Here are five things to know about the country’s top technology advisor.
1. Ms. Smith assumed the CTO position in September 2014, the first woman to fill the role since it was created at the beginning of President Obama’s first term in office. In this role, Ms. Smith “will guide the administration’s information technology policy and initiatives, continuing the work of her predecessors to accelerate attainment of the benefits of advanced information and communications technologies across every sector of the economy and aspect of human well-being,” according to the White House.
2. As an assistant to the president, Ms. Smith advised President Obama on net neutrality issues before the president announced his position in favor of a free and open Internet, according to a New York Times report. Additionally, Ms. Smith has briefed President Obama on how to recruit technologists into the government to develop state-of-the-art digital and mobile services, focusing particularly on women. She also launched a page on the White House website called “The Untold Stories of Women in Science and Technology,” highlighting the advancements and contributions women have made to STEM and calling on society to help “share these stories in any way you can to help inspire more young women and men to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math.”
3. She joined the White House administration from Google[x] where she served as a vice president, leading projects include SolveForX, an innovation community project, and WomenTechmakers, an initiative promoting diversity in technology. Before serving as vice president, Ms. Smith was vice president of new business development at Google for nine years, during which she led Google’s acquisition of platforms like Google Earth and Google Maps. Ms. Smith also previously served as CEO of PlanetOut — an online LGBT community — and worked on multimedia products at Apple Japan.
4. A clear advocate for women and diversity in technology, Ms. Smith believes children should be taught how to code in elementary school, according to The Atlantic. In this way, the U.S. can bolster its workforce’s tech talent, which she said is what is needed in the government. “Second graders learn to read, that’s a perfect time to make them code,” she said, according to the report. Additionally, she suggests small, code-training academies could help fill the vacant IT jobs in this country, according to the report.
5. Ms. Smith completed both her undergraduate and graduate coursework in mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 1988 to 1993 and again from 2006 to early 2014, she served as a member of the MIT Corp., the governing body of MIT. While a student at MIT, Ms. Smith participated in a student research project that flew on Space Shuttle Atlantis and designed, built and raced a solar car in the first cross-continental solar car race, 2,000 miles across the Australian outback. Ms. Smith was selected as MIT’s commencement speaker for 2015.
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