4th Edition: “Notable Women in Computing” Playing Cards Listing

Jessica Dickinson Goodman, Susan Rodger and I have just updated the Notable Women in Computing playing cards – publishing the 4th Edition since 2014. These will be available for sale at the Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education – SIGCE 2019 event, and (as always) on Notable Technical Women. The cards have been updated to reflect some of the new honors for these remarkable leaders – and this is the first version in which each of the 54 honorees has a photo, plus a link to her Wikipedia page. In the first edition, 25% of the honorees did not have a Wikipedia page.

Notable Women in Computing playing cards are associated with the long-term “CRA-W and Anita Borg Institute Wikipedia Project – Writing Wikipedia Pages for Notable Women in Computing” project.  We encourage you to use this information to inspire students and teach computer science, and write or improve Wikipedia pages – especially creating new pages about remarkable women who have none. Please watch our 2014 Kickstarter video about why we picked these 54 women from among all of the remarkable technical women.

All 54 cards:

Suit	Honoree Name	Position, Honors, Awards	Wikipedia Link
Joker	Maria Klawe	Harvey Mudd College President, ACM Fellow, Canadian Information Processing Society founding Fellow, ABIE Award – Leadership	Linked Here
Joker	Mitchell Baker	Exec.Chair Mozilla, ABI Woman of Vision, Internet Hall of Fame, Webby Lifetime Achievement	Linked Here
Hearts	Queen– Frances Allen	IBM Fellow Emerita, Turing Award, Computer History Museum Fellow, IEEE Fellow	Linked Here
❤	King– Barbara Liskov	MIT Professor, Turing Award, ACM Fellow, SWE Achievement Award, National Inventors Hall of Fame	Linked Here
❤	Jack– Shafrira Goldwasser	MIT Professor, Turing Award, ACM-W Athena Lecturer, ACM Fellow	Linked Here
❤	Ace– Hessa Al Jaber	Qatar ICT Minister, Chair CS Department – Qatar Univ.	Linked Here
❤	10- Mary Jane Irwin	Pennsylvania State Univ. Professor, ACM Fellow, IEEE Fellow, NAE Member, ACM-W Athena Lecturer	Linked Here
❤	9- Irene Greif	ABIE Award for Technical Leadership, IBM User Experience Group, ACM Fellow, AAAS Fellow, Formed Lotus Research 1992	Linked Here
❤	8- Duy-Loan Le	Senior Fellow-Texas Instruments, WITI Hall of Fame, ABI Women of Vision	Linked Here
❤	7- Grete Hermann	Univ. of Göttingen mathematician, 1926 foundational paper for computerized algebra	Linked Here
❤	6- Manuela Veloso	IEEE Fellow, AAAS Fellow, ACM Fellow, JPMorgan Chase AI Research head	Linked Here
❤	5- Lila Ibrahim	COO DeepMind, CBO Coursera, Founder Team4Tech, ABI Woman of Vision, Purdue University-Outstanding Electrical and Computer Engineer	Linked Here
❤	4- Padmasree Warrior	Former Cisco and Motorola CTO, WITI Hall of Fame, Distinguished Alumni Award from IIT Delhi	Linked Here
❤	3- Genevieve Bell	Australian National University Director – Autonomy, Agency and Assurance Institute, ABI Woman of Vision, WITI Hall of Fame	Linked Here
❤	2- Marilyn Wescoff	ENIAC computer programmer team 1946, WITI Hall of Fame	Linked Here
Diamonds	Queen– Anita Borg	Founder Anita Borg Institute, WITI Hall of Fame, Fellow ACM, EFF Pioneer	Linked Here
♦	King– Deborah Estrin	MacArthur Fellow, IEEE Internet Award, ACM, AAAS and IEEE Fellow, ABI Woman of Vision, ACM-W Athena Lecturer	Linked Here
♦	Jack– Yuqing Gao	Former IBM Distinguished Engineer, ABI Woman of Vision, IEEE Fellow	Linked Here
♦	Ace– Susan Graham	UC Berkeley Distinguished Professor, ACM, IEEE, NAE, AAAS Fellow	Linked Here
♦	10- Cristina Amon	Univ. of Toronto Dean-Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, IEEE Fellow, SWE Achievement Award, Canadian Academy of Eng., Spanish Royal Academy, Royal Society of Canada, US NAE	Linked Here
♦	9- Betsy Ancker-Johnson	1st observation of microwave emission without the presence of an external field (1967), Fellow Am Physical Society, Fellow AAAS, IEEE Fellow, Member NAE	Linked Here
♦	8- Arati Prabhakar	Former head US DARPA and NIST, IEEE Fellow	Linked Here
♦	7- Sophie Vandebroek	COO IBM Research, former CTO Xerox, IEEE Fellow, WITI Hall of Fame, Royal Flemish Academy for Arts & Sciences Member	Linked Here
♦	6- Ruzena Bajcsy	UC Berkeley Professor, NAE and NASIM Member, Fellow ACM, IEEE, AAAI, and AAAS, IEEE Robotics and Automation Award	Linked Here
♦	5- Laurie Hendren	Professor McGill Univ., ACM Fellow, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada	Linked Here
