Black History Month: Janet Emerson Bashen – The First African-American Woman To Get A Patent For Software Invention
Back in 1885 Mrs. Sarah Goode opened the doors for African-American women when she became the first African-American woman to get a U.S. Patent for her invention. This made Mrs. Goode a role model for a lot of African American women who had an interest in science and technology. This is perhaps what set the field for Mrs. Janet Emerson Bashen to invent an ingenious software named the LinkLine, which she patent in January 2006, making her the first African-American woman to get a patent for a software.
Janet Emerson Bashen, who formerly went with the name Janet Emerson before her marriage, lived and studied in Alabama at the Alabama A&M. When she met her husband and got married, the couple moved to Houston, Texas. Mrs. Bashen attended the University of Houston where she got her degree in Legal Studies and Government and a postgraduate degree from the Rice University’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Administration. She also graduated from Harvard University’s “Women and Power: Leadership in a New World”.
Her academic success, lead to her inventing the LinkLine software, which is a web-based application for EEO (Equal Employment Opportunity) claims intake, claims management, numerous report, document management and tracking. Mrs. Bashen is set to soon release AAPLink which will be a web-based software meant for promoting affirmative action plans. She started on her quest to solve some the social-economic challenges facing the North America community by first establishing her business from her home office. By then she had very little money, just one client but with a great determination to succeed.
The industry she was venturing into had legion of very well capitalized law firms, and as an African-American woman in business, Mrs. Bashen had to be very aggressive to establish solid and immediate credibility with her potential customers. She had to persuade her potential clients that her business was better capable to change the way EEO fair employment and opportunities investigation services will be better addressed. She grew her home-based firm into the Bashen Corporation; a firm that currently has grown hundred folds compared to how Mrs. Bashen started it off. Bashen Corporation has become the most preferred firm when it comes to matters of human resource matters consultation when it comes to EEO compliance consulting services in America. Mrs. Bashen prides herself of having developed hundreds of successful programs for various organizations some of which are included in the Fortune 500 Companies lists.
She is also a frequent lecturer, who gives lecture on equal and fair employment opportunities in the job market. This quest has seen her being features on some high ranking limelight: she was a speaker for the EEOC and The Professional Liability Underwriting Society among others. She has also appeared on many television programs like the CNN, she has also been featured in several print publications like The Houston Chronicles, Eclipse Magazine and the Detroit News. She has also written several articles and papers on the area of Diversity, Affirmative Action, Fair Employment Practices, EEO and Affirmative Action.
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