The Tech Awards Judges
Education
Michael Kevane, Chair
Associate Professor and Chair
Economics Department
Santa Clara University
Michael Kevane conducts research on economic institutions and growth in poor countries, focusing on Africa. He is the author of Women and Development in Africa: How Gender Works (Lynne Rienner, 2004), which analyzes how gender operates at the village level to structure the choices that men and women take as economic actors. Other research includes articles on the performance of rural institutions and markets in journals such as World Development, Review of Development Economics, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, and Africa. He is co-editor of a book, Kordofan Invaded (Brill, 1998), that brought together cutting-edge research on the province of Kordofan in western Sudan. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley in 1993. His dissertation, 'Agrarian Structure and Agricultural Practice in Western Sudan' was the result of several years of fieldwork in village communities. Recent field research has focused on gender issues in Burkina Faso. Michael now teaches in the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University, where he is a Dean Witter Fellow. He is also President of the Sudan Studies Association, and President of Friends of African Village Libraries, a non-profit he co-founded in 2001.
Stuart Gannes
Executive Director
Fab Foundation
Stuart Gannes brings a lifelong interest in learning and innovation to the position of Director of the Stanford Digital Vision Fellowship program. His career spans the disciplines of journalism, software publishing corporate research, and education. After graduating with a BA from the University of Michigan, Gannes received his Masters in Education and Social Policy at Harvard University. Working as a journalist in New York, he covered the field of higher education, and then moved to Time-Life Books where he edited numerous "How-to" books for popular audiences. Later, as Associate Editor at Discover and Fortune Magazines he covered science and technology and focused on the expanding use of computer technology in business and society at large. In 1988-89 Gannes was a journalism fellow at Stanford University. Afterward he remained in Silicon Valley and entered the computer industry, working for Mips Computer Systems, before founding a software company, called Books That Work, where he served as CEO and publisher.
Taking advantage of the increasing availability of powerful, low cost personal computers, Books That Work developed award-winning software tools that made it possible for non-professionals to design and visualize projects with 3-D graphics. Following the sale of the company in 1997, Gannes accepted a position as Vice President of Internet Applications for AT&T Labs in Menlo Park, California. At AT&T he was responsible for advanced development and service prototyping. Under his leadership, research scientists worked on a variety of practical projects, including wireless data services, e-mail clients, computer-based voice response systems, and authentication tools.
In early 2002 Gannes was recruited by Stanford University as the inaugural Director of the Digital Vision Program at the Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI). Over the past two and a half years the DV program has evolved from an independent fellowship experience to an integrated prototyping course that focuses on technology innovation and social entrepreneurship. The goal is to support the design and concept-testing and sustainability modeling of technology solutions that address humanitarian needs in the developing world. Digital Vision fellows draw on the resources of Stanford University, Silicon Valley, and the DV program to prototype innovative ICT-based products and services. Toward this mission they focus on a wide range of subjects, including technology assessment, regulatory policy, social entrepreneurship, sustainability models, program management skills and user interface models. In addition to offering DV fellows prototyping support, the nine-month DV program includes lectures, readings, case studies, seminars and workshops.
Beyond his duties at Stanford University, Gannes serves as Director of the Earthpledge Foundation in New York, whose 'sustainability' initiatives highlight the connections between everyday choices, personal well-being and a healthy world. He is the proud father of three daughters.
Carol Ann Gittens
Associate Professor of Education
Director, SCU Assessment Office
Santa Clara University
Professor Carol Ann Giancarlo received her Ph.D. in social / personality psychology in 1996 from the University of California at Riverside. Professor Giancarlo joined the faculty of Santa Clara University in 1996, holding a tenure-track appointment in both Teacher Education and the undergraduate Liberal Studies program. In 2005 she became the associate dean for the School of ECPPM and from 2006-2009 is serving as the program director for the undergraduate Pre-Teaching / Liberal Studies Program.
The central focus of Professor Giancarlo's research is on the interface of critical thinking, motivation, and academic achievement of adolescents and young adults. She is first-author of the California Measure of Mental Motivation (CM3), a critical thinking disposition assessment instrument for children, adolescents and adults. The validation study of the CM3 appears in the April 2004 issue of the Journal of Educational and Psychological Measurement. She is also co-author of the Adolescent Reasoning Test (ART), a mathematical reasoning assessment instrument for middle school students. Professor Giancarlo teaches courses in educational assessment, research methods, instructional technology and curriculum innovation, critical thinking pedagogy, psychological foundations of education, developmental psychology, and community health education. Professor Giancarlo's consulting activities include working with college administrators, faculty and staff, K-12 educators around the issues of critical thinking pedagogy and assessment, integrating critical thinking across the curriculum, critical thinking and co-curricular programs, as well as statistics and assessment design for individuals and institutions.
Jouko Salo
Program Manager
TEKES - The Finnish Funding Agency of Technology and Innovation
Jouko Salo joined the Finnish Funding Agency of Technology and Innovation (Tekes) in 1997 and has worked in the Silicon Valley office of Tekes 2001 - 2003 and again from August 2008. He manages Tekes researcher visitor programs with UC Berkeley and Stanford University. His main responsibility is to promote and facilitate joint research between Finnish universities and research institutes and UC Berkeley and Stanford. At Berkeley Tekes is a member of International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) and the CITRIS (Center for Information Technology in the Interest of Society) program. At Stanford Tekes is a member of H-STAR (Human-Sciences and Technologies Advanced Research Institute).
Salo has 11 years of experience in the European IT industry. He has held management positions in product development and marketing departments of Nokia, ICL and Fujitsu. From 1999 to 2001 he was the Program Manager of the USIX (User-Oriented Information Technology) program of Tekes. 86 research groups and 81 IT companies participated in the program. The total volume of R&D projects funded through the USIX program was USD 80 million.
Tracy Gray
Managing Director
National Center for Technology Innovation
American Institutes for Research
Tracy Gray is a nationally recognized expert in education and technology implementation and has led numerous projects
in the U.S. and internationally, examining the impact of technology on educational achievement. She has published and
lectured widely on issues related to the integration of emerging technologies into the classroom and after-school
programs. A recent publication is Teacher Learning Online: Improving the Teaching of Mathematics Through Better
Professional Development for the U.S. Department of Education. She currently serves as the director of the National
Center for Technology Innovation (NCTI), a Center working to improve learning opportunities for students with
disabilities by fostering technology innovation.
Before working at AIR, Dr. Gray was vice president for youth services at the Morino Institute and was responsible for
the design and implementation of the Youth Development Collaborative (YDC). That effort sought to understand the
complexities of integrating technology into schools and community-based organizations nationwide. Under her
leadership, the lessons learned from the YDC led to the YouthLearn Guide: A Creative Approach to Working With Youth
and Technology and the YouthLearn website. Those award-winning tools are resources for
teachers and staff interested in using technology to enhance educational programs for children. Dr. Gray also was the
deputy executive director and chief operating officer for the Corporation for National Service that enabled more than
50,000 corps members to work in 1,500 programs throughout the United States. Dr. Gray holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in
education and psychology from Stanford University.
Shelley C. Brown
Retired HR Executive
Shelley is a retired human resources executive with over 25 years of experience working for high technology companies including Hewlett Packard, Aspect Communications, Siebel Systems, and Ariba, Inc. She currently focuses her time and energy as a community leader and board member serving on the boards of the American Red Cross - Silicon Valley Chapter, the Center for Excellence in Nonprofits (CEN), the Resource Area for Teaching (RAFT), Child Advocates of Silicon Valley, and the Reddere Foundation, a donor advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF). She has an MBA from UCLA and a BA from Stanford University.
