Ruthe Farmer is the Director of Strategic Initiatives, National Center for Women & IT (NCWIT). Ruthe has focused her efforts on increasing girls’ participation in technology and engineering since 2001. She is the driving force behind the NCWIT Aspirations in Computing talent pipeline program and since 2009 has scaled the initiative nationwide to engage thousands of young women in technology from middle school through to the workforce. Prior to joining NCWIT, she launched multiple national initiatives for Girls Scouts of the USA including Intel Design & Discovery, Firestone On the Road, and FIRST Robotics. She served as the 2012 Chair of Computer Science Education Week, sits on the Lewis & Clark College Board of Alumni and is an ambassador for the University of Oxford Said Business School. She holds Bachelor of Arts in Communications and German from Lewis & Clark College, and an MBA in Social Entrepreneurship and Marketing from the University of Oxford and is passionate about integrating innovative entrepreneurial strategies into her work.