♦	4- Lixia Zhang	UCLA Professor, ACM and IEEE Fellow, IEEE Internet Award	Linked Here
♦	3- Betty Snyder	ENIAC computer programmer team 1946, WITI Hall of Fame, Augusta Ada Lovelace Award, IEEE Computer Pioneer Award	Linked Here
♦	2- Kay McNulty	ENIAC computer programmer team 1946, WITI Hall of Fame, National Inventors Hall of Fame	Linked Here
Spades	Queen– Grace Hopper	US Navy Admiral, 1st compiler for a programming, Computer History Museum Fellow, Dist Fellow-British Computer Society, Fellow AAAS, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Hopper College at Yale University	Linked Here
♠	King– Chieko Asakawa	IBM Fellow, ABI Woman of Vision, Japan Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon Member US NAE	Linked Here
♠	Jack– Denice Denton	Univ. California Santa Cruz Chancellor, AAAS Fellow, IEEE Fellow	Linked Here
♠	Ace– Radia Perlman	Intel Fellow, IEEE and ACM Fellow, 1st ABI Woman of Vision award winner, National Inventors Hall of Fame, Internet Hall of Fame	Linked Here
♠	10- Clarisse de Souza	Professor PUC Rio de Janeiro, CHI Academy, Scientific Merit Award of the Brazilian Computer Society	Linked Here
♠	9- Linda Petzold	Univ. California Santa Barbara Professor, ACM Fellow, AAAS Fellow, NAE Member	Linked Here
♠	8- Jennifer Widom	Professor Stanford Univ., ACM Fellow, AAAS Member, NAE Member, Dean-Stanford School of Engineering, ACM-W Athena Lecturer	Linked Here
♠	7- Jean Sammet	IBM Researcher, 1st woman ACM President, ACM Fellow, Computer History Museum Fellow, NCWIT Pioneer Award	Linked Here
♠	6- Helen Greiner	CEO of CyPhy Works, Founder iRobot, ABI woman of vision, WITI Hall of Fame, Presidential Ambassador for Global Leadership	Linked Here
♠	5- Anuradha Annaswamy	MIT Senior Research Scientist, IEEE Fellow, Hay Medal, Indian Institute of Science	Linked Here
♠	4- Qiheng Hu	Founder, China Internet Network Information Center, Internet Hall of Fame, Research Professor – Chinese Academy of Sciences	Linked Here
♠	3- Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum	ENIAC computer programmer team 1946, WITI Hall of Fame	Linked Here
♠	2- Fran Bilas	ENIAC computer programmer team 1946, WITI Hall of Fame	Linked Here
Clubs	Queen– Katherine Johnson	NASA Mathematician, calculated the trajectory of early space launches, NCWIT Pioneer in Tech Award, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility, Subject of movie “Hidden Figures”	Linked Here
♣	King– Augusta Ada Lovelace King	Mathematician, 1st computer programmer 1843	Linked Here
♣	Jack– Jennifer Chayes	Microsoft Research Distinguished Scientist, ACM Fellow, ABI woman of vision, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, von Neumann Prize	Linked Here
♣	Ace– Vicki Hanson	CEO of ACM, Former RIT Distinguished Professor, Professor Univ. of Dundee, ACM Fellow, SIGCHI Social Impact Award, ABI woman of vision, Fellow Royal Society of Edinburgh	Linked Here
♣	10- Ellen Ochoa	NASA Astronaut and Johnson Space Center Director, 1st Hispanic woman in space, NASA Distinguished Service Medal, Harvard Foundation Science Award, San Diego State Univ. Alumna of the Year, Astronaut Hall of Fame	Linked Here
♣	9- Tova Milo	Professor Tel Aviv Univ., ACM Fellow, Academia Europaea	Linked Here
♣	8- Valerie Taylor	ACM Fellow, Director of the Mathematics and Computer Science Division of Argonne National Laboratory, IEEE Fellow	Linked Here
♣	7- Kathleen McKeown	Professor Columbia Univ., ACM and AAAI Fellow, Founding Fellow Association for Computational Linguistics, ABI Women of Vision	Linked Here
♣	6- Susan Landau	Professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, ACM Fellow, AAAS Fellow, ABI Woman of Vision, National Cyber Security Hall of Fame	Linked Here
♣	5- Mary Lou Jepsen	Founder OpenWater, former Google X Head of the Display Division, ABI Woman of Vision, WITI Hall of Fame, One Laptop Per Child Designer	Linked Here
♣	4- Kristina Johnson	National Inventors Hall of Fame, Former Undersecretary US Dept. of Energy, IEEE Fellow, Member NAE, ABI Woman of Vision, SWE Achievement Award	Linked Here
♣	3- Sophie Wilson	Broadcom Director IC Design, Designer Acorn Microcomputer, Computer History Museum Fellow, Fellow Royal Society-London	Linked Here
♣	2- Jean Bartik	ENIAC computer programmer team 1946, WITI Hall of Fame, Fellow Computer History Museum, IEEE Computer Pioneer Award	Linked Here

