Lucy Sanders, the CEO of the National Center for Women and Information Technology recounts her career at AT&T Bell Labs, Lucent and Avaya where she specialized in systems level software (operating systems, database systems) and solutions. She was awarded the Bell Labs Fellow Award in 1996, the highest technical accomplishment bestowed by Bell Labs.

In the first half hour, Lucy talks about her work in telecommunications, starting back in the 1970's and 80's up to the present day. From here she launches into a conversation with Halley about VOIP and what that technology means in terms of innovation, new ways to work, along with other issues related to regulation of voice and data traffic, as well as privacy and security.

After their half hour break, they come back to discuss women and innovation, starting off with Tom Peters' statement "My beat is business performance, not social justice. So I look at the issue of women and talent through a business-performance lens. And what I see, quite simply, is a strategic opportunity of the first order."

The discussion is wide-ranging, from why high-school and college women are not excited about becoming geeks to how the industry leaders see that in order for the US to keep our standing in the world as technological innovators, women must be in IT leadership positions.

They close with the admission that many of the greatest promoters of women and women's initiatives at the NCWIT and in technology in general now, are male industry leaders and venture capitalists who are impatient with the status quo and want their daughters, wives and female colleagues to succeed and enrich the world of IT.

Lucy Sanders is based at the University of Colorado at Boulder, at the National Center for Women and Information Technology. [www.ncwit.org)

This program is part of the Memory Lane series featuring Halley Suitt.