PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwire - March 7, 2011) - The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) announced today the winners of this year's Anita Borg Women of Vision Awards. Chieko Asakawa, IBM Research; Mary Lou Jepsen, CEO, Pixel Qi; and Karen Panetta, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Director of the Simulation Research Laboratory at Tufts University will be honored for their accomplishments and contributions as women in technology at ABI's sixth annual Women of Vision Awards Banquet at the Mission City Ballroom, Santa Clara, California on May 19, 2011. The event will feature keynote speaker Anousheh Ansari, first female private space explorer and first space ambassador.
The Women of Vision (WOV) Awards honor women making significant contributions to technology in three categories: Innovation, Leadership, and Social Impact. The three winners were selected from a field of highly qualified women, all of whom are engaged in technology professions in industry, academia, non-profits or government. Candidates for the awards are considered based on their records of (1) consistent, significant contributions to technology invention and application; (2) effecting positive changes in the ways in which technology impacts society; and (3) demonstrated leadership in the technology industry that extends beyond their place of work.
"The 2011 Women of Vision Award Winners have not only made significant contributions to technology but their work has broad impact on the larger world community," said ABI CEO and President, Dr. Telle Whitney. "The three categories represent the characteristics of a Woman of Vision, whose work has broad impact on the way in which we think of technology."
The Anita Borg Women of Vision Awards Dinner Host is Lockheed Martin. Gold sponsors are Huawei and NetApp. Silver sponsors are Cisco and IBM. Bronze Sponsors are Adobe, Career Action Center, and Thomson Reuters.
The Women of Vision Awards Dinner will also feature the first annual Anita Borg Top Company for Technical Women Award, which will be awarded to IBM. For more information about the Top Company award and why IBM was chosen, see http://anitaborg.org/news/archive/abi-recognizes-ibm-with-inaugural-anita-borg-top-company-for-technical-women-award/.
About the Women of Vision Award Winners
Chieko Asakawa is the Women of Vision Award winner in the Leadership category. She is recognized for her work as a leader in the field of accessibility. Her work at IBM has led to breakthrough technologies including Japan's first computer network based Braille library system and Home Page Reader which has enabled the visually impaired to easily surf websites. Another innovation, aDesigner, is used by Web designers today across the globe to help them build pages that are accessible to those with poor sight. aDesigner has been donated to the Eclipse Foundation, an open source community. Chieko Asakawa was named an IBM Fellow in 2009.
Mary Lou Jepsen, CEO of Pixel Qi
Mary Lou Jepsen is the Women of Vision Award winner in the Innovation category. She is honored for her technical successes in innovative design of computer displays over several iterations including most recently as CEO of Pixel Qi, her leadership of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project to accomplish its ambitious goals, and in the impact of OLPC's work on accessibility of digital technology to enable children in all nations to use the digital tools of the modern world, and use them collaboratively.
Karen Panetta is the Women of Vision Award winner in the Social Impact category. She is recognized not only for her contributions in both academia and industry but also as one of the United States leading experts in innovating successful low-cost methods for disseminating engineering and science to youth, parents, educators and the general public to help recruit young women to the STEM disciplines. Her Nerd Girls international program has inspired young women by teaching them that engineers and scientists create innovations for the benefit of humanity.
About the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI)
The Anita Borg Institute provides resources and programs to help industry, academia, and government recruit, retain, and develop women leaders in high-tech fields, resulting in higher levels of technological innovation. ABI programs serve high-tech women by creating a community and providing tools to help them develop their careers. ABI is a not-for-profit 501(c) 3 charitable organization. ABI Partners include: Google, Microsoft, HP, CA, Cisco, First Republic Bank, IBM, Intel, Intuit, Lockheed Martin, National Science Foundation, National Security Agency, NetApp, SAP, Symantec, Thomson Reuters, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Motorola Foundation, Yahoo!, Amazon, Facebook, and Raytheon. For more information, visit www.anitaborg.org.
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