Anita Borg Institute Announces the 2011 Anita Borg Social Impact, Anita Borg Technical Leadership, and Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award Winners

PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwire - Oct 12, 2011) - The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) announced today the winners of the 2011 Anita Borg Social Impact and Technical Leadership Awards and the Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award. The winners will be honored for their accomplishments and contributions to women in technology at an awards ceremony on November 11, 2011 during the11th Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC) in Portland, Oregon.

The Anita Borg Social Impact Award honors an individual or team that has caused technology to have a positive impact on the lives of women and society or has caused women to have a significant impact on the design and use of technology. The 2011 award winner is Anne Ikiara. Anne Ikiara is a passionate nonprofit administrator and social scientist working for women's rights and youth empowerment. As General Manager of NairoBits, Anne has impacted over 6000 women and girls throughout Africa by implementing and overseeing information and communications technology (ICT) training programs that enable girls and women to gain technical skills and access to job opportunities. She also supervises and advises organizations duplicating the NairoBits concept in Zanzibar, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Tanzania through the MamaBits consultancy. The Anita Borg Social Impact Award is underwritten by Microsoft.

The Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award is given to a woman who has inspired the women's technology community through outstanding technological and social contributions. This year's winner Mary Lou Soffa is the Owen R. Cheatham Professor and Department Chair of the Computer Science Department at the University of Virginia. She has been a leader as a faculty member, researcher, administrator, teacher, mentor, and overall inspiration. She has also been dedicated to improving the representation of women and minorities in computer science. She has had a significant impact on the number and quality of computer science graduates, at all levels, from underrepresented groups. Mary Lou Soffa has been unusually successful in personally mentoring graduate students in underrepresented groups. Of her graduated Ph.D. students, over 50% are women or minorities. She has developed a program to recruit and retain African American students in graduate school in sciences and mathematics and achieved a 100% increase in four years. The Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award is underwritten by Bloomberg.

The Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award is given each year to a junior non-tenured faculty member under the age of 40 at an academic or research institution pursuing high-quality research in any field of engineering or physical sciences while contributing significantly to promoting diversity in his/her environment. The 2011 Denice Denton Award winner is Tiffani Williams is Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University. Her research is in computational phylogenetics, specifically in designing high-performance algorithms for reconstructing evolutionary trees. She is a compelling mentor whose personal outreach to struggling students has directly resulted in the retention and advancement of underrepresented minority students in computer science. Through her work, Tiffani Williams has demonstrated a personal and professional commitment to diversity in computer science, through direct outreach to struggling students, active involvement in programs that support diversity in computing, and leading by example. The Denice Denton Award is underwritten by Microsoft.

About the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing

The world's largest gathering of women in computing in industry, academia, and government, the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is a four day technical conference designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. Co-presented by the Anita Borg Institute and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the conference has expanded this year to now feature more than 132 sessions (panels, workshops, technical papers, Ph.D. forum, new investigators, technical posters, a track on large scale computing, and "birds of a feather" sessions) across ten tracks, invited technical speakers, and the ACM Student Research Competition.

This year's conference theme, "What If...?", recognizes that innovation in technology arises from the question: "What if a culture of technology that encourages participation and inquiry from a diverse workforce leads to greater levels of innovation?" More than 2800 women and men from over 30 countries in industry, academia, and government are expected to turn out for this year's event. GHC provides technical women with visibility, a sense of community, critical social networks and mentoring relationships that improve female representation in the field. Conference registration is now open. For more information, go to www.gracehopper.org.

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