Women in Technology International
Encyclopedia
Women in Technology International (WITI) is a worldwide organization dedicated to the advancement of women in business
Business
A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...

 and technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...

. It was established in 1989 by Carolyn Leighton as an email-based information network business.

First in the United States, Carolyn Leighton founded WITI (Women in Technology International) in 1989 as a worldwide e-mail network for women in all technology sectors. 2009 will mark the 20th Anniversary of WITI's establishment. At the time WITI was founded, Carolyn was President of Criterion Research, a research consulting firm for the high-tech industry based in California, which she founded in 1984, as well as chair of the Core Competency Database Project at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

.

Due to Carolyn's leadership and vision, WITI has grown from a primarily U.S. based networking group to be the premiere brand and worldwide organization dedicated to empowering women worldwide to achieve unimagined possibilities and transformations through technology, leadership and economic prosperity.

Carolyn Leighton has 35 years of experience as an educator and entrepreneur. In addition to WITI, she founded four start-ups in the high-tech, legal sectors and, most recently, the pet industry. She attended the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

 and has a bachelor's degree in human development from Pacific Oaks College
Pacific Oaks College
Pacific Oaks College is located in Pasadena, California, United States. Pacific Oaks College is a higher education institution that has full & part-time undergraduate and graduate students throughout Pacific Oaks' California campuses as well as online...

. Carolyn was named one of the "Top 100 Women in Computing" in 1997 and 2000. In addition to her continuing work with WITI, Carolyn now runs a dog camp on the central coast of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

.

When Carolyn Leighton started WITI in 1989, she had no idea how significantly that decision would affect her life and impact United States culture. A California based organization; WITI rapidly became the leading organization in the U.S.A., and then the world for women in technology. WITI's mission was to increase the number of women in management and executive level positions, to help women become more technologically literate as well as financially independent and to encourage young women to choose careers in science and technology.

At the time of WITI's founding, she was building her third and most successful company, Criterion Research, which she had started in 1984. She remembers vividly the day the idea for WITI was born. "I was sitting in a coffee shop waiting for a colleague and friend, Terry, who was also building a small company. We had become friends and met regularly to help each other with business ideas, etc. While I waited for Terry - who was running about 30 minutes late - I started reading the cover story of a business magazine I brought with me. The story was about why women were not making it to the top, reporting that there was a mere 2% increase of women into middle management positions during the previous 10 year period. It was a statistic I found startling, even though it supported the stream of incredible stories I was hearing from women in technology at my client companies."

WITI started out as a series of small meetings with women in southern and northern California talking about issues, ideas for the network, and how WITI could use the network to help other women. When Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...

 hosted the first WITI meeting, WITI was expecting about 50 women to show up. Instead, the room was overflowing with about 250-300 women and things just started spiraling out of control. In 1995, Carolyn Leighton, in her role as leader, visionary and pure American entrepreneur, founded the annual WITI conference series to help actualize the ideals of WITI's mission.

Despite warnings that WITI shouldn't expect more than 300 to 400 attendees for their first conference, WITI sold out the exhibit floor and had standing room only for their 1257 attendees. Winning Gloria Steinem
Gloria Steinem
Gloria Marie Steinem is an American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader of, and media spokeswoman for, the women's liberation movement in the late 1960s and 1970s...

 as their first keynote was a great accomplishment for Carolyn and WITI as Gloria had rarely appeared at events in Silicon Valley. An incredible and inspiring experience, Ms. Steinem challenged WITI attendees to use technology knowledge to make the world a better place.

By 1998, the WITI conference had become the world's first Women in Technology Summit hosted in the United States of America in the Silicon Valley. 5,000 women from around the world attended the 1998 Summit with the attendees sent by every major leading high-tech company based in the United States. There were also over one hundred members of the international media in attendance with worldwide publicity for women in science and technology being one of WITI's core tools for advancing women.

The keynote speakers at the Summit were the "Top Ten Women in Technology" chosen by American based Working Woman Magazine and confirmed by WITI. The NBC Nightly News featured the 1998 WITI Women in Technology Summit on its evening broadcast. 2009 will mark the 15th Anniversary of the annual WITI conference series.

Currently WITI has regional networks in USA, Australia, Canada, China, Ireland, Mexico, South Africa, Spain, and United Kingdom. As of July 2005 it had 103,000 registered users.

WITI governmental work

After the first WITI conference, under the leadership of Carolyn Leighton, WITI partnered with the United States Federal Glass Ceiling Commission under the Department of Labor to work on their "Final Recommendations." WITI was able to influence the Commission to include verbiage about technology as a tool to break the glass ceiling in its "Final Recommendations."

