Karen Banks is a British computer networking pioneer who was inducted to the

Internet Hall of Fame The Internet Hall of Fame is an honorary lifetime achievement award administered by the Internet Society (ISOC) in recognition of individuals who have made significant contributions to the development and advancement of the Internet.

in 2013 as a "Global Connector".

Life

In the 1990s she maintained GnFido, a pioneering gateway run by non-profit

ISP An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...

GreenNet GreenNet is a not-for-profit Internet service provider based in London, England. It was established in 1985 "as an effective and cheap way for environmental activists to communicate". In 1987 the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust gave GreenNet a g ...

, which used

store and forward Store and forward is a telecommunications technique in which information is sent to an intermediate station where it is kept and sent at a later time to the final destination or to another intermediate station. The intermediate station, or node in ...

techniques to provide otherwise unavailable internet access for individuals and organisations across Africa, South Asia and Eastern Europe.GreenNet was a founder member of the

Association for Progressive Communications The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) is an international network of organizations that was founded in 1990 to provide communication infrastructure, including Internet-based applications, to groups and individuals who work for peace ...

(APC), and Banks was one of the founders of its Women's Networking Support Programme (WNSP) in 1993 and its coordinator 1996-2004. At the United Nations

Fourth World Conference on Women The Fourth World Conference on Women: Action for Equality, Development and Peace was the name given for a conference convened by the United Nations during 4–15 September 1995 in Beijing, China. At this conference, governments from around the ...

in 1995 the WNSP provided web access and email for 10,000 delegates, many of whom had never seen a web page before. From 1998 to 2001 Banks coordinated APC's global Internet rights work in Europe, and she became network development manager in 2004. She is now APC's operations director. In 2004 she was given the Anita Borg Award for Social Impact by the

Anita Borg Institute AnitaB.org (formerly Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, and Institute for Women in Technology) is a global nonprofit organization based in Belmont, California. Founded by computer scientists Anita Borg and Telle Whitney, the institute' ...

, in recognition of "significant and sustained contributions in technology". She is a board member of

Privacy International Privacy International (PI) is a UK-based registered charity that defends and promotes the right to privacy across the world. First formed in 1990, registered as a non-profit company in 2002 and as a charity in 2012, PI is based in London. Its ...

On 16 November 2018 Banks was recognised with the

Oxford Internet Institute The Oxford Internet Institute (OII) is a multi-disciplinary department of social and computer science dedicated to the study of information, communication, and technology, and is part of the Social Sciences Division of the University of Oxfor ...

Award for her lifetime achievements in using

information and communication technologies Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications (telephone lines and wireless signals) and computers, ...

for social change.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Banks, Karen Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Women Internet pioneers British women computer scientists

Life

See also

References