and Computer Science and a graduate degree from Brown University in Computer Science with a focus on Artificial Intelligence.

Penny Herscher is the CEO of Silicon Valley-based FirstRain, an emerging leader in personal business analytics. Herscher is a mathematician from Cambridge University in England, and has spent her career in software engineering, marketing, business development, and general management on her path to CEO. Prior to FirstRain, Herscher was CEO of Simplex Solutions, which went public in 2001 and was acquired by Cadence Design Systems in 2002. She serves on the boards of FirstRain, JDSU, Rambus, and the non-profit Anita Borg Institute. Herscher has taught at the business schools of the University of California at Berkeley, Stanford University, Boston University and Santa Clara University as well as for numerous industry organizations and women's career development organizations.

Registration for the Women of Vision Awards Banquet is now open with early bird pricing through February 14^th. More information and online registration can be found at www.women-of-vision.org and www.anitaborg.org. Sponsorship opportunities are available. Current event sponsors include: Dinner Host Lockheed Martin; Gold Sponsor NetApp; Silver Sponsor Thomson Reuters.

About the Anita Borg Institute (ABI)

The Anita Borg Institute (ABI) connects, inspires, and guides women in computing and organizations that view technology innovation as a strategic imperative. Founded in 1997 by computer scientist Anita Borg, our reach extends to more than 42 countries. We believe technology innovation powers the global economy, and that women are crucial to building technology the world needs. As a social enterprise, we recognize women making positive contributions, and advise organizations on how to improve performance by building more inclusive teams. ABI partners include: Cisco, Google, HP, Microsoft, Thomson Reuters, Amazon, CA Technologies, Dell, eBay, Facebook, First Republic Bank, IBM, Intel, Intuit, Juniper Networks, Lockheed Martin, National Science Foundation, National Security Agency, NetApp, SAP, Symantec, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Broadcom, EMC, Neustar, Raytheon, Salesforce.com, VentureLoop, Xerox and Yahoo! The Anita Borg Institute is a not-for-profit 501(c) 3 charitable organization. For more information, visit www.anitaborg.org

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