Women Who Inspire Us
Education

Anita Borg

Anita Borg was a member of the research staff at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. She was also the president and founding director of the Institute for Women and Technology, a nonprofit organization focused on increasing women's impact on technology and increasing the positive impact of technology on women worldwide.

After receiving her Ph.D. from New York University, Borg worked for four years on a fault tolerant operating system for Auragen Systems Corporation in New Jersey and then with Nixdorf Computer in Germany. She spent 1986 to 1997 at Digital Equipment Corporation, where she developed and patented a performance analysis method for high-speed memory systems. During that time, she also developed Mecca, a system for communicating in virtual communities.

Founder of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, Borg is also a leader on women's computing issues in the Association for Computing Machinery, the Computing Research Association and the National Academy of Engineering.

Borg has received many awards, including the Pioneer Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Augusta Ada Lovelace Award from the Association of Women in Computing. In 1998, she was inducted into the Hall of Fame of Women in Technology International.

Also: Read the transcript of the GirlGeeks chat with Anita Borg.