Anita Borg Social Impact Award Winner 2009

(Note: I just realized I had this post saved on my desktop and not posted on the blog yet! Sorry for delay. Got caught up with the amazing Sponsor night on Friday and traveling back home. Better late than never?)

This year's Social Impact Award Winner, Ekaterina Fedatova, is the Director of the Information Dissemination and Equal Access (IDEA Project).

The goal of the project is to foster information literacy and culture throughout Russia by bringing free access to computers and the internet. The program also provides a training program and workshops on job search and building employment skills. The curriculum gives hands on practical knowledge and provides the opportunity to overcome barriers of fear in technology. As a result of the project, there are now 60 centers in 52 cities, and thousands of people trained!

Here in Canada and America, majority of us are so used to having access to the internet everywhere we go, that we forget how privileged we are sometimes. It's interesting to see how much we've come to rely on technology these days. The importance of the internet and computers have skyrocketed drastically over the years! Remember the days of dial-up? I can't wait to sit down with my kids one day and say "Yknow, back when I was your age we had this thing called dial-up internet... ".