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Mass High Tech this morning honored 11 outstanding women for their achievements in high-tech, at the publication’s annual Women to Watch event.
The breakfast event drew 250 people to the Fairmount Copley Plaza to celebrate the careers of the 11 honorees, picked out from a list of over 100 nominees named by members of New England’s technology industry.
Women’s contributions in technology fields are now more important than ever, said honoree Marcie Black, CTO of Bandgap Engineering Inc., as engineering has become more specialized. As the knowledge required to advance technology becomes greater, each individual engineer becomes more specialized, she said. As a result, communication and collaboration become more important.
“Women tend to be very good at working on teams and collaborating. Therefore women as well as men are a very important part of science in the future,” she said. Black’s company, Bandgap, is developing nanotechnology for more efficient silicon in photovoltaic systems.
Amy Duwel, a Women to Watch honoree in 2004, the event’s inaugural year, was in the audience for the 2010 awards. Duwel, leader of the micro electro-mechanical sensors (MEMS) group at Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Inc., said she values the event as a celebration of achievement. “I think it’s kind of enterprising and a morale boost for a lot of people,” she said.
Many of the women honored by the Women to Watch program have dedicated hours outside of work to smoothing the path for the next generation of women technologists and entrepreneurs. “By honoring the women that we are today, we not only give them the recognition they richly deserve, but we can point to them as role models,” said MHT publisher Douglas Banks. The morning’s honorees each took to the podium for a two-minute speech. For every minute over two, they agreed to donate $100 to the Science Club for Girls. The event raised at least $400 for the Cambridge after-school girls’ science education organization.
Role models are critical for encouraging young women to enter science and technology fields, said Lena Crowley, director of the middle school program at Girls Inc. of Lynn, who attended the event - “that, and the opportunity to participate in informal science education, no tests no timing, giving them a chance to use inquiry.”
Honorees were invited in their two-minute speeches to give advice to sixth-grade girls interested in technology. “Eat your broccoli,” said Candace Fleming, CEO of semantic search startup Crimson Hexagon Inc., who brought her six-year-old daughter Piper to the event. “I literally mean eat your broccoli, but I also mean metaphorically, do those things in life that are good for you.”
Jill Drury, associate department head at the MITRE Corp., offered her advice in the form of a haiku: “Question without fear. / Ignorance is the real shame. / Fools are not learning,” she said.
Others’ advice was more prosaic. Black talked about how important her family has been in supporting her career. “There’s a saying that behind every great man is a great woman,” she said. “Well, behind every great woman is a great man. So choose your husbands wisely.”
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