The Commission mandated that its members carry out the recommendations of the Commission and serve as the agents of change the commission recommended. In the fall of 1995, Carolyn organized a meeting in the Silicon Valley and invited Commission Deputy Director, Lisa Ross, to network with over 50 leaders from high-tech companies in order to exchange information and resources between government and the private sector about Glass Ceiling issues. Carolyn was able to get competitors to discuss some of their real world issues in front of each other.

After the Commission ended in the fall of 1995, the former Executive Director of the Federal Glass Ceiling Commission, Rene Redwood began a Keynote Address on June 5, 1996 this way: 'Good morning. [Thank you Donna Terazawa] and [Thank Carolyn Leighton and Julie Lubbering] and I extend warm appreciation to WITI for being a "Champion for Change."'

In 1997, WITI was invited to represent the United States abroad at the first "Vital Voices" conference hosted by Ambassador to Vienna Swanee Hunt
Swanee Hunt
Swanee Grace Hunt , Eleanor Roosevelt Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, is the founding director of the at the Kennedy School, and former United States Ambassador to Austria....

 and First Lady Hillary Clinton in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

. Under Carolyn Leighton's guidance, a very young member of the staff, Julie Lubbering, was sent to represent WITI in order to further Carolyn's efforts to encourage the next generation of WITI leadership. The result was that WITI was able to have a "voice" in setting policy that women worldwide use science and technology as a tool towards Democracy as women approached the 21st century.

WITI Hall of Fame

The WITI Hall of Fame was established in 1996 to honor women for their outstanding contribution in science and technology.

While collaborating with a WITI staff member about rewarding the achievements of the fantastic women in science and technology whose lives were being overlooked in our own time, Carolyn Leighton immediately sprung to action and approached IBM corporation to sponsor the first WITI Women in Science and Technology Hall of Fame in 1996.

Carolyn was the ringleader behind getting the outside world excited about the first WITI Hall of Fame. Over 1,000 people attended the first WITI Hall of Fame induction ceremony from the high-tech industry. Among the inductees to the WITI Hall of Fame's first class were Sheila Widnall and Cheryl Shavers. When President Clinton appointed her Secretary of the Air Force in 1993, Dr. Sheila E. Widnall became the first woman placed in charge of a branch of the military.

Dr. Cheryl Shavers was a General Manager at Intel Corporation at the time of her induction. After her WITI induction, Cheryl became the first female African-American Undersecretary of Commerce for Technology of the United States government.

Now in its 13th year with over sixty-five inductees, the WITI Hall of Fame has become the most distinguished award for women in science and technology from around the world. Since, the WITI Hall of Fame is based and was born in the United States, most of the inductees are currently living in the United States. However, the WITI Hall of Fame now has representatives from four continents.

The WITI Hall of Fame was conceptualized in the United States as a mechanism for women of the U.S.A. to show appreciation, friendship and to honor colleagues from around the world. The WITI Hall of Fame has also served as a valuable tool for United States international outreach. For instance, in 2006, Françoise Barre Sinoussi became the first French-born woman inducted to the WITI Hall of Fame with the Consulate General of France issuing a press release about her induction. Françoise is most noted for the role that she played in the initial identification of HIV-1 as the causative agent of AIDS.

So momentous was the first WITI Hall of Fame ceremony in 1996, that the Vice President's office sent a fax of a letter from Vice President Gore, which was read at the first WITI Hall of Fame ceremony, congratulating the winners. In 1997, the White House sent a letter from President Clinton to be read at the WITI Hall of Fame ceremony establishing the WITI Hall of Fame as a truly American-based institution.

In 1996, U.S. Vice President Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....

 remarked, "President Clinton and I share Women in Technology International's goal of women's full participation and excellence in science and technology."

In 1997, President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

 remarked, "As members of WITI and as leaders in the growing and innovative fields of science and technology, you play a crucial role in forging a bright future for our nation."

In the fall of 2008, WITI will host the 13th annual WITI Hall of Fame awards ceremony. One of the legacies of Carolyn Leighton's vision for the WITI Hall of Fame is that the living history of the inductees be recorded for posterity. For instance, Donna Shirley was Manager of the Mars Exploration program when inducted to the WITI Hall of Fame in 1997. Just over a year after her induction, the Mars Pathfinder landed on Mars and the Sojourner Rover became the first interplanetary rover. WITI was able to capture this history and now features the story on the WITI Web site.

At the second WITI Hall of Fame ceremony, industry leaders recognized the world's first programmers now called the "Women of the ENIAC," for the first time in front of over 1,000 cheering and screaming people in science and technology. WITI was able to capture this history in real-time and their story is now a featured video on the WITI Web site.

Eight years into the twenty first century, Carolyn Leighton and WITI are still flourishing with continued support from industry, government, academia and research facilities from around the world continuing to send in stellar nominations to the WITI Hall of Fame.