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Postcast Interview

I very much enjoyed being interviewed by Akshay Birla for his “Life of the Mind” podcast last month. He just published the interview as “Episode 19 | Katy Dickinson on Technology, Mentoring, and Religion”.

Katy Dickinson has been around the tech-block. Hired by Eric Schmidt at Sun Microsystems, she literally wrote the book on the software development lifecycle that Sun used for release of almost 10,000 releases. She is a technologist, entrepreneur, mentor, and writer.

In our conversation Katy talks about her work as a technologist on creating processes:
A process has to not assume that you have world-class people working on it. A process assumes that that not everybody — while they are good-intentioned and competent — [is] perfect. You have to have a system that allows for lack of perfection but can work if you have the best that there is.

and the futility of only having excellent coders:
A good coder is a wonderful thing to have but you have to create something that the customer wants and feels comfortable with. Good coding and user experience are sometimes at odds.

But we spend the most of our conversation talking about mentoring programs that deliver high return-on-investment, and the intersection of religion and technology.

On the importance of example and networking provided by the Grace Hopper Celebration:
While they may be the only women in the room – which has certainly been my experience in 30+ years in the Silicon Valley – there are a lot of rooms.

Listening to your own recorded voice is always surprising – it sounds so different from the inside!

Happy New Year!

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Extra Gear? Gifts for Sierra Leone

My daughter Jessica and I will be visiting Families Without Borders in Sierra Leone next week with Terri Khonsari. If you have any extra laptops or smart phones we can bring – no matter how old or dead – the students will be delighted with your donation. Please contact me soon!

I have visited the inspiring and fascinating continent of Africa at least once a year since 2010. With TechWomen Delegations, I have been to Morocco and Tunisia in North Africa, plus participating in Delegations to Rwanda, Zimbabwe, and South Africa below the Sahara. With People to People, John and I visited Ethiopia. My only actual vacation in Africa was to Egypt in 2010 – a much longer trip than planned since our family was stranded there by the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano.  This will be my first trip to West Africa.

I bring gifts on each trip for our generous hosts and for new friends and colleagues. For my first TechWomen Delegations, I had custom pencils made but more recently, I have brought San Francisco keychains and geeky pens and toys given away at events like the Grace Hopper Conference.  For this trip, I bought keychains, the Willow Glen Wells Fargo Bank branch gave me a big bag of red pens, and I am also bringing packages of stickers for the children.

However, the best present for the students in Sierra Leone would be empowerment and greater connection to the wider world.  Your outdated computer gear can help them.  I hope to hear from you!

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Image Copyright 2017 by Katy Dickinson

TechWomen Mail

The TechWomen mentoring program participants often travel among our 21 countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia.   On our journeys, mentors and mentees often bring each other things, calling such deliveries “TechWomen Mail”. Sometimes the generous TechWomen carry local treats (like cookies or honey), or souvenirs from their country (like pen holders or coffee mugs).  Earlier this year, a traveling mentor bought a rug in the souq only to find it too big for her luggage.  In the next few months, I am sure that rug will arrive in the Silicon Valley with a visiting TechWoman.

