Opening Plenary: Kathy Kleiman
President and Co-Founder, ENIAC Programmers Project
Author, Historian, Professor and Internet policy leader, Kathryn Kleiman discovered the ENIAC Programmers and their pioneering work with the world’s first general-purpose, programmable, electronic computer, ENIAC. Overlooked by historians for 60 years, Kleiman discovered that six young women programmed the ENIAC as part of a secret U.S. Army project during WWII. By the time she tracked them down, they were in their seventies. Digging deeply into the archives of Harvard University, and later, the Library of Congress, she researched the ENIAC and their work, raised funds and recorded extensive broadcast-quality oral histories. These interviews became the basis of two award-winning projects: Her book, Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed the World’s First Modern Computer (IEEE Middleton Award) and documentary short: The Computers: The Remarkable Story of the ENIAC Programmers (Grand Jury Prize, United Nations Association Film Festival).
Kleiman is president of the ENIAC Programmers Project, a non-profit 501(c)(3) sharing these inspiring stories and working to open the doors of computing and STEM to everyone! She is a professional speaker, keynotes conferences, including SIGGRAPH, and has spoken coast-to-coast from UCLA to Princeton, across Europe and around the world. Kleiman continues her original research diving into vision and goals of UNIVAC I, the world’s first commercial computer – created by the ENIAC Team to be a computer for all!
When not researching computer history, Kleiman is a lawyer, teaches Internet Technology & Governance at American University Washington College of Law, and negotiates key policies for the Internet infrastructure and global Domain Name System (DNS). She is part of the group that founded the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and co-founder of its Noncommercial Users Constituency. As part of its Multistakeholder model, she has joined and led ICANN working groups, review teams and task forces. For over 25 years, she has pursued fair and balanced policies for the DNS protecting free speech, fair use, privacy and due process.
Kleiman graduated from Harvard College and Boston University School of Law, both with honors. She was born in Washington DC, grew up in Ohio, and now lives near Washington DC with her husband Mark. She has two adult children in STEM careers.
In this 80th year of the ENIAC, Kleiman is dedicated to sharing stories of the ENIAC and its inspiring pioneers!