A Visionary Philanthropist After Noyce’s passing, Bowers became a very involved and active philanthropist. In 1990, Bowers worked with other members of the Noyce family to establish the Noyce Foundation in honor of her late husband. Bowers was chair of the board and co-founding trustee of the nonprofit that focused on improving math and science instruction and learning in K-12 public schools. She was an influential philanthropist at her alma mater Cornell having gifted more than $100 million to the university during her lifetime, including a naming gift to create the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science. Bowers also generously supported endowed professorships for faculty and research scholarships for students at Cornell in the liberal arts, science, technology, computing, engineering and math. their human resources needs. One of Bowers' first clients was a small startup company called Apple, led by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. It was through Bowers that Noyce and Jobs forged a friendship and mentorship relationship. Bowers joined Apple as the vice president of human resources in August of 1980 just a few months before Apple went public.
Ann Bowers and Robert Noyce
She also served on numerous influential advisory and leadership boards for the university and was given the Frank H.T. Rhodes Exemplary Alumni Service Award in 2013 in recognition of her long-term volunteer service to Cornell and the broad spectrum of alumni organizations. Bowers also generously gave her time to serve in numerous key leadership roles for universities and organizations throughout California and in other parts of the U.S. She served on the boards of San Francisco State University; Grinnell College (Iowa); the American Conservatory Theater (San Francisco); EdVoice, of Sacramento, California; the Exploratorium, of San Francisco; El Camino Hospital; Investment Company of America; CoGenerate (formerly encore.org), of San Francisco; and Technology Center of Silicon Valley, of Sunnyvale, California. She gave the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center the largest individual gift in its history in support of its CMS Two residency program, which was renamed the Bowers Program.
She also was a board member and past board chair of the Tech Interactive in San Jose, and an active member of 100Kin10, a network that sought to train and retain 100,000 excellent STEM teachers by 2021. As a former member of the board of the Silicon Valley Joint Venture Education Initiative, Bowers helped Silicon Valley schools redesign educational programming for the 21st century. She was named Philanthropist of the Year by the Golden Gate Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals in 2005. “We look at philanthropy the way [venture capitalists] VC’s look at their investment opportunities,” Bowers said. “We use the same criteria a VC would: leadership first, idea second, and a well-conceived plan to carry out the idea third.”
Ann Bowers
16 Impact Report 2023 - 24 | UC NI
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