New age tech: Top women closing the gender digital divide

"One day there won’t be female leaders. There will just be leaders," - Sheryl Sandberg,

Women and Technology? No Way! This is a common bias that most men and some women have, even today. Even the word ‘technical’ which is associated with tech giants during their recruitment drives, ironically, drifts towards a male persona. Several still complain that there aren’t many women in tech, these fall among the few who need to be reminded of the gigantic strides that women have taken in the history of technology.

 

As the list of the trailblazing women in the world of technology continues to grow, they dispel some age-old stereotypes and misconceptions along the way, either holding critical positions at the C-level or as founders of some of the path-breaking inventions of the future.

 

Misconception: Do women know how to use the internet?

Elizabeth Churchill

Google, the only internet company that every single person on the planet relies on for data, has Elizabeth Churchill as its director of user experience. A British-American psychologist, her expertise in human-computer based interactions are perhaps the cornerstones of upcoming trends. She has worked with eBay Research Labs (ERL), Yahoo! Research, and led research focused on collaboration tools in software engineering in Japan.

Susan Wojcicki

A tech leader for over 20 years, CEO of YouTube, and was involved in founding Google, Susan Wojcicki is now estimated to be worth around $815 million. Working with two of the largest tech giants, Susan has continuously shared her learnings and thoughts while working in such a competitive landscape.

Sheryl Sandberg

The dramatic increase in Facebook’s erstwhile dominance since 2008 can be attributed to Sheryl Sandberg, who served at the firm as COO. In her career, she focused on increasing the platform for small business advertising to increase ad revenue by 21% during 2020. She has a net worth of around $1.7 billion as of today.

 

Anjali Sud

An American businesswoman of Indian descent, Anjali Sud is the CEO of Vimeo. She has been conferred with the ‘Young Global Leader’ at the World Economic Forum and also features in Fortune’s 40 under 40 list in 2018.

 

“Life is a series of building, testing, changing and iterating.”

– Lauren Mosenthal

 

Stereotype: Women can’t build anything

Whitney Wolfe Herd

You can attribute the rapid success of online dating forum Bumble to Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder and CEO of the firm, spearheading it to become a leading contender to its peer Tinder. Named as Forbes 30 under 30,  she is a self-made billionaire and the youngest woman to take a company public.

Safra Catz

Erstwhile CEO of Oracle, Safra Catz has put on several hats within the firm, CFO, co-president being some of them. She is a billionaire banker and technology veteran who had been listed in 2009, as the 12^th most powerful businesswoman. She has inspired several budding tech women and was the most recent board member at Walt Disney.

Gwynne Shotwell

SpaceX COO and with a net worth of $460 million, Gwynne Shotwell was also featured as the 49^th most powerful woman in Forbes. As an industry leader, she regularly shares her vision and the importance of STEM. In talks such as ‘Launching Our Future’ held at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, she delves into her views on aerospace technology, and the need for further inclusion of D&I in the advancement of society.

Katie Moussouris

Founder of Luta Security and part of a US -based think tank that is involved in cybersecurity, Katie Moussouris can be called an entreprenueur, computer security researcher and a pioneer in testing vulnerability disclosure. With firms like Microsoft and Symantec in her kitty, her expertise with the US Department of Defense led her to be involved in the creation of the first bug bounty program targeting hackers.

 

Roshni Nadar

CEO, executive director at HCL Corporation, Roshni Nadar is also ranked among the world’s 100 most powerful women in the 54^th position. She has founded VidyaGyan, which is an academy dedicated to the economically-disadvantaged children and who are academically gifted.

Deepa Madhavan

She has managed PayPal at its helm, leading the technology solution for Data Privacy at the firm. Apart from this, her two-decade track record  includes firms such as Deloitte, PennWell, and Optimal Technologies. She is revered as a very influential person in the world of technology.

Neelam Dhawan

With an expansive career of 35 years across some notable companies like HCL, Microsoft, IBM and HP, Neelam Dhawan has garnered a name for herself as one of India’s women leaders in IT. She has been at the helm at Microsoft and HP within India and launched the Omen series of gaming laptops.

 

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