Ina Earlene Fisher has received the prestigious Klamut award. The Klamut award is given to entrepreneurs that start and fund organizations that help at-risk youth and point them in the right direction by providing money and tutors for STEM subjects.

Ms. Fisher is receiving the award for her work as the head of the JJ Initiative. The JJ Initiative was founded by Ms. Fisher as a way to get at risk youth off of the streets and into an environment that was safe and intellectually stimulating.  The program also helps by tutoring the kids to prepare them for SATs, ACTs, and college.

Originally started in her hometown in Ohio, The JJ Initiative has expanded to over fifteen cities in the united states. It has placed over 200 students in colleges across the country. While it is too early to have hard numbers, the graduation rate is an impressive 30% with new programs being added to help these youth stay in college and deal with an environment many have never encountered before.

While there are a few paid staffers, almost all are volunteers coming from the ranks of retired programmers, STEM teachers, and private business. A 2014 audit showed that 93% of all money went back into the organization with the remaining 7% to cover office and a small staff.

Ina Earlene Fisher does not take a salary as the head of the organization.

Ina Earlene Fisher has recently published a paper on the looming cyber security threat to our country. In this paper she outlines the major players and their capabilities. While Russia has been in the news lately with allegations that they hacked into numerous systems and tried ( some say with success) to disrupt or influence the election of a United States of America presidential race, the overlooked threat is China, according to Ina Fisher.

The evidence is very compelling. The recent DDoS attack using “The Internet of Things” is a case in point. “The Internet of Things”, for lack of a better term is shorthand for all of the connected devices in your home. Things like refrigerators or light bulbs that talk to your Smartphone or even your thermostats. These items are often left with their default factory passwords intact allowing malicious actors to get in and take over the part of the device that talks to the Internet. What this allows the malicious actor to do is then send information via a bot. This allows them to do any number of things such as send malware to other computers, initiate DDos attacks, even exchange information with unsuspecting devices and computers.

The paper will be presented at The American Cybersecurity Conference at 3pm on the 3^rd of January, 2017. The conference will be held at the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas Nevada. The conference is by invite only, but there will be a steam of the presentation on January 10^th, 2017. Please check this blog for more details.

Ina Earlene Fisher has worked for some of the most widely known Tech firms in the country and continues to be a trialblazer in Silicon Valley.

After Attending Ohio State University where she recieved a degree in computer science,, she went on to get her MBA at Penn State. Like many people in the early 2000s she felt the lure of the tech industry and decided to pursue a career in the startup space. She began working at the World Internet Center, a prestigioud Silicon Valley Think Tank where she rubbed elbows with executives from IBM, Apple, and Microsoft. Using connections she made while at the center, she and fellow engineer Brad Williams started the Kligee Firm, a startup that addressed a need for large, high speed data centers to handle the growig amount if Internet Traffic that was exploding all over the world.

They raised over 17 million in startup money and quickly began building data centers in the heartland of America including South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho. They currently lease and manage over 22 million square feet of data centers all over America.

They have also syarted a spinoff project, "The JJ Initiative" That helpe at-risk youth learn how to be computer programmers. Ms. Fisher currently resides in Los Gatos california where she is raising two daughters.