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Every superheroine has an origin story, and Aliza Sherman began her
transformation into Cybergrrl in the summer of 1994. Sherman, then 27 and the
director of a small domestic-violence awareness group, was strolling in
Manhattan with a friend when three thugs pulled guns on them, then led them to
an ATM and robbed them. Unharmed but shaken, Sherman moved to the relative
safety of New Mexico, where her life took another unexpected turn. On a whim,
she took a $10 class in Web programming. Afterward, she says, "I thought, `This
is it. This is my medium.' "
Returning to New York City in January 1995, a reborn Sherman founded Cybergrrl,
Inc. (www.cybergrrl.com), which has grown into a 14-person new-media firm that
sells Web content to clients such as Clinique and maintains several popular
women-oriented sites of its own. Its real-world spinoff, Webgrrls, organizes
support groups in 107 cities for "both the woman who wants to learn about
technology and the woman who wants to network," says Sherman, whose book,
Cybergrrl! A Woman's Guide to the World Wide Web, hit shelves this
month. She says the wacky alias has helped her make a name as a power player
and a role model. Top techie women, she says, "need to be visible so other
women and girls can say, 'I want that job. That's a cool job -- and look, there's
a woman there.'"
-- SAMANTHA MILLER
PHOTO: Allison Leach
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