10 Black Women in Tech History
By Rosa Otieno, Contributor, Black Tech Women & Anndrea Moore | Founder, Black Tech Women
It’s no secret that black women are underrepresented in several industries. Representation of women of color drops even lower at each level of the corporate pipeline. According to the 2018 Women in the Workplace survey, women of color hold 4% of C-suite positions.
The numbers in the technology industry fall even shorter. According to a report by the Kapor Center, less than 0.5% are held by Black women. However, Black women have been blazing the trail and leading organizations long before diversity in tech became a hot topic.
For Women’s History Month, we are highlighting a few black female leaders who have made breakthroughs in the technology ecosystem. See how these women have made remarkable contributions in business, technology, and entreprepreneurship.
President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson has had a distinguished career that includes senior leadership positions in academia, government, industry, and research. She is the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. from MIT (specializing in Physics). She leveraged her knowledge of physics to advance telecommunications research at Bell Laboratories which influenced the…
