A very happy birthday to Telle Whitney, whose experiences as a female computer scientist in 1980s and 1990s Silicon Valley inspired work that has made her one of the foremost champions for women in the tech industry.
Born June 5, 1956, in Utah, Whitney began her college career at the University of Utah without a strong leaning toward any field. But two years in, a technical skills assessment showed her aptitude for computer technology to be “head and shoulders above anything else,” and Whitney decided to go with it. She enrolled in a COBOL class and hasn’t looked back since. The COBOL class led to work with UNIVAC, earning a PhD in computer science at the California Institute of Technology, and the career in Silicon Valley.
Advocacy and lasting impact on women in tech
Whitney’s biggest impact has come not through her code but through her advocacy. Soon after she began her computer science studies, she became acutely aware of how few women were in the field. In a 2002 oral interview, Whitney recalled: “As a woman who went to Cal Tech, you just got automatically got all of this attention. … For me, when I discovered computer science, it was exciting, and it was enriching, and it was intellectually stimulating; I didn’t really consider the fact that I was the only woman sitting in this room. It just was somewhat irrelevant.”
Whitney began seeking out other women in the industry, forming a close relationship with Anita Borg, who founded the Systers listserv in 1987. Together, Whitney and Borg co-founded the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in 1994. Today, it’s the world’s largest gathering of women in tech.
In 2002, Whitney succeeded Borg as president and CEO of the Institute for Women and Technology following Borg’s passing. Whitney served in this role until 2017. The institute was renamed the Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology and is now known as AnitaB.org.
Whitney published the book Rebooting Tech Culture: How to Ignite Innovation and Build Organizations Where Everyone Can Thrive in 2025.
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This post originally appeared on Smarter MSP.