ABI Presents Realizing Your Vision for Women of Color Workshop

New TechLeaders Workshop to be Hosted at Google in September: The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) today announced a new two-day TechLeaders workshop entitled Realizing Your Vision for Women of Color. The workshop will be held in Mountain View, California, September 10–11, 2008 at Google. This two-day workshop specifically designed for technical women of color provides skills to help increase scope and influence while defining and building technical vision. It also offers the opportunity to deepen relationships with other women of color in the technical community. National Science Foundation Research shows that women of color (Asian-American, African-American, Latina and American Indian) earn less than 9.4 percent computer science and 7.1 percent engineering bachelors degrees, and are all but absent from the most senior technology positions in industry and academia. The workshop’s panelists and keynote speakers include Irene Au, Director of User Experience, Google; Sandra Begay-Campbell, Principal Member of the Technical Staff, Sandia National Labs; Monica Martinez-Canales, Principal Engineer, Intel Corporation; Gilda Garreton, Senior Staff Engineer, Sun Microsystems Laboratories; Neerja Raman, Senior Research Fellow & Stanford Media-X Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Stanford University; and Valerie E. Taylor, Department Head and Royce E. Wisenbaker Professorship in Engineering, Department of Computer Science, Texas A & M University. One of the keynote speakers for the workshop is Freada Kapor Klein, PhD, Founder and Board Chair, Level Playing Field Institute. “Women of all nationalities, races and cultures can never have enough encouragement and support as they try to make their way in the workforce and build successful careers,” said Kapor Klein. “I look forward to participating in ABI’s TechLeaders workshop and sharing my research on overcoming hidden bias and hidden barriers for the benefit of women of color.” TechLeaders brings together elite networks of women from industry, academia, and government. Annual gatherings and regional workshops explore the future of technology and develop technical women’s leadership skills and networks. Workshops are organized by specific topics of relevance at different career stages, including offerings for women in entry-level and mid-level positions and senior leadership roles as well as for industry luminaries and social innovators. For more information about TechLeaders, visit its Web site.