Megan Smith, a vice president at the secretive Google X lab, is a leading candidate for becoming the U.S.’s Chief Technology Officer. She’s also a lesbian mom.
Bloomberg News reported that Smith is in line for the post, which involves being “a kind of White House chief geek-in-residence, tasked with overseeing the government’s use of technology.” She would be the first woman to hold the position — the previous two CTOs have both been men.
Smith has a bachelor’s and master’s degree from MIT in Mechanical Engineering. As a student, she was part of the student team that designed, built, and drove a solar car 2000 miles across the Australian outback in the first Cross-Continental Solar Car race. Among her other positions, she was COO and then CEO of LGBT media company Planet Out, then moved to Google, where she became vice president of business development, general manager of Google.org (the company’s charitable division), and eventually VP at Google X, a lab devoted to “moon shot” ideas — long-shot innovations that could change the world.
She’s applied her skills to many ways of doing good. At Google, she co-created and co-hosted the “Solve for X” gathering that brings together innovators from around the world to propose “solutions to some of the world’s greatest problems,” and spearheaded the Women Techmakers initiative to support technical women in industry.
She was also a co-founder of The Malala Fund, created to support 15-year-old activist Malala Yousafzai and her vision of education for all children. She serves on the boards of MIT, Vital Voices (which helps women around the world become leaders and transform their communities), and is a member of the USAID Advisory Committee on Voluntary Aid.
She has two sons with leading technology journalist Kara Swisher, from whom she is separated.
It’s not yet certain if she’ll get the CTO spot, but if she does, it seems like a great fit for a talented technologist with a social conscience — a leader and a role model for all. Additionally, at a time when many girls and women still struggle to find inspiration and support for careers in STEM fields, she could be a particularly apt choice.