<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">
<div class="">
<div class="">Hi:</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">From today's Guardian newspaper:</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Gladys West: the hidden figure who helped invent GPS</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Growing up on a farm in Virginia during segregation, West knew education would be her means of escape. But she didn’t know her quiet work on a naval base would change lives around the world</div>
<div class="">by Aamna Mohdin</div>
<div class="">Main image: Gladys West, at her home in Virginia. Photograph: Andre West</div>
<div class="">Thu 19 Nov 2020 06.00 GMT</div>
</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<br class="">
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: rgb(18, 18, 18); font-family: "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif;" class="">
<span style="font-size: 17px;" class="">Gladys West knew from a young age that she didn’t want to be a farmer. But the mathematician, born in 1930 in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, still had to help harvest crops on her family’s small farm. The hard work started
before daybreak and lasted well into the blistering heat of the afternoon. She hated the dirt but, while she worked, she kept her mind on the building behind the trees at the end of the farm. It was her school, and even then she knew it would be her ticket
to freedom.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: rgb(18, 18, 18); font-family: "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 17px;" class="">
“I was gonna get an education and I was going to get out of there. I wasn’t going to be stuck there all my life,” West, 89, says firmly, on Zoom in her home in Virginia.</p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: rgb(18, 18, 18); font-family: "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 17px;" class="">
What she could not have guessed was that this focus would shatter the perceptions of black women of the time and even lead to the invention of one of our most widely used inventions – <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/gps" data-link-name="auto-linked-tag" data-component="auto-linked-tag" class="u-underline in-body-link--immersive" style="touch-action: manipulation; color: rgb(199, 0, 0); cursor: pointer; border-bottom-width: 0.0625rem; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgba(199, 0, 0, 0.4); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out; text-decoration: none !important;">GPS</a>,
the global positioning system.</p>
<div class=""><snip></div>
</blockquote>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
Full story at: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/nov/19/gladys-west-the-hidden-figure-who-helped-invent-gps" class="">https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/nov/19/gladys-west-the-hidden-figure-who-helped-invent-gps</a>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Cheers</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Brian</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
<div class="">
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">
<div style="text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">
<div style="text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">
<div class=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; line-height: normal; border-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">
<div class="">—</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">School of Computing, Newcastle University, 1 Science Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 5TG</div>
<div class="">EMAIL = <a href="mailto:Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk" class="">Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk</a> PHONE = +44 191 208 7923</div>
</div>
</span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class="">URL = </span><a href="http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/people/profile/brianrandell.html" class="">http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/people/profile/brianrandell.html</a></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br class="">
</div>
</body>
</html>