How does a sharecropper become a pre-eminent mathematician who is able to map the world, thus paving the way for GPS? Where would we be without GPS today? Lost, for sure!

In this episode of Associations Thrive, host Joanna Pineda interviews Jane Plitt, President of the National Center of Women’s Innovations (NCWI). Jane introduces the Center, talks about her journey to becoming President, and then shares some amazing stories of women innovators, including:

• Dr. Gladys West, the African-American woman who used math to map the earth's shape and made GPS possible.
• Hedy Lamarr, the glamorous film star who, at the beginning of World War II, helped to develop a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes that used spread spectrum and frequency hopping technology to defeat the threat of jamming by the Axis powers.
• Martha Matilda Harper, the inventor of the international retail franchising concept, the reclining shampoo chair and cutout sink.
• Vesta Stoudt who, during WWII, was worried that the packaging for ammunition wasn’t strong enough, so she invented duct tape. And the world was changed forever.

Jane also talks about the origins of the Center, why it’s important to tell the stories of women innovators, the Center’s upcoming gala in October 2023 where Dr. Gladys West will be honored, and the interactive museum they will create in the VA Tech campus opening up in Alexandria, VA.

References:

• NCWI Website
• Donate to NCWI