1996 inductees

  • Ruth Leach Amonette
  • Dr. Eleanor Baum
  • Dr. Jaleh Daie
  • Dr. Barbara Grant
  • Stephanie L. Kwolek
  • Dr. Misha Mahowald
    Misha Mahowald
    Dr. Michelle Mahowald was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.-Life and career:As a young girl, she used the name Misha as a nom-de-plume in her diary, but later adopted it as her official name. After graduating high school, she attended the California Institute of Technology, graduating with a...

  • Linda Sanford
  • Dr. Cheryl L. Shavers
  • Dr. Sheila Widnall
  • Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu
    Chien-Shiung Wu
    Chien-Shiung Wu was a Chinese-American physicist with expertise in the techniques of experimental physics and radioactivity. Wu worked on the Manhattan Project...


1997 inductees

  • Fran Allen
  • Carol Bartz
    Carol Bartz
    Carol Ann Bartz is an American business executive, the former president and CEO of the Internet services company Yahoo!, and former chairman, president, and CEO at architectural and engineering design software company Autodesk....

  • The ENIAC
    ENIAC
    ENIAC was the first general-purpose electronic computer. It was a Turing-complete digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems....

     Programmers: Kathleen McNulty Mauchly Antonelli
    Kathleen Antonelli
    Kathleen "Kay" McNulty Mauchly Antonelli was one of the six original programmers of the ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer.-Early life and education:...

    , Jean Jennings Bartik
    Jean Bartik
    Jean Bartik was one of the original programmers for the ENIAC computer.She was born Betty Jean Jennings in Gentry County, Missouri, in 1924 and attended Northwest Missouri State Teachers College, majoring in mathematics. In 1945, she was hired by the University of Pennsylvania to work for Army...

    , Frances Snyder Holberton, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer
    Marlyn Meltzer
    Marlyn Meltzer was one of the original programmers for the ENIAC computer.She was born Marlyn Wescoff and graduated from Temple University in 1942. She was hired by the Moore School of Engineering later that year to perform weather calculations, mainly because she knew how to operate an adding...

    , Frances Bilas Spence
    Frances Spence
    Frances Spence was one of the original programmers for the ENIAC computer.She was born Frances Bilas in Philadelphia in 1922. She attended Temple University but then was awarded a scholarship to Chestnut Hill College. She majored in mathematics with a minor in physics and graduated in 1942...

     and Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum
    Ruth Teitelbaum
    Ruth Teitelbaum was one of the original programmers for the ENIAC computer.Teitelbaum graduated from Hunter College with a B.Sc. in Mathematics...

  • Pamela Meyer Lopker
  • Marcia Neugebauer
    Marcia Neugebauer
    Marcia Neugebauer is a prominent American geophysicist who made important contributions to space physics. Neugebauer's pioneering research yielded the first direct measurements of the solar wind and shed light on its physics and interaction with comets.Neugebauer was a primary investigator of the...

  • Donna Shirley
    Donna Shirley
    Donna Shirley is a former manager of Mars Exploration at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She is the author of the book Managing Martians: The Extraordinary Story of a Woman's Lifelong Quest to Get to Mars—and of the Team Behind the Space Robot That Has Captured the Imagination of the World...

  • Shaunna Sowell
  • Patty Stonesifer
    Patty Stonesifer
    Patty Stonesifer is the former Co-chair and chief executive officer of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. On February 7, 2008, she announced that she would step aside from her role at the end of the year. In May 2008, Jeff Raikes, a Microsoft executive, was tapped as her replacement...

  • Patricia Wallington
  • Rosalyn S. Yalow

1998 inductees

  • Dr. Anita Borg
    Anita Borg
    Anita Borg was an American computer scientist. She founded the Institute for Women and Technology and the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. She was born Anita Borg Naffz in Chicago, Illinois...

  • Mildred Spiewak Dresselhaus
  • Dr. Gertrude B. Elion
  • Julie Spicer England
  • Eleanor Francis Helin

1999 inductees

  • Yvonne C. Brill
  • Sherita T. Ceasar
  • Dr. Thelma Estrin
    Thelma Estrin
    Thelma Estrin , Professor Emerita, Department of Computer Science, University of California at Los Angeles, is a computer scientist and engineer who has done pioneering work in the fields of expert systems and biomedical engineering...

  • Dr. Claudine Simson
  • Yukako Uchinaga

2000 inductees

  • Dr. Bonnie Dunbar
  • Dr. Irene Greif
  • Dr. Darleane C. Hoffman
    Darleane C. Hoffman
    Darleane C. Hoffman is an American nuclear chemist who was among the researchers who confirmed the existence of Seaborgium, element 106. She is a faculty senior scientist in the Nuclear Science Division of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and a professor in the graduate school at UC Berkeley.She...

