In 1968 Mom built a computer

Speaker: Katheryn Sutter

Track: Social context

Type: Short talk (20 minutes)

Video:

Room: Yushan (玉山) Live Stream

Time: Jul 29 (Sun), 17:00

Duration: 0:20

On the surface, this story shares vignettes about my Mom. But its purpose is to increase awareness of human resources in technology, and overlooked career pathways of women and other young technologists.

For example, In 1973 RCA hired her for self-directed projects in their chip prototyping lab. A marathon week of late-night needlework produced a crochet blanket and proved her mathematical mind to skeptical women co-workers. She told me stories of such ladies who wrapped wires for NASA a few years before. She said women’s milleniums of technical fiber-crafts were acknowledged when they helped put men on the moon.