Bay Area tech pioneers get their own Barbies
Barbie isn't one to be pigeonholed into a profession just because she's a woman. She's had an impressive 200 careers on her resume — doctor, astronaut, computer engineer, CEO and even presidential candidate.
For International Women's Day today, Mattel, which owns the Barbie brand, is hoping to inspire young girls to embrace the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, by honoring a select group of STEM pioneers with their own Barbie doll.
Among them are the Wojcicki sisters — Susan (longtime CEO of YouTube), Anne (CEO of athome DNA testing company 23andME) and Janet (professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at UC San Francisco).
Susan Wojcicki announced in February that she was “stepping back” from her leadership role at YouTube after nearly a decade of running the videosharing platform.
Wojcicki has been involved with YouTube's parent company Google from its earliest days, when its two founders worked out of her garage in California to build a search engine. She later became Google's 16th employee and has worked at the company for nearly 25 years.
The group also includes women STEM trailblazers from around the world such as Maggie Aderin-Pocock, a space scientist and educator from the United Kingdon; Antje Boetius, a marine researcher and microbiologist from Germany; Li Yinuo, cofounder of ETU Education, a school startup in China that offers a more personalized education; and Katya Echazarreta, an electrical engineer who has worked on five NASA missions and the first woman born in Mexico to travel to space.
“Our parents fostered independence and a belief that we could truly be anything we wanted to be when I grew up, but most important was to pursue a passion,” Anne Wojcicki said in a statement. “I hope that sharing our stories encourages young girls to try something new, face something that may scare them, and look at challenges as exciting opportunities.”