  • Dr. Jennie S. Hwang
  • Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson

2003 inductees

  • Chieko Asakawa
  • Wanda Gass
  • Dr. Kristina M. Johnson
    Kristina M. Johnson
    Kristina M. Johnson was the undersecretary for Energy at the United States Department of Energy until she stepped down Nov. 5, 2010. She has previously been the provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Johns Hopkins University since September 1, 2007. Previously, she had been the...

  • Shirley C. McCarty

2004 inductees

  • Dr. Mary-Dell Chilton
    Mary-Dell Chilton
    Mary-Dell Chilton is a key founder of modern plant biotechnology. She was the first to demonstrate the presence of a fragment of Agrobacterium Ti plasmid DNA in the nuclear DNA of crown gall tissue...

    , Ph.D.
  • Dr. E. Gail de Planque, Ph.D.
  • Dr. Pat Selinger
  • Judy Shaw
  • Dr. Susan Solomon
    Susan Solomon
    Susan Solomon is an atmospheric chemist working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Solomon was one of the first to propose chlorofluorocarbons as the cause of the Antarctic ozone hole.Solomon is a member of the U.S...


2005 inductees

  • Barbara Bauer
  • Sonja Bernhardt
    Sonja Bernhardt
    Sonja Bernhardt OAM is an Australian information technology industry identity and role model, founder and Inaugural President of in 1997 and co founder and Inaugural President of in 2005, two not for profit industry groups that run community based projects and programs specifically to encourage...

  • Sandra Burke
  • Melendy Lovett
  • Amparo Moraleda Martinez
  • Neerja Raman

2006 inductees

  • Maria Azua, VP of technology and innovation at Armonk, IBM
    IBM
    International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

  • Françoise Barré-Sinoussi
    Françoise Barré-Sinoussi
    Françoise Barré-Sinoussi is a French virologist and director of the Unité de Régulation des Infections Rétrovirales at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France. Born in Paris, France, Barré-Sinoussi performed some of the fundamental work in the identification of the human immunodeficiency virus as...

    , director of the Regulation of Retroviral Infections Unit at Institut Pasteur in Paris, France
  • Kim Jones, VP of global education, government and health sciences, Sun Microsystems
    Sun Microsystems
    Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...

  • Nor Rae Spohn, VP and general manager, Hewlett-Packard
    Hewlett-Packard
    Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...

     personal laserjet solutions division
  • Been-Jon Woo, director of technology integration and development, Intel


The 2006 honor ceremony was held at the 11th Annual WITI Hall of Fame Dinner on October 30, 2006

2007 inductees

  • Dr. Wanda M. Austin
  • Helen Greiner
    Helen Greiner
    Helen Greiner is the co-founder of iRobot and currently CEO of CyPhyWorks.-Career:Helen Greiner holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and a master's degree in computer science, both from MIT...

  • Lucinda Sanders
  • Padmasree Warrior

2008 inductees

  • Deborah Estrin
    Deborah Estrin
    Deborah Estrin is a professor of Computer Science at UCLA. She is the daughter of Gerald Estrin, also a UCLA Computer Science professor, and the sister of Judy Estrin. She is a pioneer in the field of embedded network sensing and is the director of the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing at UCLA...

  • Susan P. Fisher-Hoch
  • Mary Lou Jepsen
    Mary Lou Jepsen
    Mary Lou Jepsen is founder and CEO of Pixel Qi, a manufacturer of low-cost, low-power LCD screens for laptops. She was the first chief technology officer of One Laptop per Child .- Early life and education :...

  • Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic
    Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic
    Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic is a Serbian American engineer and currently a professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia University. She is the director of Columbia’s Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering. Vunjak-Novakovic is a highly cited researcher, having published 235 engineering...

  • Jian Xu Ph.D.

2009 inductees

  • Patricia S. Cowings
  • Maxine Fassberg
  • Dr. Sharon Nunes
  • Dr. Carolyn Turbyfill

2010 inductees

  • Sandy Carter
    Sandy Carter
    Sandy Carter is a recognized leader in Social business, a best selling author, and one of the most influential women in Web 2.0 technology. As IBM Vice President, Social Business Sales and Evangelism she is responsible for setting the direction for IBM’s Social Business initiative, a $200B market...

  • Ruth David
  • Adele Goldberg
    Adele Goldberg (computer scientist)
    Adele Goldberg is a computer scientist who participated in the development of the programming language Smalltalk-80 and various concepts related to object oriented programming while a researcher at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, PARC, in the 1970s.Goldberg began working at PARC in 1973, and...

  • Susie Wee
  • Ruth Westheimer
    Ruth Westheimer
    Ruth Westheimer is an American sex therapist, media personality, and author. Best known as Dr. Ruth, the New York Times described her as a "Sorbonne-trained psychologist who became a kind of cultural icon in the 1980s...

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