Anita Borg Institute Announces 2011 Change Agent Award Winners

PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwire - Oct 12, 2011) - The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) today announced the two winners of the Anita Borg Change Agent Awards for 2011. These awards, underwritten by Google, celebrate the accomplishments of technical women from developing countries who are working in their community to attract and support women in technology. This year's winners are Marita Cheng from Australia and Judith Owagar from Kenya. The Anita Borg Change Agent Award winners are being recognized for their technical leadership and advocacy work.

The winners will be honored and will speak at the 2011 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in Portland, Oregon November 9-12, 2011.

Marita Cheng from Australia is the founder of Robogals, a student-run organization that aims to increase female participation in engineering, science and technology through fun and educational activities aimed at girls in primary and secondary school.

Judith Owigar from Kenya is the president of Akirachix; a revolution for African women and technology which gives African women a voice in science and technology.

"The Anita Borg Change Agent Award Winners have a profound social impact on the lives of girls and women in their countries," said Telle Whitney, CEO of the Anita Borg Institute. "Change Agents are role models for women at all levels of technology and show how much impact an individual can have on changing the culture of technology."

The world's largest gathering of women in computing in industry, academia, and government, GHC is a four-day technical conference designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. 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.