About This Proposal

Portland and the broader Metro region face a genuine crossroads. The challenges are real. But so is the potential for boldness and vision. Choosing to build the future can define the prosperity of an entire region for the next fifty years.

This proposal is submitted with deep respect for Ralliant, Tektronix, and all existing institutions referenced here. It is offered in the belief that Oregon can think at scale and with vision. It believes that the women of the next generation deserve an institution that was built with them in mind from the very first conversation.

The Tektronix campus in Beaverton is not ours to offer, but it represents an extraordinary civic and economic asset. We are simply asking the question of whether it is possible to envision a new purpose for a small corner of that site.

A Note on the Name

There is a well-worn idea that men are from Mars and women are from Venus — that the two are so different they might as well inhabit different worlds. Cute idea. But stereotypes are created in a moment of time and the moment for this one has long since passed.

Mars — the planet, the idea, the destination — belongs to everyone. And the women who are leading research in machine learning, building the Starships that can get us there, and designing the frontier of robotics and AI that will take humanity into the future have already proved it.

MARS is also, of course, an acronym: Machine Learning, AI, Robotics, and Space. We chose those four deliberately. And we are proposing this institution for women just as deliberately. Not because these fields belong to women alone, but because the future these fields will shape belongs to all of us. The more voices shaping it, the better that future will be.

Women belong on Mars, too. (The real question may be whether men can make it to Venus.)

Chief Author

“The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.” — Chinese Proverb