Megan Smith, the former Google executive and former CEO of the online LGBT community site PlanetOut who was recently selected by President Obama as the new Chief Technology Officer of the U.S., is profiled in a new video put out by Makers, a site that aggregates and shares videos of women's stories. In the video, Smith talks about her experience growing up as a girl in the at times misogynistic world of math, science and engineering. She also speaks about her experience as a lesbian working in the tech world:
“The world is not accepting. But eventually you get to a point where you realize it's you, this is who you are. And you have to become willing to really let go of all your most important relationships in order to be yourself. When you're gay you come out every day because everyone assumes you're straight. But you have to be your whole self. You just do. ‘Cuz it will kill you not to…Right now as an industry we're working hard on understanding bias against women and minorities that has just been with us through all of history and trying to in our tech way debug that.”
In her new role, Smith will “lead Administration-wide efforts to unleash the power of technology, data, and innovation to help meet our nation's goals and the needs of our citizens.”
Watch the video, AFTER THE JUMP…