Since I would be seeing the Cameroon “Angels Tech of Africa” Technovation team in San Francisco, Janet Fofang (TechWomen 2013 Fellow) asked me to send her some electronics to use when teaching her Tassah Academy or WeTech girls in Yaounde, Cameroon. My husband, John Plocher, put together a box of interesting electronic boards and chips for exploration. Dorothée Danedjo Fouba  (TechWomen 2014 Fellow) kindly agreed to carry the box to Janet. I left the box loosely packed and openable so that Dorothée and customs inspectors could see what it contained – I am sure it looked odd on airport scanners.

This week, Janet wrote me that the box had arrived safely. (Thanks to Dorothée!) Janet and John are now in email discussions about what was in the box, and about software and hardware open source projects he has published on our family website, spcoast.com. We may have more TechWomen Mail headed to Cameroon soon!

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Images Copyright 2015-2016 by Katy Dickinson

Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing – GHC15 in Houston

At the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in Houston, Texas, with my daughter Jessica and 12,000 other geeks, mostly women – including over 20 TechWomen mentors, fellows, and emerging leaders! Jessica and I presented a custom playing card to US CTO Megan Smith (and took the photo below with her).

15 October 2015 Update: We planned to sell our Notable Technical Women and TechWomen playing cards and posters at the GHC15 Duke University exhibit hall table (with Dr. Susan Rodger) on 15 October and 16 October.  We are very disappointed that the shipment of Notable Technical Women and TechWomen playing cards did not arrive – although the posters did.  The posters will be for sale on Friday 16 October until 2 pm at the Duke University exhibit hall table. Playing cards continue to be available for sale on the Notable Technical Women website.  We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this shipping mess up!

Photos Copyright 2015 by Katy Dickinson

History of Women in Computing and Women Leaders in Computing

Last week, Dr. Telle Whitney (CEO and President, Anita Borg Institute), Dr. Susan Rodger (Professor of the Practice in the Computer Science Department at Duke University) and I gave talks on the “History of Women in Computing and Women Leaders in Computing” – as part of the Microsoft Research Gender Diversity Lecture Series, in Redmond, Washington. We were joined at the event by Jody Mahoney (of ABI, who lives in San Francisco) and my daughter Jessica Dickinson Goodman, (who lives in Seattle). We were invited to speak by Dr. Rane Johnson-Stempson and Dr. Jaime Teevan took good care of us while we were at MSR.

Susan, Jessica, and I have been working together since last summer on the Notable Technical Women project but (even though we created a successful Hopper Conference October 2014 Poster and Kickstarter together) we three had never met in-person before.  We had great fun talking and walking around Seattle together after the Seminar.  We are looking forward to getting a link to the video of our talks.

19 June 2015: Microsoft Research posted the video with Dr. Telle Whitney, Dr. Susan Rodger, and me speaking: “Microsoft Research Gender Diversity Lecture Series 5: History of Women in Computing and Women Leaders in Computing”

Images Copyright 2015 by Katy Dickinson and Jessica Dickinson Goodman

TechWomen at ABI Women of Vision

At least 12 TechWomen mentors -Hoda Eldardiry (Xerox PARC), Meredith McKenzie (Juniper Networks), Shalaka Prabhune (Symantec), Shawne Van Deusen-Jeffries (Juniper Networks), Rekha Pai (Juniper Networks), Claudia Galvan (Anita Borg Institute), Myra Nawabi (Lockheed Martin), Ruth Davis (Santa Clara University), Lisa Ramirez (Juniper Networks), Erica Lockheimer (LinkedIn), Audrey Van Belleghem (Anita Borg Institute) and I – were in the audience for tonight’s inspiring Women of Vision annual awards gala by the Anita Borg Institute, held at the Santa Clara Convention Center in the Silicon Valley.  5/15/2015 Thanks to Jeannice, here are more names of TechWomen mentors who attended: Jeannice Fairrer Samani (AACSB University), Felicia Mayo (Juniper Networks). Please send more names if I have missed anyone!

2015 WOV Awards honorees were:

• Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan, Founder and CEO, Drawbridge – for Technology Entrepreneurship
• Julie Larson-Green, Chief Experience Officer, Applications and Services Group, Microsoft – for Leadership
• Camila Fernandez Achutti, University of São Paulo, Brazil – Student of Vision Award

Student of Vision Award Finalist Julia Edwards (of Smith College) was also acknowledged. It was a pleasure to see so many of my remarkable and accomplished sister mentors present to honor our technical community leaders.

Photos Copyright 2015 by Katy Dickinson