[APCPress] No embargo: APC WNSP’s Karen Banks Wins Anita Borg Award for Social Impact

[Karen Higgs]

NO EMBARGO

PRESS RELEASE


APC WNSP’s Karen Banks Wins Anita Borg Award for Social Impact

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — Karen Banks of the APC’s Women’s Programme (APC 
WNSP) is being honoured as recipient of the first Anita Borg Award for 
Social Impact at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 
conference Awards Banquet on Thursday October 7, 2004 in Chicago, USA. 
The Anita Borg Award recognises significant and sustained contributions 
in technology.

The Anita Borg Awards are presented by the Anita Borg Institute for 
Women and Technology, a nationally recognised organization that provides 
platforms allowing women’s voices, ideas and spirits to influence 
technology.  The Institute’s mission is to increase the impact of women 
on all aspects of technology and to increase the positive impact of 
technology on the lives of the world’s women. Karen Banks will receive 
the Anita Borg Award for Social Impact. A second award will be presented 
for Technical Leadership to IBM’s Dr. Fran Allen. Karen will be 
presented with her award at the premier event for technical women in 
computing, the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference.

“At this critical time, the recipients of these first Anita Borg Awards 
offer us a reminder of the substantial influence technology has on our 
lives and the potential for technology to have a significant and 
positive role in shaping the future, said Dr. Telle Whitney, CEO and 
President of the Anita Borg Institute. “This year’s winners embody the 
qualities, understanding and compassion essential for a more positive 
future. In honouring them, we honour all those whose lives exemplify an 
individual’s capacity to excel while making a better future for all.”


Winner of the Anita Borg Award for Social Impact: Karen Banks

For nearly 15 years Karen Banks and the APC Women’s Networking Support 
Programme (APC WNSP) have worked around the globe to bring the use of 
information and communication technologies (ICTs –eg. internet, radio, 
video, cell phones) to underserved women and communities as a tool for 
women’s empowerment, gender equality, social action and positive social 
change.

As the global Coordinator for APC WNSP until July this year, Karen has 
pioneered the use of ICTs for the empowerment of women around the world.

In Africa, the APC WNSP is involved in training women’s groups in 
content generation and dissemination, using ICTs to bringing women’s 
voices on HIV/Aids, peace-building and violence against women directly 
to the policy-makers, decision-makers and the mainstream. In the 
Asia-Pacific region, the network has conducted and coordinated regional 
and national Women’s Electronic Network Training (WENT) workshops, which 
started in 1999, and have become a model for similar women’s training in 
other regions of the world.

Karen and the WNSP have worked with NGOs, activists, and local internet 
service providers to understand the needs of a particular region’s 
national IT policies and barriers to promoting universal access. In the 
Philippines, they have worked on intellectual property regimes, media 
control, and the struggle of communities to access frequency allocations 
for radios and audiovisual work. In Latin America the network is engaged 
in work with local telecentres and public access centres to ensure women 
and men benefit equally in access to and use of public resources.

“Karen has been working in the ICTs for development sector for a decade 
and a half and played a key role in providing email to campaigners and 
development workers in Asia and Africa before commercial internet access 
arrived,” says APC WNSP colleague, Erika Smith. “She's a techie at heart 
but she also truly understands how policy affects not only technological 
developments but PEOPLE. She has served as a mentor to hundreds of women 
and men around the world”.

“Our strategy is to get women central, active and visible in all walks 
of technology. We want to see women everywhere,” says Karen. “We don’t 
want it to be a surprise to see a woman running a wireless shop, fixing 
a pc, or leading a campaign to break with the telecom monopoly in her 
country.”


About the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology
Anita Borg's Institute for Women and Technology increases the positive 
impact of women on technology through programs, partnerships and events 
designed encourage women’s engagement in technology development and to 
support women already working in technology fields. For more information 
see: http://www.anitaborg.org.

About the APC WNSP
The APC WNSP is a global network of women who support women networking 
for social change and women’s empowerment, through the use of 
information and communication technologies (ICTs).  The WNSP promotes 
gender equality in the design, development, implementation, access to 
and use of ICTs and in the policy decisions and frameworks that regulate 
them. The WNSP is part of the Association for Progressive Communications 
(APC), an international network of civil society organizations dedicated 
to empowering and supporting groups and individuals working for 
sustainable development and social justice, through the strategic use 
ICTs, including the internet.
http://www.apcwomen.org
For more about WNSP initiatives: 
http://www.apc.org/english/news/women_index.shtml


FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

Erika Smith
APC WNSP
Erika at apcwomen.org or +52 777 382 1873 (Mexico)

Eric Mason
Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology
ericm at anitaborg.org or +1 650 236 4079 (USA)

Photos available: Contact communications at apc.org