The Top 10 Women Who Impacted Technology in 2011

December is a time for reflection, for celebration and for making and breaking resolutions. It's as well time for us to look back at the last year in innovation land and marvel at how far we've come. EReaders are now mainstream, we lost a marvelous brain with Steve Jobs passing and we've seen Windows 7 offer some serious competition to the likes of Android and iPhone. I want to take a moment to look at some of the women who have been making a difference in innovation in the last year from scientific researchers to those that tirelessly challenge the role of the woman in the workforce.

She focuses on looking at how digitization of media is affecting the design process in terms of fabrication and materiality and her work is designed to facilitate a 'intuitive connection between research and the natural world.' I don't pretend to fully understand everything that Amanda does, nevertheless the brief grasp I have on her many projects leaves me deeply impressed and proud of womankind in its entirety.

The business

Her thirty year career has shown her dedication to IBM as she has worked in many different facets of the business, from consulting to strategizing and has always spearheaded forward thinking initiatives just as the Jeopardy playing computer and making sure that IBM contributes to good causes as then as thinks about profit. She is currently on the board of overseers for the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the board of trustees for her university also as many other good causes. She exemplifies how far anyone -regardless of sex- can go in their career, if they put in hard work and stick to their core values.

Cher Wang is a name you're probably familiar with, and otherwise- what rock have you been hiding in accordance with? Valued openly at around $7 billion dollars, she is the co-founder of HTC, which is currently estimated at making 1 out of 6 of every mobile handsets in the world. Yes, the world- she's that big. HTC was in fact created to stand for 'High tech Computers' and although they began in computing, Smartphone's are now how they survive.

The brain behind the 30,000 odd patents acquired

She is the brain behind the 30,000 odd patents acquired by the company from Intellectual Ventures, which shows how serious she is about establishing their dominance and working on improving their platform. She has many challenges on a daily basis- a legal battle with Apple over patents springs to mind however she'll always be known for how she managed to team up with Google for the first Android phone, and her relationships with Google and Microsoft have been the reason that HTC has gained such w0rldwide dominance.

Jennifer is as well the CEO of Girls Club Entertainment, LLC, which develops and produces independent creates films that empower women. Her history lies in film, as Jennifer was before an actress with roles in various TV shows and she has a background in business with a degree in Business from Stanford's Graduate School of Business

I find women who are into research and are tech geeks as a matter of fact inspiring and great role models. That’s just me, although.