Martin Luther King
Community Leaders Breakfast
Scheduled for Jan. 17 at Norfolk State University
Norfolk, Va.—The Urban League of
Hampton Roads will host the 21st Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Community Leaders Breakfast at 7:30 a.m. Monday, Jan. 17 in Echols
Memorial Hall, which is located on the campus of Norfolk State
University.
This year’s theme is Empowerment Through Technology. Dr. Sandra
Baylor Johnson, master inventor with the IBM Corporation, will be
the guest speaker. Johnson is the manager of IBM’s WebSphere
Database, which she describes as “the plumbing” that runs
e-business. She holds ten patents with another three pending. She
was the first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in electrical
engineering in this country and has been identified as one of the
top 25 African Americans in technology.
Johnson received her bachelor’s degree from Southern University in
Baton Rouge, Louisiana; a master’s degree from Stanford University
in Palo Alto, California; and a Ph.D. from Rice University in
Houston, Texas – all in electrical engineering. She is currently a
research division master inventor at IBM and made her name as a part
of the design team that developed the prototype for IBM’s Deep Blue,
which beat world chess champion, Garry Kasparov. Johnson is a member
of the Computer Research Association’s Committee on the Status of
Women in Computing Research and she is leading an effort to publish
a graduate school information booklet for women in computing.
Corporate tables are available for contributions of $350 to $5,000.
Individual tickets are available for $25. For more information or to
purchase tickets, call the Urban League of Hampton Roads at
627-0864.
