RUTHE FARMER
Ruthe Farmer is a talent entrepreneur laser-focused on inclusion and leveraging existing infrastructure to scale change. She has focused her efforts on diversity and inclusion in tech and engineering since 2001 and is currently the founder and CEO of the Last Mile Education Fund. She also serves as chief evangelist for CSforALL.
Farmer previously served as senior policy advisor for tech inclusion at the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy working on President Obama’s call to action for Computer Science for All. She was the Chief Strategy & Growth Officer and K-12 Alliance Director at the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) for eight years.
Farmer has launched and scaled multiple national programs designed to boost diversity and participation in technology fields. That includes the CSforALL Summit, JROTC-CS in partnership with the US Air Force, NCWIT’s Aspirations in Computing, TECHNOLOchicas, the AspireIT outreach program, Lego Robotics for Girl Scouts, and more. She served as 2012 chair of CSEDWeek and was named a White House Champion of Change for Technology Inclusion in 2013. Her awards include the Anita Borg Institute Award for Social Impact in 2014, and the UK Alumni Award for Social Impact in 2015.
Farmer is a guest contributor to TechCrunch, Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, the Shriver Report, and the Huffington Post, and has been featured in Forbes and TechRepublic. She holds a BA from Lewis & Clark College and an MBA in Social Entrepreneurship from the University of Oxford Said Business School. She is passionate about integrating innovative business strategies into social change efforts.