The Anita Borg Institute Honors Women in Technology

PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwire - Oct 5, 2012) - The Anita Borg Institute (ABI), a non-profit organization encouraging the advancement of women in the high tech industry, last night, honored women leading the technology field in an awards ceremony at its 12^th annual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. The awards honor distinguished technical leaders as well as those who work towards recruitment, retention, and advancement of technical women. This year's awards were sponsored by Microsoft, Salesforce.com, Google, and additional private sponsors.

"The Anita Borg Institute designed these awards to honor a handful of the thousands of women throughout the world who are leading technology innovation," said Telle Whitney, president and CEO of the Anita Borg Institute. "We are excited to honor these distinguished women in front of our largest crowd to date at the Grace Hopper Celebration. These important awards and acknowledgements clearly demonstrate the breadth and depth of commitment from leading industry and academic institutions who, along with ABI, are paving the way for the next generation of women in computer science and technology."

The 2012 Award Winners include:

• The Anita Borg Social Impact Award - Sponsored By Microsoft
  • Cathi Rodgveller, Founder of IGNITE (Inspiring Girls Now In Technology Evolution)
• The Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award - Sponsored by salesforce.com
  • Irene Greif, IBM Fellow and Chief Scientist for Social Business at IBM
• A. Richard Newton Educator Award - Sponsored by Amrita Newton, Neris Newton, Petra Michel, and Bill Unger
  • Barbara Ericson, Director of Computing Outreach for the College of Computing at Georgia Tech
• Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award - Sponsored by Microsoft
  • Susan Daniel, Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Cornell University
• Change Agent Awards - Sponsored by Google
  • Maria Dubovitskaya, researcher at IBM Zurich working on a PhD in Cryptography
  • Ramalatha Marimuthu, Head of the Department of Information Technology at Kumaraguru College of Technology
  • Evelyn Namara, Program Coordinator at Solar Sister

Apart from the Anita Borg awards ceremony, the annual four-day event also featured an Open Source Day and Code-a-thon for Humanity, a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Systers, the largest global online community for technical women, and a multi-day career fair consisting of over 110 companies promoting open computer science and engineering positions at all levels. Speakers and panels addressed key technical areas such as social collaboration in computing, the emerging trend of big data, and computer security. 320 scholarships were awarded to college undergraduates, graduate and post-doctoral students to attend this year's event underwritten by ABI, corporate sponsors, and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Co-founded by Dr. Anita Borg and Dr. Telle Whitney in 1994 and inspired by the legacy of Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) of Women in Computing is a conference designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. This year, the GHC attracted over 3,600 participants from 42 countries, making it the largest conference for women in technology. Presenters and attendees represent all aspects of the industrial, academic and government communities.

About The Anita Borg Institute (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. Their programs serve high-tech women by creating a community and providing tools to help them develop their careers. The Anita Borg Institute is a not-for-profit 501(c)3 charitable organization. Partners include: Google, HP, Microsoft, Amazon, CA Technologies, Cisco, Dell, Facebook, First Republic Bank, IBM, Intel, Intuit, Juniper Networks, Lockheed Martin, Marvell, National Science Foundation, National Security Agency, NetApp, Salesforce.com, SAP, Symantec, Thomson Reuters, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Broadcom, EMC2, Neustar, Raytheon, VentureLoop and Yahoo! For more information, visit www.anitaborg.org.

Follow the Grace Hopper Celebration on Twitter at @ghc or #GHC12.

Follow the Anita Borg Institute on Twitter at @anitaborg_org