 ANITA BROWN is founder and
Chair of Black Geeks Online, a nonprofit corporation based in Washington, D.C. For the
past five years, she has guided this grassroots movement, and increased its growth from 18
to 25,000 members. She has applied her 30 years of experience and vast networks using,
primarily, e-mail as "push technology." She shares success stories, career
opportunities, and IT
trends and policy via Heads^UP email bulletins -- always challenging the tech-savvy
members to serve as mentors, trainers, and role models for children and adults who don't
"get IT."Since 1997, she has
served as advisor to the Morino Institute, founded by Reston, Virginia software pioneer,
Mario Morino.
Anita has been a "serial" entrepreneur. She has
developed and managed several businesses in the past 10 years, including a desktop
publishing service and a nostalgia T-shirt company. Since graduation from high school in
1961, the world of work has been her classroom, and has taken her from secretary to CEO.
During the 1970s, she was a consultant to Yale University's
Drug Dependence Institute. In the 1980s, she was appointed as an advisor to Smithsonian
Institution's Committee for a Wider Audience.
In 1996, she designed and managed the help desk for NetNoir
on AOL. She personalized this service by translating confusing terms into people-speak,
included her photo, and served as "SistahGeek," concierge. Later in that year,
she moderated a weekly spirituality forum for NetNoir. She's a champion for African
Americans -- especially women -- who are wary of or confused by the IT boom, and their
place in it.
In January 2000, Anita Brown was voted one of the Top 25
Women on the Web by San Francisco Women on the Web.
In September 1999, Anita was among six members of Black
Geeks Online invited to the White House Briefing with the African American Internet
Community. Sixty-five netpreneurs, web developers, content producers, and journalists
participated in briefings on the Administration's science and technology accomplishments
and initiatives.
Also in 1999, she received the Marketing Opportunities for
Blacks in Entertainment (MOBE) award as Internet Influencer and Innovator. In 1998, Anita
received an Excellence Award for extraordinary leadership in the field of Internet
technology, from Central Savannah River Area Chapter, BDPA IT Thought Leaders; she was
listed among "Women to Know in New Media" by University of Southern California's
Online Journalism Review; and received the Distinguished New Media Professional award from
Public Relations, Advertising & Marketing Executives (PRAME).
Anita Brown and Black Geeks Online have received phenomenal
media recognition and coverage:
On Feb. 16, 2000, Anita was panelist on "BET Tonight
with Tavis Smiley" (Stop the Internet Madness).
The Winter 1999 issue of The Conduit: the definitive
technological guide for the African in America, featured "A Conversation with Anita
Brown" and voted Black Geeks Online seventh among "The Conduit Top 20 Black Tech
Companies."
In August 1999, Anita appeared on "Tech Know: The
Digital Revolution," a program of America's Black Forum. Following the taping, Anita,
along with two members of Black Geeks Online, were featured in a BBC News program,
"The Digital Divide" (also posted at the BBC website).
Anita has been featured or profiled in Wired.com,
womenCONNECT.com, USA Today, GirlGeeks.com, the Washington Business Journal, The Source
magazine, Essence and Black Enterprise. She will be featured in the "People"
column of an upcoming
issue of Wired magazine, and in the May 2000 issue of Upside magazine, a cover story on
"The Top 25 Women on the Web." Anita serves on the boards of Kids Computer
Workshop in Washington, DC, and the Step Up Corporation in Woodbridge, Virginia. She
mentors two graduates of Archbishop Carroll High School. From 1997-98, she was a member of
the Underrepresented Groups Task Force, National Information Technology Workforce
Convocation. She recently became a member of The Center for The Study of Psychiatry and
Psychology (Peter Breggin, M.D., founder).
Anita Brown a sixth generation Washingtonian, is the proud
mother of two "30something" children, and the grandmother of a uniquely
beautiful and delightful granddaughter. She's an avid reader, a student of human
development, Feng Shui, and the voluntary simplicity movement. |
