Telle Whitney is the former CEO and President of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology. A computer scientist by training, she cofounded the

Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC) is a series of conferences designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. It is the world's largest gathering of women in computing. The celebra ...

with

Anita Borg Anita Borg (January 17, 1949 – April 6, 2003) was an American computer scientist. She founded the Institute for Women and Technology and the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. Education and early life Borg was born Anita Borg Naf ...

in 1994 and joined the Anita Borg Institute in 2002.

Early life

Telle Whitney was born on June 5, 1956 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Raised in a

Latter-day Saint Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into several ...

family descended from

Brigham Young Brigham Young (; June 1, 1801August 29, 1877) was an American religious leader and politician. He was the second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), from 1847 until his death in 1877. During his time as ch ...

, she moved to Southern California when she was 7, and then back to Utah when she was 15 after her mother died. Her father was a lawyer and her mother was a housewife who returned to school to be a history teacher.

Education and early career

Whitney received a bachelor's degree in computer science from the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

in 1978 and a Ph.D. in computer science from

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

in 1985. She moved to Silicon Valley to work in the chip industry, creating chips and the software that supports them. She held senior technical management positions at Actel and Malleable Technologies, as well as senior roles at several startup technology companies.

Founding of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing

In 1994, Whitney and Anita Borg founded the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference, which is the largest gathering of women in computing in the world. With simply the initial idea of creating a conference by and for women computer scientists, Borg and Whitney met over dinner, with a blank sheet of paper, having no idea how to start a conference, and started to plan out their vision. The first Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing was held in Washington, D.C., in June 1994, and brought together 500 technical women. Telle Whitney described walking into the conference and being surrounded by 500 technical women as “life-changing.”

Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology

In 2002, Whitney became President and CEO of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, then known as the Institute for Women and Technology. This was originally intended to be a temporary situation, while the organization searched for a replacement for Anita Borg, but ended up being a turning into a permanent role for Whitney. Under Whitney’s leadership, the Anita Borg Institute has expanded its size and programs. Since 2003, six Grace Hopper Celebrations have been held, and in 2010, the first Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing India was organized. In addition to the Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision Awards, a new awards program has been established to recognize companies that support technical women, the Anita Borg Top Company for Technical Women Award. Telle Whitney retired as President and CEO of AnitaB.org on 9/30/17 and Brenda Darden Wilkerson became the President and CEO on October 1, 2017.

Other activities

In 2004, Telle Whitney co-founded the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) with

Lucy Sanders Lucinda "Lucy" Sanders (born 1954) is the current CEO and a co-founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology. She is the recipient of many distinguished honors in the STEM fields, including induction into the US News STEM Lea ...

and Robert Schnabel. She has served as Secretary/Treasurer of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and is co-chair of the ACM Distinguished member committee. She was a member of the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

CEOSE and CISE advisory committees, and she serves on the advisory boards of Caltech’s Information Science and Technology (IST),

California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology The California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2, previously Cal(IT)2), also referred to as the Qualcomm Institute (QI) at its San Diego branch, is a $400 million academic research institution jointly run by the ...

, and Illuminate Ventures. She is also a member of the Forbes Executive Women’s Board.

Awards

* 2008: Telle Whitney received the Women’s Venture Fund Highest Leaf Award. * 2009: Telle Whitney received the

ACM Distinguished Service Award The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

in 2009. *2009: She received the Marie Pistilli Women in Electronic Design Automation (EDA) Achievement Award in 2009. * 2009: She was named one of San Jose Business Journal’s Top 100 Women of Influence. * 2011: She was named to ''

Fast Company ''Fast Company'' is a monthly American business magazine published in print and online that focuses on technology, business, and design. It publishes six print issues per year. History ''Fast Company'' was launched in November 1995 by Alan Web ...

''’s Most Influential Women in Technology list. * October 2017: She received the lifetime achievement award at the Annual Grace Hopper Celebration. * 2019: IEEE Honorary Membership

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Whitney, Telle American women computer scientists Living people Women nonprofit executives University of Utah alumni California Institute of Technology alumni Scientists from Salt Lake City Businesspeople from Salt Lake City American Latter Day Saints American computer scientists Richards–Young family Year of birth missing (living people) Electronic engineering award winners