Black History Month 2020 - EEECS Black Trailblazers

Posted on: 1 October 2020 in Blog posts

Black History Month 2020

Black History Month 2020 takes place from 1st - 31st October. Each year the University takes this time raise awareness of events relating to race and ethnicity.
It is a time to learn, reflect and celebrate, so we wanted to take a look at some black trailblazers from the fields of Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Computer Science.

 

Kimberly Bryant: Founder of Black Girls Code 

Image of Kimberly Bryant

(Image source - Kimberly Bryant/LinkedIn)

  • Kimberly founded Black Girls Code in 2011.
  • It is a non-proft organisation which was set up to teach programming to young girls of colour.
  • It's vision is to 'increase the number of women of color in the digital space by empowering girls of color ages 7 to 17 to become innovators in STEM fields, leaders in their communities, and builders of their own futures through exposure to computer science and technology. To provide African-American youth with the skills to occupy some of the 1.4 million computing job openings expected to be available in the U.S. by 2020, and to train 1 million girls by 2040.'
  • Before setting it up, Kimberly was an Electrical Engineer who had worked in biotech for over 20 years.

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Mark Dean: Co-creator of the IBM personal computer 

  • Mark is an inventor and computer engineer.
  • He was part of the team that developed the ISA bus, and he also led a design team for making a one- gigahertz computer processor chip.
  • In 1981, Mark was the co-creator of the IBM personal computer.
  • He was also the first African-American to become an IBM fellow, which highlights the highest level of technical excellence.

Granville Tailer Woods: First African-American to become a Mechanical and Electrical Engineer

  • Granville was an inventor who held more than 60 patents.
  • When he was younger he could not afford to study at college but he later graduated in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering. 
  • His work is credited for making transport systems throughout the United States safer and better because he invented and patented tunnel construction for the electric railroad system.

Donna Auguste: Former Senior Engineering Manager at Apple

Image of Donna Auguste

(Image source - Donna Auguste/LinkedIn)

  • Donn earned her undergraduate Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
  • She did research into artificial intelligence while studying for a graduate degree in Computer Science.
  • Apple hired her to work as a software engineering manager for the Newton PDA development project.
  • Donna then founded Freshwater Software in 1996 - which she went on to sell for $107 million! 
  • With the money she formed a non-profit organisation, Leave a Little Room Foundation, which helps provide vaccinations, housing and electricity to underpriviledged people around the world. 

Find out more about Black History Month 2020:

 

 

 

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