At the Anita Borg Institute changing the culture of technology is an important part of our goals, and one of the ways that we see an impact on the culture of technology is through role models, people like this year’s Women of Vision winners. Helping to select and honor these incredible women are one of the great joys of my job.
Previous Women of Vision winners have included women who have become the first woman fellow at Sun (Radia Perlman), launched new businesses in China (Janie Tsao), and attracted over 18,000 hits on the Women of Vision You Tube video (Duy-Loan T. Lee). Each of these women are incredible role models, each in her own unique way.
When I think of a Woman of Vision, I think of someone who can lead the way to a world, when no one else knows the way. That is certainly true of Justine Cassell, who is a visionary in the area of Embodied Conversational Agents, which push the boundary of Computer Graphics, AI, and Human-Computer Interaction. Justine envisioned a world where computing and people are integrated in a seamless way, and she has taken us there.
Helen Greiner believed that robots could make a difference in our lives when other people only saw them in the distant “Jetsons” future. I was at my sister’s last week, and in the corner sat a Roomba that quietly and quickly picked up the dog hair in her home. An innovation that helps women and makes headlines, you bet, but Helen’s other robotic innovation has had an even more profound impact. She creates robots for the military that go into buildings and minefields and disable mines, saving human lives. Robots now impact our world in a pragmatic, every-day way.
Susan Landau’s social impact breaks through a new barrier for the Women of Vision awards, as all Women of Vision should. Susan’s work on wiretapping and encryption has informed and led public policy in Washington. She is also a world-renowned expert in computational algebra and number theory (mathematics intimately related to cryptography), and in developing numerous programs to benefit women in computer science, including the community researcHers.
In my life, I have worked with many visionaries as they’ve changed the fabric of our lives and made it look easy. These three women each have a vision of a different world and their work impacts all of their lives. As the members of the selection committee agreed, the contributions of these women are humbling, and they are a reminder that anything is possible if you set your mind to it.