Megan Smith

Smith grew up in Buffalo, New York, and Fort Erie, Ontario,[12] and spent many summers at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York, where her mother, Joan Aspell Smith, was director of the Chautauqua Children's School.[13] Smith graduated from City Honors School in 1982.[14] She went on to receive her S.B. in 1986 and an S.M. in 1988, both in mechanical engineering, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and completed her Master's thesis work at the MIT Media Lab. She was a member of the MIT student team that designed, built and raced a solar car 2000 miles across the Australian outback in the first cross-continental solar car race.[15]

Following MIT, Smith worked at a variety of start-ups, including Apple in Tokyo and General Magic located in Mountain View, California, as product design lead on nascent smartphone technologies[16] before she got involved with the launch of Planet Out in 1995. She joined formally in 1996 as COO and from 1998 she was Planet Out's Chief Executive Officer, where she presided over that company's merger with Gay.com.[17][18]

In 2003, she joined Google,[19] where she rose to the vice president of new business development, leading early-stage partnerships, pilot explorations and technology licensing across Google's global engineering and product teams. She led many early acquisitions, including Keyhole (Google Earth), Where2Tech (Google Maps), and Picasa, and later also took over as general manager of Google's philanthropic arm, Google.org.[20] Smith co-created and co-hosted Google's Solve for X solution acceleration programs 2012-14.[21] In 2012, she started Google's "Women Techmakers" diversity initiative.[22]

In 2014, she left Google to become the 3rd U.S. CTO. After leaving the White House in 2017, she helped launch the Tech Jobs Tour, which aims to promote diversity in the technological sector.[23]

Smith serves on the board of MIT,[24] as well as on the advisory boards for the MIT Media Lab, DRAPER, and Technology Review and serves on the board of Vital Voices. She is also a member of the Award Selection Committee for the distinguished Carroll L. Wilson Award at MIT.[25] Smith has contributed to a broad range of engineering projects, including a bicycle lock,[26] space station construction program, and solar cookstoves.

She is an active proponent of STEM education and innovation.[27]

Her appeal for technologists to work in public service at the annual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing inspired several Harvard University students to create the national non-profit organization Coding it Forward which creates data science and technology internship program for undergraduate and graduate students in United States federal agencies.[28]

As of March 2018 she is the CEO and Founder of shift7 which works on tech-forward, inclusive innovation for faster impact on systemic economic, social, and environmental challenges.

• World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer 2001, 2002[29]
• Listed by Out magazine in 2012[30] and 2013,[31] as one of the 50 most powerful LGBT people in the United States
• Reuters Digital Vision Program Fellow at Stanford, 2003-2004[32]
• Top 25 Women on the Web, 2000[33]
• Upside Magazine 100 Digital Elite, 1999 and 2000[34]
• Advertising Age i.20, 1999[35]
• GLAAD Interactive Media Award for Internet Leadership, 1999[36]
• Charging Buffalo Award, 2015[37]
• Business Insider 23 Most Powerful LGBTQ+ People in Tech, 2019[38]

Smith married technology columnist Kara Swisher in Marin County in 1999[39] (before same-sex marriage was legal in California). They have two sons, Louis and Alexander,[15][17][40][41] and are divorced.[42]

• Heney, Paul. "Leadership in Engineering: Megan Smith's vision of technology for all". Design World. Design World. Retrieved 22 March 2019.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Megan Smith.

• Official biography at Office of Science and Technology Policy
• Profile of Megan Smith, U.S. Chief Technology Officer - Makers: Women Who Make America