Dr. Anita Borg

Women & Technology

Dr. Anita Borg founded the Institute for Women and Technology (now the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology) and the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing as an American computer scientist. Anita Borg grew up in Palatine, Illinois, Kaneohe, Hawaii, and Mukilteo, Washington. She was born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Palatine, Illinois, Kaneohe, Hawaii, and Mukilteo, Washington. 

In 1969, she obtained her first programming job. Although she enjoyed arithmetic as a child, she had no intention of pursuing a career in computer science and taught herself to program while working at a small insurance firm. In 1981, she received her doctorate in computer science from New York University. Operating System Synchronization Efficiency was the topic of her dissertation. She spent four years after getting her Ph.D. working for Auragen Systems Corp. in New Jersey and subsequently Nixdorf Computer in Germany, developing a fault resistant Unix-based operating system.

Anita started working for Digital Equipment Corporation's Western Research Laboratory in 1986 and stayed there for 12 years. She created and patented a method for producing entire address traces for studying and building high-speed memory systems while at Digital Equipment. Her work in email communication was inspired by her experience maintaining the ever-expanding Systers mailing list, which she created in 1987. She created MECCA, an email and Web-based system for communicating in virtual communities, as a consultant engineer in the Network Systems Laboratory. She left Digital Equipment Corporation in 1997 to work as a researcher at Xerox PARC's Office of the Chief Technology Officer.

Dr. Anita Borg launched the Institute for Women and Technology shortly after arriving at Xerox, having previously founded the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in 1994. She was a firm believer in increasing the number of women in technical fields. By 2020, she wanted women to make up half of the computing workforce. She aspired for technological areas to be places where women were represented equally at all levels of the pipeline, and where women could both influence and profit from technology.

Systers

Dr. Borg established Systers, the first email network for women in technology, in 1987 and ran it until 2000. She was shocked by how few women were present at the Symposium on Operating Systems Principles (SOSP) she attended. Anita and a group of six or seven other women gathered in the ladies' room to discuss how few women worked in computing. The idea for Systers was born when a group of a dozen ladies at the conference decided to eat lunch together.

Systers was founded to give its users a private environment where they could get guidance and seek comments based on their shared experiences. Systers? membership was restricted to women with advanced technical training, and talks were limited to technical topics. Systers would occasionally take on non-technical matters that affected its members. When Mattel Inc. began selling a Barbie doll with the statement "math class is challenging" on its microchip in 1992, the Systers list helped to convince Mattel to remove the message from Barbie's microchip.

Anita Borg co-founded the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in 1994 with Telle Whitney. She and Whitney met over dinner with a blank sheet of paper and no knowledge how to start a conference, with the basic notion of hosting a conference by and for women computer scientists, and began to map out their vision. In June 1994, the first Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing took place in Washington, D.C., bringing together 500 technical women. She established the Institute for Women and Technology in 1997. The organization was founded with two major goals in mind: to enhance the participation of women in technical professions and to empower women to create more technology. Although it was an independent nonprofit organization, the Institute was housed at Xerox PARC when it was created.

The Institute was founded as an experimental R&D organization with the goal of enhancing women's impact on technology as well as technology's impact on the world's women. It ran a number of programs to boost technology's role, develop a pipeline of technical women, and ensure that women's views were heard in technological advancements. Telle Whitney became the Institute's President and CEO in 2002, and it was renamed the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology in 2003. The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology has more than quadrupled in size since its founding, increasing its programs in the United States and expanding globally. President Bill Clinton appointed her to the Presidential Commission on the Advancement of Women and Minorities in Science, Engineering, and Technology in 1999 after she was recognized for her achievements as a computer scientist as well as her work on behalf of women in computing. She was tasked with advising the nation on how to broaden the scope of women's participation opportunities.

Anita Honored

In 1995, she was honored by the Association for Women in Computing with the Augusta Ada Lovelace Award for her contributions to the field of computing on behalf of women. She was made a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery in 1996. She earned the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer Award, was honored by the Girl Scouts of the United States, and was named one of Open Computing Magazine's Top 100 Women in Computing. She received the 8th Annual Heinz Award for Technology, Economy, and Employment in 2002. In 2002, Carnegie Mellon University awarded her an Honorary Doctor of Science and Technology degree. She was also a member of the Computing Research Association's board of directors and the Committee on Women in Science and Engineering of the National Research Council. Anita was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 1999. Until 2002, she was the director of the Institute for Women and Technology.

Dr. Anita Borg died in Sonoma, California, on April 6, 2003. The Anita Borg Social Impact Award, the Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award, and the Anita Borg Top Company for Technical Women were all named after her after the Institute for Women and Technology was renamed in her honor. Several other honors and activities have been established to recognize her life and accomplishments. In 2004, Google launched the Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship to recognize Anita Borg's contributions. Women from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East are now part of the program. The Anita Borg Prize, named after her, is offered by the UNSW School of Computer Science and Engineering.