IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2021 - 31

to say goodbye to the classroom, but
the position with Apple offered her the
chance to have a broader impact. At first
her role, she supported Apple's educational
projects within Kansas, but her
territory quickly expanded until she was
supporting innovative technology projects
around the country. For her last
five years at Apple, she supported educational
projects around the world, from
one-room schoolhouses in Nebraska to
the 500 high schools and 1 million-plus
students in New York City.
Janet Wozniak,
wife of Steve
Wozniak, is an
accomplished
biological
scientist,
mathematician,
and computer
scientist
as well as a
philanthropist.
These projects were 1:1 projects, based
on the idea that giving each student their
own device facilitates learning, motivates
students, and bridges digital equity gaps.
Although these programs are standard
now, they were very new at the time, and
complexities ranged from infrastructure
and network issues to teacher training.
" I wasn't engineering and creating
products; I was working with schools, "
says Wozniak, whose work with lead
districts like Westside 66 in Omaha,
Nebraska, allowed Apple to set up
exceptional 1:1 programs that
became the models for other
schools. " It was a nontraditional
job. The job description could
never be written. You did
job description
what had to be done. You did
something different every day,
but that's what I loved. I'd go
in and analyze and figure
out what pieces a school was
missing and see how I could
out what pieces a school was
missing and see how I could
tweak that. "
tweak that. "
At Apple, Wozniak found
something that had been missing
in her teaching career-the
lack of a ceiling. " At Apple, I felt
valued every day, like I could push,
like there was no glass ceiling, like I
could push as hard and fast as I wanted.
There was nobody holding me back, "
she recalls.
Much of that is because of the Apple
culture. The striking thing about Apple,
Wozniak says, was the support and the
camaraderie. She never searched for new
positions on her own, but she had many
different roles that her managers shared
with her because they knew that helping
her ultimately helped the company. " At
Apple, you have a boss that mentors you,
helps you, guides you, and is also always
looking for how your skills can best help
the company, " she explains. " The one
thing I'd say about Apple is it's full of incredibly
bright people, and they tend not
to worry about if someone else is bright
too. They just work to get stuff done. The
teams I worked on were fun to work on.
I dedicated a lot of my life to work just
because I was interested in it. "
As Wozniak's career progressed, her
work often took her overseas, partnering
with schools in places such as Singapore,
Hong Kong, and Prague. The projects
were novel and innovative, and an important
aspect of any project was returning
postimplementation to measure the impact.
" We'd help them develop all kinds of
things and then we'd have an event a year
later where we'd invite people in from
around the world to see what was happening
at that school, " Wozniak says.
Apple was " a dream company to work
for, " says Wozniak, who can't recall a single
issue where she thought she wasn't
respected or listened to. " I think they
really care. I think Apple, from the getgo,
was very equitable and fair minded
and nondiscriminatory. That's just in
DECEMBER 2021
Apple's DNA, " she says. " It's cool to work
for a company where it doesn't matter
what you wear or what color your hair
is, but what matters is your brain and
your intelligence. "
Wozniak was very at home in this environment.
The accomplished biological
scientist, mathematician, and computer
scientist enjoyed working for a company
where intelligence and collaboration
were both so valued. She especially appreciated
being in an environment where
people's unique talents were cultivated
and put to use. This, she says, is how it
always should be.
" Look at the challenges the world
faces with climate change, energy consumption,
and pollution, " she says. " We
need a scientist to think about it and to
work on solving those problems. We have
to develop every person who has that capacity
no matter whether they are male,
female, gay, or straight. You were born to
do something. I love science. I love math.
I love computers. I was one of the lucky
people who got to do what I love. But
someone else wants to do something else,
and that's okay. We need all kinds of people.
We don't need everybody to be a science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics
[STEM] person, but the people
who we do develop to be STEM people,
we need them to be exceptionally bright.
We don't need everyone to be a Woz or
IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE
31
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2021

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