“Why not us?” asked Vanessa Feliberti Bautista, challenging El Paso and the borderland region to become a technological leader in the era of artificial intelligence.

An El Paso native and vice president of Microsoft 365 Programs, Bautista was the keynote speaker at the second annual Change Makers luncheon at the El Paso Country Club on Wednesday. The event celebrates the achievements of women in the borderland as part of Women’s History Month, and this year honored women serving in technology fields.

Change Makers is a collaboration between the nonprofit online news organization El Paso Matters and Progress321, a nonprofit network of area professionals. 

Bautista was among 20 women honored this year, with others including Cathy Chen-Arriaga, executive director for FabLab El Paso; Ann Quiroz Gates, senior advisor to the provost for strategic STEM initiatives at the University of Texas at El Paso; and Nancy Lowery, senior director of innovation at the Medical Center of the Americas Foundation. 

“The world is rapidly changing around us,” Bautista said. “We have an immense opportunity, not only to adapt, but to lead, in the era of AI across all facets of our economy.”

She also pointed to aerospace as an area where El Paso could make major technological strides.

“We can see the impact of what is happening locally by simply looking around,” Bautista said. “Nearly 20% of all U.S.-Mexico trade has ties to this region. Likewise, the aerospace industry has seen substantial investment and growth, fueled by the collaboration with UTEP and Fort Bliss, positioning our region to be the premiere destination for aerospace companies looking for growth.” 

Bautista studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning her bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering in 1991. She attended Boston University, graduating with a master’s degree in software engineering in 1993. She joined Microsoft right out of graduate school.

Optimism drives Bautista’s efforts in various aspects of her career. Among those is the rise of artificial intelligence, its potential contributions to the technology industry, and its use as a tool to solve some of humanity’s greatest challenges, she said.

She said she was “super excited” about the era of AI and the power of ChatGPT natural language models, among other technological advances. 

“We are going to find the cure for cancer. We are going to find the cure for Alzheimer’s. We are going to find the cure for climate action. I am absolutely positive of that because, based off where the excitement is, the foundation we built, it is the best time to be in tech.” 

Bautista, who helped develop a multimillion-dollar email service used by countless industries across the globe, is a native El Pasoan and 1987 graduate of Eastwood High School. She has worked at Microsoft since 1993 and has held several leadership positions in software engineering throughout her 31-year career. 

“When I first started, my team was 8% women and now it is 29%,” Bautista said. “It is a phenomenal growth. When I first started, there were only 30 executive female engineers. Now there are over 200. The momentum is here, the growth is here, and I think the work that we have been doing about investing in STEM and showing the possibilities that there are in tech is for everyone.”

Bautista has seen growth firsthand within Microsoft and is optimistic that these figures will continue to rise thanks to investments in STEM from technology giants like Microsoft. 

Much like the push to empower women in STEM fields, recent efforts have aimed to diversify these fields in other demographic areas. Bautista highlighted some of those efforts.

UTEP, whose student body is 84% Hispanic, in September 2023 announced it had been awarded a $7 million grant from the National Science Foundation to assess and identify how NSF HSI-funded programs are serving Hispanic and other minority students in STEM fields. 

The future seems brighter than ever for both young women and Latinos in STEM fields as employment rates among both demographics are slowly increasing.

Bautista ended her speech by encouraging those in the audience to ask themselves some key questions about the future of technology.

“How might we leverage the power of AI to reimagine robotics, manufacturing or cybersecurity? Can we tap into the power of natural language models to rethink the way we approach accessible and equitable education?” she asked. “In what ways can AI and data analytics optimize supply chain management for cross border trade that improves our efficiency and reduces our impact on the environment?”

Bautista said there are many opportunities ahead that require these questions be asked.

“To me, these are not impossible questions,” Bautista said. “In fact, these are the questions that change makers are energized by. And when I think about the spirit of this community, I truly believe the future is ours for the making. So I ask all of you, ‘Why not us?’ We are the change makers.”

Disclosure: Microsoft is a financial supporter of El Paso Matters. Financial supporters play no role in El Paso Matters’ journalism. The news organization’s policy on editorial independence can be found here.