Each hour we are featuring a woman we admire who is currently doing amazing work right in the tech/maker/art/science space. Woman of the hour, Robin Chase.
Robin Chase is the co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar, an innovative car sharing service, and is currently the CEO of GoLoco.org, a venture combining online carpooling and social networking. She is also founder of Meadow Networks, a transportation consulting firm, and maintains a blog Network Musings on the topics of climate change, transportation, and wireless networks.
Chase is known as a global thought leader in the transportation sector. Her work is an illustration of the ways in which resource sharing, open platforms, and end-user participation can prove beneficial to individuals, businesses, and governments. Craig Newmark wrote “Robin’s work illustrates what’s best about people using the Internet: not well-intentioned yet futile do-goodism but business that’s also a community service. It’s about people using the Internet to work together in the service of one another.”
Zipcar provides a platform for people to share cars; GoLoco, a platform to share rides. She is also a champion for the creation of a mesh network so that end-user devices can create a shared wireless network. She is a proponent of expanding internet access, participating in the InternetforEveryone kick-off event.
About today:
Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging (videologging, podcasting, comic drawing etc.!) to draw attention to the achievements of women in technology and science. Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognized. We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines, whatever they do. It doesn’t matter how new or old your blog is, what gender you are, what language you blog in, or what you normally blog about – everyone is invited.
Who was Ada? Ada Lovelace Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852) was one of the world’s first computer programmers, and one of the first people to see computers as more than just a machine for doing sums. She wrote programs for Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, a general-purpose computing machine, despite the fact that it was never built. She also wrote the very first description of a computer and of software.