For development of groundbreaking, commercially successful handheld computers and smartphones, which established the foundation for today’s mobile computing
Donna Dubinsky is a pioneering technology executive and serial entrepreneur, best known for playing a key role in the mobile computing revolution. Her career began after earning a BA from Yale and, after a short but successful career in banking, an MBA from Harvard. This led to a decade-long tenure at Apple and its subsidiary Claris, where she rose to head international sales. At Apple, she famously challenged Steve Jobs on distribution logistics—a dispute that became a classic Harvard Business School case study on management courage.
In 1992, Dubinsky partnered with inventor Jeff Hawkins to lead Palm Computing as CEO. With Hawkins and Vice President of Marketing Ed Colligan, she introduced the PalmPilot in 1996, the first commercially successful connected organizer. It became the fastest-selling computer product in history at the time. Unlike many prior handhelds, Palm was marketed as an affordable accessory to a personal computer rather than an expensive replacement.
Dubinsky and Hawkins then cofounded Handspring in 1998 and developed the Treo, building on the Palm’s famously easy to use interface to become one of the first successful smartphones.
Dubinsky pivoted to artificial intelligence in 2005, cofounding Numenta with Hawkins to develop machine intelligence based on neuroscience principles. Most recently, she returned to public service in 2022 as a senior counselor to the US Secretary of Commerce, helping implement the CHIPS and Science Act to revitalize American semiconductor manufacturing.
