Megan Smith: Impacting Business through Technology

Illustration by Sophia Liang

Although many have not heard about Megan Smith and her accomplishments, she has offered and contributed more to the STEM and business world than you may ever know. Have you ever considered how technology has contributed to the business world? This question is what started Megan Smith's career

    Megan Smith is an award-winning entrepreneur, engineer, and tech evangelist. She grew up in Buffalo, New York, and Fort Erie, Ontario. Over the years, she was able to develop a strong passion for the technology and science field. By the year 1986, she attended MIT and obtained her Bachelor of Science and was also able to get her mechanical engineering in 1988. During her time at MIT, she was involved in many projects as a member of the student STEM team and helped design and build a solar car in the first cross-continental solar car race. After MIT, she was given the opportunity to work in Tokyo, Japan, at Apple, where she helped develop the multimedia market. Following in 2003, she joined Google, where she was the vice president of business development (Google and Google X).  With this position, she was responsible for leading new business development and early-stage partnerships across Google's global engineering and product teams. In the nine years at Google, she helped create many projects that many use today, like KeyHole (Google Earth) and Where2Tech (Google Maps). After getting involved in numerous startups and projects, Former president  Barack Obama named Megan Smith, the United States Chief Technology Officer (CTO), in the Office of Science of Technology Policy. She is the first woman in the United States to earn this title. By being the CTO, she was the president's assistant and focused on thinking about how technology policies can change and impact its future.  

    Through the different areas and companies Megan has worked in, she made a name for herself and  contributed significantly to the technology field. Just as she was able to be successful through many jobs, she has also created many projects that encourage women to get involved in STEM. There is still a large gender gap in tech/STEM jobs. Only 24% of females have tech-related positions in the United States, which is why Megan decided to collaborate with Women Techmakers. Women Techmakers focuses on representing and helping young women thrive in tech and advocating passionately for more diversity in the tech field. She uses her platform to make a change and balance the gender ratio. Not only does she want to see women of all races involved, but she is also known for advocating for the LGBTQ community and wants to see more LGBTQ workers in the tech/business area. At the White House’s second LGBTQ Tech and Innovation Summit, she gave advice to the attendees about how they should expand their boundaries and work outside traditional tech hubs. She wants young women to know how important it is to work at places that show your rare set of skills. 

   Currently, she is the founder and CEO of shift7.  Shift7 teams up with local, national, and global businesses to increase inclusiveness in the tech industry and uplift the economy by having a tech job tour.  Megan has made so much change already through her presence in many companies and is still trying to inspire as many women as she can to involve themselves in STEM. As she has stated previously, "There are 2 to 3 million women programmers in the world. We need to see them more."  With so many influential businesswomen, so many young girls can get inspired and lead a similar career. As more young women take that leap, the profession will grow to be more representative of women, another step in the right direction towards equalizing STEM fields.